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| Harmful | 62% | 137 votes | Total: 220 votes | |
| Funny | 38% | 83 votes |
Harmful
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Add to FavoritesOnline prank videos are becoming more popular with today's youth. In all regards, it isn't so much as the video that is bad. It is the severity of the prank itself. Pranks can be either funny or extremely malicious. If you look at television shows such as 'Candid Camera' or 'America's Funniest Home Videos'; both shows freely air bloopers, pranks, and accidents to a massive viewing audience. However, these differ a lot from the malicious pranks that are popping up all over YouTube, Facebook, and Myspace.
A few weeks ago, I was watching one of the news programs and they were covering a story about a couple of kids that had pulled a 'Fire in the hole' prank on a drive-thru worker. I caught the story towards the end of the coverage, so I thought I'd look it up. So I jumped online and surfed around the web for only a couple of minutes before I found out what a 'fire in the hole' prank is. Apparently, you are supposed to throw a drink at the person working the drive-thru and yell 'Fire in the hole!'. In my opinion, not very funny. Why? Because someone could easily get hurt. Pranks cross the line at bodily harm.
What happened to the victim? Well, the boys who played this prank filmed it and then uploaded it to YouTube. Once it was online, millions of people clicked through and viewed it. Eventually, according to the interview, some customer's visited the restaurant and recognized her from the YouTube video. So not only did she suffer the embarrassment from the prank when it occured, but again when local people recognized her from an internationally viewed website.
Long story short, last mentioned she was pressing charges, and the boys had issued apology statements. In my opinion, that was just a slap on the hand. And it sends the message to other people that there will be no serious recourse from this type of action. Of course some blame has too be placed with the hosting sites as well. In the interview mentioned above, it was stated that there were huge numbers of people viewing the video from this 'prank'. YouTube had followed up with a statement that they do monitor videos that are posted; but they can't monitor all of the videos. I completely understand their point; however, I find it hard to believe that a site that basically charters out it's bandwidth for user submitted video clips, couldn't see large amounts of bandwidth going to the most viewed clips. And in this case I think that maybe they should step back and evaluate a more effective screening process.
With the advent and wide popularity of the Web 2.0, we are going to see more and more things like this showing up all over the web. Why? The Web 2.0 is primarily focused towards user created content. If you have a gripe of complaint, post a YouTube clip or it or blog about it on your Myspace page. And with this freedom to publish and post whatever you like, there will be plenty of posts that people disagree with. These pranks are just the beginning of a new age in bullying.
Learn more about this author, Jeremy Matthews.
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Funny
Internet Pranks can be funny. Some can be a bit distasteful. You also have to know who you are pranking. Some people are absolutely incapable of taking a joke. If a person has some sort of mental condition or even a physical condition like a faulty ticker, they might could do without the joke at all. After all, not everyone can distinguish reality from fiction, and some jokes can be down-right frightful. Some pranks can be distasteful and rude. It actually depends upon your mark too. If you know for a fact that they won't be hurt by it and that they will enjoy the joke, by all means have a grand ole time. However, if the joke is going to hurt them physically or mentally, or even their computer, don't do it. Pranks/jokes are not funny if it is destructive in any way. To be more precise, if it is destructive or hurtful in nature in anyway, it isn't a prank/joke at all, and can get you jailed. You should be careful when you pick you prank/joke.
Some horror stories involve pranks/jokes are:
People sending emails of nude pics can occasionally do so thinking it is cool or funny. The bad news is, if the person on the receiving end is against nudity, you could have just lost a friend, your job, or whatever, depending who your mark was who recieved the prank/joke. Some things just aren't funny. The receiverif against nudity, will only find it vile, lude, crude, and repulsive. Also, it is most likely that that person will never want to speak to or even see the sender ever again.
People sending chain letters and the person keeps getting the same letter over and over. Believe it or not some of these people actually believe that bad luck will happen if they don't do exactly what these chain letters tell them too. I feel like saying How ridiculous., but it isn't as funny for the person who lets the chain letter run their lives.
People who send scary pics with loud terrifying music or terrifying sounds of some sort. I personally love these, but some people end up traumatized over it. I can't imagine what can be so traumatizing about such silliness, but then again everyone has a fear of something different. I'm afraid (not afraidterrified-fain ting terrified) of heights. I guess, some people are/or could be afraid the devil or something is going to come out of the screen and get them. I don't know. Maybe they were afraid that it was the notorious computer bug when they saw it. I can't tell you. I can tell you, that when you get hit with the virus, you probably going to act just like these people did when they got that horror shock.
Pranks can be funny. They can be real funny, but normally they aren't that funny for the person who is getting pranked. You need to make certain that the person has a sense of humor. You also need to be certain that that person isn't going to get hurt by the prank whether it be physically or mentally. You should be extremely selective on the type of prank and who you are pranking. If the person is hypertensive, mentally ill (has autism, asperger's, bipolar, etc), has a bad ticker, is extremely religious, doesn't find vulgarity funny, you may want to be careful on what type of pranks you pull, who you pull it on, and should be aware of whether or not you should even attempt to pull the prank/joke at all. You shouldn't let your funny bone rule your pranking/joking life. Pranks/jokes are great, but using your head is better. Not one of any two people will view things exactly the same. We could all describe things the same, but our ideas of what we view or believe to be - are definately going to differ somewhere. Be safe with your pranks/jokes/gags. By all means don't forget how to laugh, just make certain that those around you laugh with you, and aren't calling the cops on you instead or going to the ER over some lame stunt.
Learn more about this author, Hokua oe Lopqi Lokki.
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