Smith called this awkward silence "un-laughter" in the JAF study. The silence can be uncomfortable and even guilt-inducing. If the joke is aimed at you, however, you're expected to grin and bear it, no matter how offended you might be. As for the victim of a practical joke, Kuipers says, recovering requires a shift in his or her mind-set, from taking the situation seriously to understanding that everything that happened was in good fun—and not everyone can manage that gracefully.
So how did April 1 become the day of pranksters and fools? Legend has it that the holiday originated with a switch in the calendar that moved the beginning of the year. Those people who incorrectly believed the year began in April were the first April Fools. Smith disagrees. Spring weather is notoriously unpredictable, and a day that calls for shorts and sandals can be followed by a blizzard.
Carrie Arnold is an award-winning freelance science journalist based in Virginia. Credit: Nick Higgins. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. From covering an entire car with post-it notes and putting roach stickers on goods delivered in value-added packaging to tricking someone into looking into a water bottle before another person squirts it, prank videos have become popular on YouTube, TikTok, and other online platforms.
Often, these practical jokes are harmless. Some pranks, however, are too elaborate and believable that they terrorize others, causing emotional trauma and other grave consequences. So why do people keep pulling pranks on others?
And why prank culture has become bigger than ever? Some find pleasure in making people jump. After all, many people even volunteer to experience fear—watching horror films, exploring haunted houses, and getting on terrifying rollercoaster rides.
With people willing to be frightened, attaining shock value becomes a way for others to impress. Blockley also found a pattern among the pranksters and their victims. Often, perpetrators are men, and most of their unwilling victims are women or children. Pranksters will go to great lengths to assert their power and control over others. No, this is a holiday where an unscrewed salt shaker might ruin your lunch, or a short sheeted bed could frustrate you at the end of a long day.
You might even just be outright lied to, straight to your face. Perhaps the most successful one occurred in , when a Swedish television program reported that pulling a stocking over your black and white television set would transform the image to colour.
Long-form journalism has also gotten in on the act. Perhaps the best example could be found in the April 1st, issue of Sports Illustrated, when George Plimpton wrote a full-length article about how the New York Mets were going to sign a reclusive Tibetan-trained yoga master named Sidd Finch.
Plimpton claimed this phenom could throw the ball mph without warming up, and only wore one shoe while pitching. The article was apparently believed by a great many Met fans at the time, who seem like they might have been a desperate bunch in the pre Bill Buckner days if they were really buying that one. If you were to look solely at the examples cited above, you could be forgiven for imagining that all pranks and gags on April 1st are clever, and that they typically range somewhere between mildly and wildly amusing.
But these are the unicorns of pranks. Unfortunately, in reality, most pranks are unfunny, unimaginative, painfully predictable and often mean-spirited.
Even after Eleanor left me! With a regular joke, the laugh will often come if the outcome feels totally unexpected.
But with a prank, instead of enjoying an unforeseen twist like in that hilarious story I just told you you did think that was hilarious, right?
But beyond merely being unfunny or predictable, many other pranks are just plain weird; totally lacking even an attempt at what we know to be humour. Like everything else in the world, the internet offers us an entire online library of this species of pranks. For instance, a man named Joey Salads gives his alt-righty take on the transgender washroom issue by throwing on a dress and bugging some women in a ladies room who are clearly in on it.
Another YouTuber pranks his girlfriend by having her catch him in bed with three other women. A rare double prank! Or something. But enough of the unsuccessful, pedestrian pranks. The pranks mentioned at the beginning of this piece represent something enjoyable. When people really buy into a crazy situation being thrown at them, their honest reaction can be not only hilarious, but also revealing.
Which brings me to the real reason why I hate pranks: even at their best, they have the potential to tell you something about yourself that can never be unlearned. I grew up in a very rural area, with no nearby neighbours.
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