When did rudeness become pranking?

YouTube has given many people “with stars in their eyes” a platform to broadcast their “work”. Quite frankly most of it is garbage (but harmless). However, we are also seeing an increase of “prank” type videos, street fights, and unnecessary violence videos being broadcasted. I am going to talk about the pranks because they are not really pranks and certainly not nice.

I am not going mention the names of the ‘pranksters’, post a link, or give these clowns anymore of a platform then they already have, but I will say that these pranks are skirting the edge of being racist. These pranks consist of things like fake farting on people, stealing peoples’ phones to check the time, stealing people’s gas, or more recently, “Selling Guns In The Hood Prank”. The pranksters are all white males.

They are trying to pass these “pranks,” off as a “social experiments” to see the reactions of ‘poor black people’ when an outsider threatens or provokes them.  All their pranks are being done in poor black neighborhoods and they are targeting black people specifically.

In general, these prank videos are about black people showing themselves either freaking out or in the minority of cases laughing it off; the latter situation is being presented as exceptional. Like many prank videos, they are being selectively edited for the most extreme reactions

Then there is the guy who does this: “I’m going to go around and introduce myself in the neighborhood by using the n-word – neighbors.” As he walks down the street, a soundtrack of hip-hop beats blares. At every black person he encounters, he says, “What’s up my neighbor,” but dropping his voice at neighbor or speaking quickly as he walks by – so that the black people interpret it as “What’s up my nigger.” Then he waits for the response, and to let them know they have been pranked on film. This is supposed to be funny?



My advice as an educator to these no-talent wannabes: play with your dog, play with your toys, or heck go play with yourself; but do not play with people lives, including your own. You are not funny and you will get hurt more than you already have been because that is human nature.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam