Why Some Acts That Seem Innocent Aren’t

I’ve reached a point where I honestly think most pranks are bad ideas. Not “sometimes problematic,” not “fine if done carefully,” but bad in a structural sense. And the more dangerous or moralizing they are, the worse they get.

This isn’t coming from being overly sensitive or humorless. I understand why people enjoy pranks. Surprise can be funny. Awkward reactions can be funny. I get that. But when I look at what modern prank culture has turned into—especially content-driven pranks—it feels like we’ve crossed a line and then kept walking as if nothing happened.

A lot of pranks today rely on one core imbalance: the prankster knows everything, the target knows nothing. The prankster knows there’s no real danger, knows the situation is staged, knows how it will end. The target doesn’t. And that gap isn’t trivial. That gap is where fear, guilt, panic, and regret live.

Take the so-called “harmless” ones: startling someone from behind, pretending to be threatening, wearing a scary costume in public. People brush these off as light fun, but that assumes everyone’s nervous system works the same way. It doesn’t. Some people have heart conditions. Some have PTSD. Some are exhausted, stressed, or already on edge. Some are holding sharp tools, driving, standing on stairs, or simply not in a position to react safely.

When you scare someone, you’re not just provoking a reaction—you’re triggering a reflex. Fight, flight, freeze. That response doesn’t ask for context. It doesn’t wait for clarification. And once it’s triggered, you don’t get to control what happens next. If someone gets hurt, collapses, or reacts violently, it’s not because they’re weak or dramatic. It’s because their body did exactly what it’s wired to do.

And then there are the “social experiment” pranks, which honestly bother me even more.

These are the ones where someone is unknowingly tested morally: asked for money, help, compassion, generosity—usually in a sudden, awkward situation with no context. If they help, they’re praised. If they don’t, they’re quietly framed as lacking empathy. The audience is guided to judge them, even if no insults are spoken out loud.

What bothers me is that refusing help in these situations is often completely reasonable. People don’t carry cash. People are late. People are cautious around strangers. None of that makes someone immoral. Yet these videos turn one small moment into a character verdict.

It feels manipulative. It feels like moral theater.

And from the outside, it can look uplifting. Someone “wins” money. Someone gets applauded. But there’s always someone else who loses—not materially, but internally. The confused look. The sudden regret. The repeated “Is this real?” That’s not joy. That’s someone realizing they were unknowingly put on trial and didn’t know the rules.

At that point, it stops being humor. It looks more like emotional exploitation dressed up as positivity.

There’s also a safety issue that people don’t want to talk about: ambiguity. In real life, people don’t know whether something is a prank or a real threat. We live in a world where random violence happens. Where people get attacked. Where public spaces aren’t inherently safe. So when someone is suddenly confronted by something frightening or strange, assuming it’s “just a prank” isn’t realistic. It’s actually irrational.

The case of Kim Jong-nam’s assassination shows the extreme version of this problem. The people involved thought they were participating in a prank. The target had no idea what was happening. The result was fatal. That’s an extreme case, yes, but it exposes the same flaw: using ignorance and surprise as tools is inherently dangerous. You lose control the moment other human beings are involved.

Outside of pranks, the same logic applies to “charity content.”

If you want to help someone, help them. But filming it, labeling them as “poor,” and turning their situation into proof of your virtue feels wrong. It turns a human being into a prop. The help becomes conditional on being seen. The dignity cost is paid by the person who needs it most.

Personally, I think the cleanest form of giving is the quiet one. Leave something. Walk away. No camera. No moral scoreboard. Just help. For large organizations, documentation makes sense—there’s accountability involved, donors need transparency. That’s different. But for individuals chasing likes, the camera changes the act itself.

At the end of the day, I don’t see prank culture as misunderstood innocence anymore. I see it as a system that rewards risk-taking without responsibility, judgment without context, and visibility over empathy. And when entertainment requires someone else to feel afraid, ashamed, or morally inferior—even for a few seconds—that entertainment is already broken.

Well, yeah. That’s just how it looks to me.