Guys, we've all seen the dumb trends these days.
From the "Fire Challenge" to the "Ice Bucket Challenge" to even "Flashing at Walmart". Now it has gotten to point ridiculous. We are gonna have our children one day look at things we have done in the past and either try to do worse or shake their heads in utter disappointment. Lately, now it has gotten to a point where people have done crimes and labeled them as "Pranks" or "Social Experiments". "Kidnapping your best friend" is not a prank, neither is touching random strangers in inappropriate places, sorry Sam Pepper, but those are serious crimes. Probably, if most of these weren't staged stunts, the people responsible for them would be in jail. What worries me though is the many influential social media "celebs" who think it is okay to promote rape culture, over-sexualization of youth, and harassment to such a young audience. YouTube shouldn't allow people with content like that go trending.
Literally, guys pretending to be dead, faking an officer of the law, or public indecency aren't pranks, but are serious registered crimes. Channels on YouTube like PrankNation, PrankInvasion, etc. are promoting sexual harassment towards both genders, and over-sexualizing females to a young male audience, but apparently it is entirely okay because it is just a "prank" or "social experiment". What is even worse are those public execution pranks or people doing fake bomb threats or harassing police officers.
Seriously though, I don't mean to bring negative attention towards other content creators, but these videos need to stop and should be reported. Right now, the way pranks have gone, are way too far and trends are becoming more and more substance lacking. Remember the "Charlie Charlie" Challenge, in which people were just blowing on a pencil and being like Charlie are you there? Remember the Cinnamon Challenge, in which people would just eat a spoonful of cinnamon. Believe it or not, yes, even the fire challenge existed. Here is a video from one of the people who regretted attempting said challenge:
I want to end this letter with all seriousness to the fact that I hope we stop supporting people who do violent crimes or harass people and label it as a prank.
We need to keep in mind that we are a generation smarter then that. We can do better things with our time like visualize brilliant concepts, create new technologies, and unleash creativity that can change the world.
That sounds a lot better to me than "pretending" to threaten a police officer or sexually harassing random strangers.
