Another big problem with pranks is that there is no set definition of what they are. Pranks are an area that would definitely benefit from a law saying, "These are pranks, and anything else is unqualified nonsense," because as long as it vaguely follows a certain format, anything that I say I'm going to do and then don't really do could be considered a prank. By the standard set in these videos, if I walked up to someone, announced, "I'm going to hit you in the mouth!" and then kicked them in the junk, I could say, "It was a prank! Like, share, and subscribe!" It would hit all of the requirements for being a prank, of which there are two:

1. Someone feels soooooo smart when it's done.

2. Someone else feels sooooo stupid when it's done.

That'll teach people to show concern for their fellow human beings, assholes!

However, it's just such an oddly malicious attempt at screwing someone else over that it becomes impossible to laugh with the person doing the prank. They can put the "humor" tag on it as much as they want and it still won't make a difference, because these prank videos aren't intricately designed traps that unsuspecting people fall into. These are excuses for us to watch something where some idiot might get punched in the end. They're hidden morality tales. You wait for the guy doing the pranks to get his comeuppance for being such an uncomfortable cock ring on the dick of the world. If it was anywhere else but the Internet, it would be the story of someone who messed up and was taught a lesson.

But this IS the Internet, which is built on the backs of confused people trying to come to terms with the idea that they're not good at as many skills as they'd like to be, so they bask in humiliation with a lack of self-awareness that seems almost robotic. It's the kind of climate where a vlogger couple will immediately broadcast their pregnancy announcement and subsequent miscarriage announcement, because, holy shit, look at all of the clicks that we're getting. The cleverness of the prank is never what is applauded. There are barely any successful compilation videos of the pranks going well. But millions have watched them go poorly because we legitimately don't care if the worst thing happens to their stars.

There is no emotional rise and fall like there would be with a great joke. When the most personal thing that you say is, "Thanks for checking out the video, guys!" there is no sense of attachment. It is just us waiting for you to get swung on. We anticipate that clumsy swing at your clumsy swing at getting praise for something. In a schoolyard, prank videos are the kids chugging hot sauce packets because people will watch them chug hot sauce packets. People are looking at me, so that must mean that I'm doing good, right? I am liked, yes? And, through your teary eyes and blurred vision, you can't see the lack of interest build on the faces of the people around you because you haven't choked on that hot sauce yet.

The idea that we should be free from having any kind of conversation that we don't want to have is a dumb one. I've been in enough video game stores to understand that if you stand in one place for any extended period, people will come to you with a full list of their likes and dislikes. But there is some kind of switch that goes off when a blinding vision of artificial humanity comes into close proximity with you. It's akin to when you see guys go clubbing and they start regurgitating the degrading things that forums have taught them to say in order to properly flirt with women.

TwinzTV
"That wasn't a condom; it was a Snickers wrapper! Pranked!"

In the case of the android-style flirting, it's meant to establish subtle dominance in the conversation, because, according to online advice, flirting is only worthwhile when you're trying to sneak "My apartment, value, and penis are all HUGE!" into every sentence. And it's never not slightly threatening, because it comes off as nothing but cold. The same goes for these people that approach pranks with deranged confidence and the clothing choices of a person who was on his way to get a lemon drop shot and got horribly lost.

If you're dressed up like you're trying to specifically appeal to the college freshmen that skip past your auto-playing videos on their Facebook feed, it's going to be eerie when you walk up to folks and ask them if you can "touch their melons." What you're doing is dull, but how you dress is unnerving, because everyone your age who is tumbling through a search for recognition is dressed like you.

It's like an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog came to life after an accident with a radioactive Jagerbomb.

No matter how severely you've caught someone off guard, there is still a permeating stench of "This guy is up to something!" that eradicates the surprise of the prank. You make yourself the enemy immediately upon contact, as you're obviously setting up something that the other person is not privy to. I don't want to give any advice to prank gremlins, but you could possibly try to dress and act like a normal, unassuming person, instead of the Southern California protocol for "I'm looking for an agent."

RomanAtwoodVlogs
This is a man who watched Entourage and thought it was an inspirational documentary.

Also note that calling your racism a "social experiment" doesn't make you a sociologist;
it just makes your idiocy pretentious.

It's selling you on the idea that, when you start acting out of line around black people, something bad is going to happen. Portraying black people as these otherworldly rage monsters has been a popular tactic in the last forever years for the media. Whether fingers are pointed at these pranks, or the meteoric rise in things like the "knockout game," an epidemic invented so that white grandparents would have something to warn their families about when they came home for Thanksgiving, varies from day to day.

If you're an idiot, you watch these prank videos and think to yourself, "Gosh! These black people sure are hair-triggered! Why are they trying to fight this person?" But, thinking logically, who wouldn't try to physically reprimand the swaggering adult that, against better judgment, walked up to you and tried to shit on your day? You did nothing to put yourself in a position for this. You were just existing outside your house and, suddenly, in the eyes of millions, you're proving Fox News pundits right. Don't touch strangers without their permission. Yelling, "It's just a prank!" does nothing to defer the blame. Prank celebrities may as well grope a lady and then tell her that it was only a pretend sexual assault.

Look at how angry young black men get when you aggressively confront, insult,
and physically harass them!

It doesn't matter how many of these encounters end with handshakes and acknowledgments of being truly, truly fooled. I know racists, and they're all morons. If you put any kind of media that displays people of a different race acting in a way that they themselves claim they wouldn't act (ignoring the fact that racism is based around violence and the threat of violence), they will clutch it to their chest until they expire. Their dying words will be cursing the Hispanic person that cut them off in traffic 40 years ago. Racists aren't good for much except showing the power of the human will when it comes to holding a grudge against billions of people. They are a real inspiration in that regard.