A prank goes too far when one person causes another person intense emotional or mental pain, which is exactly what was inflicted on Brittney Smith, the girlfriend of YouTube superstar Roman Atwood in a recent video. In the video the unfortunate girlfriend is subjected to the ghastly spectacle of her and Atwood’s son dying in a large explosion that resulted from an apparently out of control ATV, (actually being remotely controlled) flying over a conveniently placed ramp. Immediately after realizing that it was a prank she kicks Atwood; a reaction that is very understandable. Towards the end of the prank the son materializes and rushes to his clearly distraught mother who just holds him. Click the link below to watch the video for yourself.
This prank crossed a line by subjecting the mother to one of her worst nightmares imaginable. Most moms are fiercely protective of their children and love them passionately. Unexpectedly robbing them of the thing they value most is simply cruel. This is an experience that nobody should have to endure, one that causes trauma which could easily have been avoided and which Atwood had no right to inflict. This pain is clearly evident when Smith is holding their son after she thought that he had been seriously injured or killed in the staged ATV accident.
The prank is not funny, failing one of the central criteria for pranks. Pranks are supposed to be funny or clever in some way. Seeing the potential death or serious injury of a child is in no way, shape or form remotely funny, or clever. It is cruel and unnecessary.
Despite its glaring flaws, the video has garnered a mind blowing 13 million views, indicating the demand for this sort of content. In an age where we have become desensitized by waves of constant information from the internet, it’s no surprise that those who want to stand out have to resort to extreme methods. This has created a climate where people use crude or shocking images or headlines to garner attention and it must change.
Some of the top videos of 2014 also exemplified this trend. For instance, one of the top music videos made by Shakira heavily plays up her sexuality and has garnered 591,448,115 views. Although the views could be attributed to excellent singing, her sexuality also played a major role, reducing her to an object. The present atmosphere heavily encourages people to create content that inflicts unnecessary pain on some individuals or devalues them as humans in the name of getting more views.
Toward the end of the video, in response to realizing it was a prank, Smith said “It’s not funny. I’m done, honey. I can’t do it.” Although her comments were obviously directed at that specific prank I think they can be extended to the present YouTube environment. As a society we cannot continue to support videos that use crude or shocking images and headlines to garner attention. If we do, we risk more unnecessarily cruel videos popping up on the internet.