So-Called Influencers: Keep Your ‘Pranks’ Out of Montana

Before you just assume I'm some stuffed-shirt dweeb with no sense of humor, let me clarify that I love shows like 'Impractical Jokers' and, showing my age here, 'The Jamie Kennedy Experiment.' When done by true professionals, pranks can be a hilarious form of entertainment. What the amateurs don't get is, there's a line. It's a line that TikTokers, YouTubers and other so-called influencers too often cross.

The line is different depending on who's being pranked. In the Jackass movies, the most severe pranks are reserved for the cast members, who know on some level what they were signing up for. Call me sensitive, but making random strangers believe they're in a dangerous situation is going way too far. Another way to cross the line is to be excessively mean-spirited. To my knowledge, none of those kinds of "pranks" have been filmed in Montana, and I hope they never are. Here are some examples of "pranks" which should never be done in this state:

Pretending to Steal Luggage

This month a video was released of a certain Youtuber who tried this on multiple people at an airport, one of which attacked him. The YouTuber says he's taken no lasting injuries from it, thank goodness.

Making People Believe Someone Died

Recently there was the trend of telling people their favorite celebrity died when they're actually still alive. The worse version of this is when people pose as a corpse to make someone believe they just walked in on a murder scene.

 Escalator Pranks

YouTubers will mess with couples riding an escalator by flirting with one of them to see the reaction of the other. I hope the videos I've seen of this are staged by actors, because I think that's a nasty thing to do to complete strangers. And this one might be hard to do in Montana anyway, you know because we don't have many escalators.