Perhaps, but my reaction would most likely have been the same.
Now, filming the kid crying and sending it in – that probably goes too far. But it all depends on the kid, and I don’t think you can flat out say “oh, it’s so evil to do!” without knowing the “victim” of said prank.
Thank goodness you did, because I’ve been holding it for the past hour wondering if I should play it. 
I’ve put some thought in to this, and I still keep coming around to it really depending on the kid and the family culture. You couldn’t ask for a family more loving than my own-- I always felt very secure and very loved (indeed, pretty darn spoiled). But our sense of humor skews dark. I can’t see this as a bad thing-- I grew up in a loving home, we have a lot of fun together, and a touch of black humor has helped us get through the rough times with smiles on our faces. I don’t think we have more mental illness, bad relationships or poor life choices than other other family. We are firmly within the range of normal, perhaps even especially close and loving.
I am speaking with honesty when I say I can’t remember ever being hurt or having a negative emotional reaction to the jokes that my family played. Mostly, I remember a lot of laughter and fun. Sometimes I was on the recieving end, but I realized that I would have my day soon-- and I pulled off some pretty good ones as a kid. I think the joy wasn’t really the reaction, but the creativity and execution of the prank, which is something even the one on the receiving end could appreciate. I’ve been hurt plenty-- I was bullied in school and it was terrible-- but I’ve never been hurt by a family prank.
But I recognize that’s not for everyone. I was raised this way from the day I was born, and I learned pretty quickly how to bounce back. And I had a great deal of security and love, and I’m sure my family had a well-tuned sense of what I could handle and what I couldn’t. If that security wasn’t there, if that love wasn’t there, if that family culture wasn’t there or if my own resilience wasn’t there, it’d be different. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to play pranks on my own daugher-- I don’t know her temperment, and our family culture is still forming. You really need all that context to tell what is cruel and what is funny.
Now, the consensus in my family is that the Christmas prank is hilarious (it’s must-have christmas viewing), but the Halloween joke is on the edge. And we also tend to agree the ones with older kids are a bit more unfair-- that could be more embarassing, especially if they have a really extreme response. None of us would ever film something like this, as we just aren’t in to being on TV.
But what do I know about other families? Families are just such strange, variable, different things that it’s hard to really project much more than the obvious on another one.
The parents who sent in the videos are just as able to play the parent card as you guys are.
I could only stand to watch it as far as the two boys (11 or so?) sitting at the bench … and in that one, they’re still tense and upset and mad as hell as the mother explains (and EXPLAINS) how - ‘hey, it was just a joke, what’s the problem?’. Very obviously she did not know (or didn’t care) that she was in fact damaging her relationship with them - that was not the sort of reaction of someone why was going to get over it and laugh in fifteen minutes.
FTR, as far as I’m concerned, if you know your kid well enough to know it won’t be a big deal to them, have at it. We tell our kids we’re going to beat them with sticks all the time (“didn’t put away your clothes? Beatings! Beatings, I tell you!”) It’s only funny because they know perfectly well we won’t. If they cried, I’d be horrified, and never do it again.
Jimmy Kimmel is bad not because the prank is necessarily harmful (though I don’t think it’s all that funny to start with), but because he’s encouraging all these people who don’t seem to have any empathy to go into or continue in patterns that are really unhelpful. Like handing out free fatty salty burgers in schools - for kids who generally have a healthy diet it would be just “hey, free food, cool”, but we know there’s a lot of kids not in that position.
I did think the “you’ll get a belly” kid and “that’s ok, you can buy more candy” girl were mildly amusing. Not enough to save the segment though.
The show recieved around 300 videos. Two children, distraught, took their own lives. That’s what, like 0.66%? Practically zero. Sheesh.
I just watched the Christmas one from 2011 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4a9CKgLprQ), and to me there’s a clear difference - apart from the kid in the red shirt, the general tone of the kids is bemusement or at worst annoyance. So the parents clearly “get” the kids’ tolerance limits enough to be able to pull it off (apart from the parents of the kid in the red shirt - they should be taking a good hard look at themselves IMO, as much for raising a kid who’d act like that as anything else)
At the risk of confusing the hell out of people, I’m going to say that this does sound potentially damaging. Everyone’s parents did questionable things to us growing up, but at least before the age of ubiquitous cameras, we were able to kinda-sorta forget about them. Imagine having a mother who has a history of invalidating your feelings and having a video recording of her doing such a thing when you’re just a little kid. And the recording would be on the internet “forever”, always reminding you how much your childhood sucked and how helpless you were. I can definitely see this as unhealthy.
Did their pranks make you cry? I mean, more than a tear of frustration or two before it was revealed to be a joke? Did they make you break down into sobbing disappointment and still not tell you it was a joke?
Again, beatings, with a stick! sounds like they know it would never happen. That’s teasing. That’s like squirrel toes for dinner.
If your kid *believed *you that you were going to beat them with a stick, and started crying in fear, and you reached for a stick and insisted you were going to beat them with a stick, that would be a closer “prank”. And I’d have the same opinion of it: jerkish in moderation, likely damaging in excess.
I agree this is different, but for, er, different reasons.
In the Christmas prank, at no point do the kids think something bad has happened. Their parents don’t lie. They’re not led to believe that they’ve lost something. Even a 3yo can understand that an overripe banana is not their real present.
The Halloween prank is the equivalent of your boss telling you you’re fired. Only joking, haha. Can’t you take a joke?
Thing is, if you feel like an ass because someone else reacts, or struggles to react, with grace and maturity to something you did to them–does that not mean that you were an ass to do it?
In other words, why should the judgment of our own actions be dependent on how well or badly someone else handles it, after the fact? That’s on them. What we do–the same either way–is on us.
Good point. And they know that they’ve still got real Christmas with, presumably, presents, to look forward to. So it’s just better set up overall.
I overheard my mom talking to my dad about this, and she brought up something I don’t think has been mentioned. Sure, she had the same opinion about how dragging it out seemed cruel, but she also mentioned something else first: it also makes a lot of the kids seem like brats. She couldn’t believe some of the kids were actually cussing at their parents.
And, if I think about it, how hard would it be to punish your kid for acting inappropriately when you are deliberately provoking them to act that way?
I’m still wondering just how many people who are cool with this, would let me torment their dog until it yelps and howls?
If you’re not cool with that then it kinda seems like you’re treating your pet better/kinder than your own child.
It really depends on the kind of family, I guess. If my parents had pulled this kind of prank…well my parents humiliated me often, especially my mother. This isn’t their kind of prank but I might be able to see them saying “We threw out all of your candy”. And they wouldn’t care that it hurt my feelings.
In a supportive, loving family, it might be different. But I would argue that a supportive loving family might play these kinds of pranks on each other but they wouldn’t post it on the Internet for the whole world to laugh at. It would be a family thing.
My kids are probably a bit too old and clever, and know us too much, to fall for this. Had we tried it last year, though, and pulled it off, they would still be speaking of it with awe and reverence, and would be bragging to their friends about how their parents had bamboozled them with such an excellent prank.
Of course they would have then planned a treacherous revenge of some kind, and if properly executed, we would have been tremendously proud of them.
We’re a playful bunch.
Dogs certainly aren’t kids, but here goes:
Maybe I’m a horrible pet owner, but when feeding treats to my dog the other day, I put the last one in my shirt pocket for a bit and pet him. He knew it was in my pocket, and within seconds was whimpering like I was torturing him. A few seconds more, and I gave it to him.
If my wife or brother did this with him, I’d have no problem, they know the dog, and he knows them. If you did it? I’d think you were an idiot, and would be dragging you out of my yard for your own safety. The dog doesn’t know you, weighs 90 lbs, and can be a handful even on a leash. If your shirt pocket was all that was damaged, you’d be lucky.
The other dog (I inherited both) would bite me as soon as look at me most days, so I’d never do this with it.
How would those same kids not realize that the Halloween was a joke as well? Seriously?
Saying, “Can’t you take a joke?” does sound like a nasty response, though. My parents would probably have said, “Oh, we’re just kidding, it’s okay! You know we’d never really do that!” And then I’d get a little annoyed, and just forget about it. (Or I’d plan a way to get back)
The prank is a dick move and the people who do it to their kids are dicks.
Part of being a good parent is acting like a responsible grown-up. That means not abusing the trust of your kids for your own amusement. Jesus, if you’re that bored, go out in the backyard and shoot BB’s at squirrels for fun. Leave the kids out of it.
Or maybe more appropriately for this topic:
Kids to parents: The police just called. They need you to call them back. I just reported you for abuse at school today. [for eating my Halloween candy]
If the parents roll on the floor laughing before the Halloween candy part is revealed, then I’ll buy the whole idea that the family just likes to laugh and takes things in stride. But mostly this kind of thing is just an excuse to be nasty to people who can’t fight back, and since the kids don’t know any better, that’s what they continue to pass down the line.