Lighten up...

The BBQ Pit
1

In this thread, fake lottery tickets as practical jokes are discussed.

Before I go any further, I know that opinions are like assholes…blah, blah, blah. However, I was really taken aback by the comments within!

Ok. I can understand if you are not a fan of fake lottery tickets (or practical jokes at all, as one person points out). But accusing someone that does like them of being “the sort of person who gets their jollies from someone elses embarassment, disappointment, and other forms of emotional pain”?! And using words and phrases like, “My fiance and I were both disgusted at this.”, "I am nearly teary eyed at the thought of somone pulling this one on me ", and “revolting”?! And finally, how can you compare a fake lottery ticket gag to “a cure for cancer”?!

I’m with dirty1. When I pulled the joke on my buddy, he was flustered and agitated. However, he quickly came around. He was surrounded by many long-time friends. We all (inlcuding him) had a good laugh, I bought him a beer and it was over. We still tease him about it today.

So…what’s the difference between me, him, our friends…and the pissed off people in this thread?

It’s “sad” and “revolting” to me that we live in such an uptight society with such a narrow sense of humor. Lighten up…

2

Yes . It is indeed humourous to humiliate and disappoint those you call ‘friends’.

3

Someone in the original thread made the point that the people who thought it was a great joke were the people who’d played the prank; those that thought it was, well, rather mean-spirited were the ones who’d had it played on them.

I’ve got to say, if someone pulled a stunt like that on me, I wouldn’t be too impressed. I’ve got a pretty good sense of humour and, if someone gets a good practical joke on me, I’ll be the first to laugh, but dangling the idea that someone might have won ten grand and then yuckin’ it up just doesn’t do it for me.

4

I posted that I thought it was a bad joke, but I was thinking that the fake tickets were fooling the person into thinking they were getting millions, not just a few thousand. I guess I was thinking how I would feel if I thought I could quit my shit job that I hate, then realizing it was not to be. I wouldn’t be amused. In fact, there would likely be deaths involved.

If it’s just a few thousand though, and not giving anyone the feeling that the problems that make their lives hell can be removed and then taking that away from them, then I’d say it well within the range a good practical joke.

5

And they should have been disgusted. That post recounted how a family gave real lottery tickets to everybody except for the adopted son who was mentally slow due to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. There was no other reason to do this but to ridicule and humiliate him. That is a major dickhead thing to do.

The difference is that you did it to somebody you knew could take it. If somebody did it to me and I fell for it, I would laugh along with it because I can handle that kind of thing. If my friend did it to a person with learning disabilities he’d be a dick.

6

Maybe, but to echo something stated in the original thread, a few thousand dollars can be life-altering for some (many, actually) people. I’ve always loved practical jokes, but the fake lottery tickets take it a little too far. There are just some emotions that should not be toyed with. (nice, broad statement there, MachV :rolleyes: )

That said, I don’t feel the original thread was so tasteless it needed to be closed. The original question was actually a statement against the things and asked for responses from both sides. If anything, a possible GD thread. (well, maybe a Mediocre Debate) While I found the subject itself distasteful, the discussion was interesting.

7

spooje, if you can’t do this to your friends, then who can you do it to? These are people I’ve known for years. People who I refer to as “balding Jon”, “crazy-eyes Pat” and “dumb-ass Jim”. And they call me “big-nose malaka”. We poke fun and tease and humiliate one another constantly. But only when we’re around friends. In situations where everyone knows the tone.

On the day of the practical joke, as I said, we were on a booze-cruise in Lake Erie. Everyone there were long-time friends. We’d all been drinking pretty heavily, too. It was the perfect opportunity!

However, if we’d been around strangers…or I didn’t know the dupe too well, it would’ve been horrible and cruel. Some folks in the original post said:

and

I agree. My buddy was none of those things.

8

You’re absolutely right. I (somehow) missed the part about the ticket recipient. I stand corrected.

9

Well, you consider not humiliating and disappointing anyone. I’m glad your friend saw the funny side, good for him. But if someone did this to me I’d be pretty upset. Both because they’d be making me think a wonderful thing has happened and then pulling the rug out from under me, and then they’d be laughing at me for being such a fool. Yeah, that’s funny.

As this thread progresses, you seem to be saying “Hey, lighten up, it’s funny… as long as it happens to this particular type of person” - the people who made the comments you objected to in the OP weren’t talking about your particular person. They were talking about themselves, or people in general, or people they know.

10

As I read your subsequent posts, malaka, it looks like you agree with most of the other posters. The basic rule is to know your audience. It’s funny if done to somebody who will appreciate the humor (like you, malaka. It is not funny if it’s done to embarass somebody or give a desperate person false hope (like the son with a mental disability.)

Once again, the Pit has become a place of healing.

11

Thank you for reiterating WHY my fiance and I were disgusted.

I have to admit, I was ready to fly off the handle for including me in your mini-rant until this.

If this stunt had been pulled on someone else in my family that DIDN’T have the deficiencies that my cousin has, it might have been funny. This was just done, as Zoff said, to ridicule and humiliate him.

12

I guess thats what saddens me. That there’s not more of “this particular type of person” out there.

13

I agree with the other posters that the appropriateness of the joke depends on the audience.

Interestingly, one of the classic law-school cases on “intentional infliction of emotional distress” involved a similar scenario: A resident of a small town was know to be somewhat mentally weak, and was also somewhat obsessed with the idea of finding buried treasure. A couple townspeople arranged for her to find a “treasure map,” with clues leading her to a “treasure chest” buried underground. She was guided to open the “treasure chest” at noon in the middle of the town’s square. Of course the “treasure chest” contained nothing but rocks. (Har har) The woman suffered a breakdown and later sued the jokesters. As I recall, she won.

14

I’m good friends with some people who, at times, have biting, sarcastic senses of humor. What they consider light teasing I sometimes find to be mean-spirited jabs. On more than one occasion, they’ve teased using topics that were sensitive to me, knowing that they were sensitive topics. But because they didn’t mean for their remarks to be real insults, it wasn’t supposed to hurt. But it did. I never let on that the remarks hurt, but I haven’t forgotten what they said, either.

The times when I did show my hurt, being told to lighten up made me feel worse. I felt like an oversensitive, overreacting weenie. On top of that, I was angry that I was being made to feel that way-- it was only natural, I thought.

My point is you just don’t know how hurtful some offhand remark can be. It doesn’t matter how long or how well you know a person or if you think or they say they can take it-- they might truly be hurt by what you say. You should think before you speak, especially if it’s about something that has upset them before.

I apologize if I’m coming across as preachy. It’s just that I saw the word humiliate in your post, and it made me wonder if humiliate was an accurate description of the banter you and your friends toss about. Because I really hope it isn’t.

15

I’m on the same page as AudreyK. I don’t enjoy mean-spirited teasing, no matter who it comes from, and I wouldn’t find this type of joke to be funny under any circumstances.
Of course, your friends may enjoy it–my husband and some of his buddies are absolutely horrid to each other, and no one seems to mind. But like AudreyK, I wonder what’s really going on under the surface when things like that happen. And I’m all for erring on the side of kindness.
I think you just gotta realize, malaka, that not everyone has the same type of friendships or sense of humor that you do. As long as you recognize that and respect it in your relationships, it’s perfectly okay for others to not be in the same humor-camp.

16

My sister and I always buy scratch off tickets on the way when we go gambling and scratch 'em at breakfast. I slipped one of those into her stack and she “won” like $25,000, rolled her eyes, and laughed. She knew it was a fake, even though she obviously got a jolt when she saw the numbers. We had a good laugh, no one got hurt.

Someone gave one to my former boss, who also found it very funny- again, no one got hurt and it wasn’t meant to be mean. I guess as said above, it depends on your audience. Would I give one to my sister? Hell yeah- we’re both practical jokers. We’ve been having DJs call each other at all hours of the morning for radio pranks and everything else for years. I don’t feel bad at all, considering some of the crazy shit she’s pulled on me. Would I give one to my mentally retarded brother in law or my father who wants to retire but doesn’t have quite enough money? Of course not.

Some people you can joke with about this stuff and some you can’t. I don’t think it’s a cruel joke to all, but you have to know your audience. And prepare for revenge, 'cause you’ll get it.

I do have to say that Uke’s comments about it being akin to putting razorblades in Halloween apples just struck me as ridiculous. Obviously I think the lottery gag is funny in the right circumstance, but I don’t think that razorblades are.

17

As one of those who participated in the origional thread, and doesn’t think it should be closed, I am drawn to this thread like a moth to a flame, the concept of this gag has the “rubberneck a train wreck” effect on me :slight_smile:

Don’t assume you know your friends financial status. It is something that many people do not share fully even with good friends. My good friends know I am broke, I am always broke and it’s the source of a few chuckles occasionally. However they don’t know, because it’s none of their business, that I have no way to pay my bills next month and have no idea what I am going to do. That fake card would only have to be for 300 bucks to put my heart through the roof with relief and drop it beyond basement level as it dawned on me.

I don’t mean this to sound preachy, I think its really interesting to see everyones takes on this. Just adding mine to the pile.

18

I just don’t understand why fake lottery tickets are supposed to be funny.

I once had someone pull the dollar-bill-on-a-string gag on me. Now, I didn’t get angry; it was only a buck. But the people who did it informed me, chuckling, that I wasn’t the first to walk through their setup. They had wanted to see how many people would dive for a buck, they said. Naturally, this was at a high-tuition college, where many of the students had never known a life where every dollar counts. Others, like me, were on scholarship, and didn’t need to conduct a field experiment to know that money is a lure.

MachV sez: “There are just some emotions that should not be toyed with.” S/he followed that with a rolleyes, but I think it’s quite valid. Once, years ago, a friend and I pulled an April Fool’s joke on another friend.

“Tom!” I said urgently. “Dave’s down at the Greyhound station! His parents kicked him out…I think they found weed in his room…he’s down there and Mary’s going to sneak him in here, but we thought you could give us a ride to the station…” Tom looked at me aghast throughout this, and when he started to turn towards the door, I added, “Oh, and Tom…April Fool!”

Now, Tom thought it was funny and clever and all that. But we had another friend, Jane, who had romantic feelings (semi-requited) for Dave. The alleged crisis didn’t stir up the same emotions in Tom that it would have in her. When Tom had recovered (he did laugh), he said, and Mary and I agreed, “Good thing you didn’t pull that on Jane.”

I will say, though, that if someone gave me a fake lottery ticket, I wouldn’t even give them the satisfaction of a go-off. Just freeze them out.

19

I’m sorry. It just seems mean-spirited to me to trick your friends like that. To elate their emotions and expectations only to pull the rug out from under them and laugh at them.

I hope no one does it me.

20

I just thought I’d share a story I read a while back on another message board about these fake tickets. Someone was bragging about setting up an unpopular woman in his office. It seems she was an aggressive yuppie executive who got on everyone’s nerves and, through a well-thought-out set-up, she ended up holding and scratching a fake ticket with a prize in the million dollar range. Not only did she make it clear she wasn’t going to share it with anyone, she also mouthed off to a lot of people before she found out it was a joke. The poster was quite proud of himself for “exposing” her but it sure sounded like a very nasty harmful prank to me.