5 Reasons Why You Should Stop Watching ‘In the Hood’ Prank Videos

YouTube is a big opportunity for the enterprising youngster with an idea and the free time to execute it. Some of these ideas mature into amazing concepts like ‘Let’s Play.’ Others…*sigh*

Vine compilations and pranking videos seem to have commandeered YouTube traffic as of late. But where one offers twerking and hilarity, the other puts young men (and a few women) into situations with strangers that are supposed to be funny, but often end up weird and unfortunate like your 80 year old Grandma’s attempt at baking cookies. Someone should have told her which one was the salt. Someone.

Pranking videos started out pretty cool. Some gave money to the homeless. Others had hot chicks and were sexually playful. But the latest trend of prank videos involves young White men going into Black neighborhoods to put themselves into preposterously ridiculous situations.

This is insanely stupid. There are about 5,440,218 reasons why you need to stop supporting these videos by watching them, but with quantum mechanics and the eenie-miney-mo method we’ve narrowed them down to five.

These people could really get hurt

I’m not sure in what world screaming ‘It’s a prank’ saves you from an ass-whoopin’, but for many of these guys it decidedly did not. One guy had a knife pulled on him. A knife that could have easily been a gun. A gun that ended his life. For a YouTube video?

In 2011 thirteen people died from having a vending machine fall on top of them. At some point years ago there was that one guy that died trying to retrieve the Mars bar that would not fall. He became a statistical pioneer. One of these prank dummies may one day soon have the dubious distinction of being the first to die making a prank video in the ‘hood. Soon. Unless you stop watching.

Watching people get beat up isn’t funny

Ok, yes it is. But watching people get beat up shouldn’t be funny unless all parties involved are in control. When Bam Margera tried to take a rocket-powered dildo up his ass or receive a drop kick to the face, this was abuse he signed up for as part of being on Jackass.

The guys in these videos aren’t in control here. They were provoked by a false premise and then reacted in a way that they felt was appropriate considering the method in which they were approached. Granted, they often assumed immediate control of the body of the pranker, but the whole situation could be avoided if you stop supporting these things with your eyeballs.

Low hanging fruit

One pranker threw on a dark hoodie and attacked a guy at an ATM like he was trying to steal his money. He didn’t account for Fratguy McMusclehunk coming to the ‘rescue.’ The mistake cost the pranker some pride, an ounce or two of blood and a busted nose. But he got a million views so it’s worth it, right?.

This was as stupid as these kinds of pranks got…until a whole new underclass of fame-desperate doofuses with cameras set upon Black neighborhoods with provocation in their hearts and nothing in their damn fool heads. There are thousands of ways to make a dollar putting smiles on people’s faces. Why support someone doing it in the dumbest and most dangerous way imaginable?

Use that time to talk to girls

You like girls, right bro? Girls are fun. They smell nice. When you kiss them they taste like hope and fresh sunshine. So why are you watching these dumb videos instead of pursuing some lovely lasses? You have email, Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Instagram, YouTube, Tinder, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid, Match, eHarmony and a camera all accessible on the same device you’re reading this article on. And they can all get you closer to a girl much faster than these suspect videos can.

You’re giving them money

Did you think they were doing this for free?! LOL don’t be silly. There’s gold in them thar YouTube hills, son! And it’s called ‘going viral.’ There are dozens of stories of folks cashing in on YouTube fame for the Google ad money (Jenna Marbles), merch sales (Epic Mealtime) and other opportunities that could even extend to television and movies (Spoken Reasons).

By watching these videos, you are encouraging these men to use other human beings to put themselves into potentially deadly situations. If these guys really want to endanger their lives, they can start their own Jackass-type movement. They can become stuntmen. They can do anything that doesn’t involve antagonizing a group of people that wasn’t looking to become part of someone else’s prank.