Pranknet: the Lunatic but Obvious Evolution of Peep

Posted by Hal
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Two pieces have come out lately about a fringe Internet group that conducts Skype phone pranks which generally involve getting ordinary people to do ridiculous things like urinate on each other or trash their hotel rooms.

The first piece came out in the online magazine Smoking Gun. The Globe and Mail picked up on that piece and ran a similar piece with less histrionics and minus the links to the recordings of the actual pranks. Here’s a quote from the Globe piece:

“Members can listen in, and rate the prank as it’s being pulled, with the most popular attaining the status of ‘epic.’ In Pennsylvania, Pranknet called a hotel guest and told him there was a gas leak. The man was told to smash the window and television screen with a toilet tank lid to prevent an explosion. Another man in Nebraska was persuaded to drive his truck through the door of a hotel lobby to deactivate a fire alarm. A front-desk clerk at another hotel drank a guest’s urine, after a Pranknet caller convinced her it was cider, and that the man who brought it – who thought he was providing a urine sample for the hotel doctor – was the representative of an apple juice company. Is this criminal or comedy?”

Actually it’s neither — it’s Peep Culture. A mutated strain of Peep, yes, but an inevitable and obvious one. If we can derive entertainment value from watching other people go about their ordinary (but often nutty) lives, then why wouldn’t we get even more value out of convincing ordinary people to do nutty things while other (ordinary) people listen in and laugh their asses off? Pranknet is bare-knuckled Reality TV.

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The Bloggist

Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...

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