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Ha Ha, you trusted me and I betrayed that trust. Joke's on you!

personperson Don't believe everything you thinkThe liminal space Veteran
edited April 2016 in Philosophy

It's April 1st, time to prank the ones you love.

From a moral and ethical perspective are pranks alright? The essential nature of them is a betrayal of trust but they aren't generally done with an intention of harm.

Are some ok and others not? Is it a degree of intent or effect? Is it time to let this tradition go?

Vastmind

Comments

  • VastmindVastmind Memphis, TN Veteran
    edited April 2016

    We all know I laugh at anything and everything....the chuckles, hahahaha...but I've always hated April fools day. Making someone feel like a fool usually ends bad, and just the act of trying to fool people usually causes confusion and more harm than laughs..... Playing April Fools game just doesn't seem worth all the drama it causes.

    On April 1st, I'm forced to approach everyone with caution and suspicion.....it feels so unnatural and very hard to go through the day. As he describes.. all the little 'acts' of the day make me feel things, other than funny and laughter. It gets old...real quick.
    Then you end up offending someone who really IS telling the truth bec you go back and forth questioning them.

    Is it tomorrow yet? ..... Have you done your taxes yet? lolololol

    My vote: Let it go. There are other ways to make people laugh.

    BTW: I do agree that they usually aren't done with the intention of harm...but what is the intention? Deep down/inside the mind?
    It seems it would be to amuse oneself at the expense of another. The other person usually ends up feeling sad, frustrated, and annoyed. Usually the prankster is the one cracking up and pointing the finger. Harmless? Probably not...but I think most pranksters just don't think that far out about the actions. They just think about the gratification of getting over on someone.

    personlobsterKundo
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    There's a 'joke' doing the rounds - particularly between dating couples where one, in converstion with the other, asks. "...if now would be a good time to ask if s/he is OK with me having a sex change in three months time... "

    I made the mistake of telling a person on my 'friends' list the same thing. Normally a good laugh and with a broad sense of humour.
    They ended up 'sharing' this link THEY were sent.

    I wonder how many douche canoes are going to pull the "i'm having a sex change operation!" On April 1st. Lemme tell you why that's a sh***y thing to do.

    People die for being transgender. People. Die. They get beaten, raped, killed, treated as less than human, and ridiculed constantly simply for existing. Can you imagine walking outside and being jumped, raped, and killed for something beyond your control? For just being you? We live with that fear- Every. Single. Day.

    Our identities are not a cheap joke or an easy pun. Over 40% of us have attempted to or have committed suicide. Many more self-harm. Or are kicked out of their family homes and are now homeless. We don't have rights to PEE places without fear of legal repercussion or being attacked physically. We spend hundreds of dollars on therapy and hormones and surgery and years of time working at being comfortable with ourselves when the rest of the world wants us to be treated like sick animals.

    We are not a joke for you to make light of. We are strong people who have fought hard to even be allowed to exist. We have known struggles like you could never imagine.
    _If you wanna make a joke, stick to the goddamned whoopie cushions, ya d**k_.

    I'm afraid I wasn't too sympathetic in my reply to the person who shared the link with me....... I advised them that if we had to check ourselves and tick every politically-correct box before telling a joke, then no jokes would ever get told.
    While I agree that picking on any persuasion and ridiculing it, belittling it, insulting it and badmouthing it, is unacceptable - this joke doesn't do any of those.

    It's just a joke.

    We really need to lighten up a bit. There's being sensitive and there's being ..."Sensitive"....!

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited April 2016

    Incidentally, to add: I have worked with two - not one - two - transgenders. One M -> F, the other F -> M. We also had a member (who sadly hasn't posted for a while) who is also transgender, and I had nothing but love, for them.

    I suspect she wouldn't be too touchy, and I know for a fact that both people I have worked with, wouldn't get on their high horse about this.
    It's not a poke at them, it's actually more of a poke at the person receiving the joke.

    I am wholly against prejudice of any kind against gender, religion, colour nationality or sexual persuasion. I detest it. But this is taking sensibilities too far.

  • silversilver In the beginning there was nothing, and then it exploded. USA, Left coast. Veteran

    How the heck did April Fool's Day get started, anyway? The vast majority of AFD jokes that I've been privy to, at work or wherever, almost NEVER ended up good...no fun times had by all.
    :unamused:

  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator

    I seriously hate April Fools Day, lol. It's just so annoying. The one bright spot, our town always does a tourism marketing campaign about something absurd, and they can get quite funny. A couple of years they made national news, which was kind of fun. One year they put out a "news release" out that said our part of the state was being annexed by Canada (right about now I kind of wish that was true! LOL) and people were so upset that government officials in the state spent the day taking phone calls and having to explain that it was a joke. Kind of amusing how seriously people took it, but at the same time they were really upset and worried, so it stressed people out in the name of fun and caused a lot of loss of productiveness in our government as they handled a bunch of calls about something not even real.

    On the flip side, because I dislike it, I am always on the look out for pranks I can avoid, which takes the fun out of it for people who enjoy that kind of thing. It's not a big deal, I just don't like pranks much.

    Kundo
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran
    edited April 2016

    One person's joke is another person's insult...and that's how it's always been...at the expense of one and other....What I might see has just harmless fun, another might find quite offensive and vice versa.....

    Anyhow April Fools Day is a misnomer ...Everyday's a fool's day until one can see through the illusion...

    This April Fools got me good when BBC screened it again in the 1960s :)

  • lobsterlobster Veteran

    @Vastmind post seems relevant. I have seen some dangerous and disturbing pranks on Youtube, that involve the likelihood of danger or extreme reactions. They are just provocation by bored - how can I put this politely - jackasses.

    Here is something more useful for us to do anyday ...
    https://www.randomactsofkindness.org

    Kundo
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