Internet Pranks Are Getting Rapey-er Every Day
YouTube pranksters have long flirted with the fine line between poor taste and out-right crime (some doing a better job of it than others), but two prank videos released in succession this week seem to have hopped over the fence and left that fine line far behind.
The two videos — released as part of a pranking collective featuring YouTubers LAHWF and Stuart Edge — go well beyond the previous touchy-feely shenanigans of the two notorious pranksters.
Whereas Edge's "stolen kiss" pranks were previously consensual, the newly released "Greeting People With A Kiss" involves bombarding random girls with entirely unsolicited lip-smacking.
The second of the two appears more convivial but might actually be creepier.
In "Sweeping Girls Off Their Feet," Edge and LAHWF approach a different set of nonconsenting women and quite literally lift them off the ground and attempt to walk away. Even BroBible was forced to call this premise "maybe the stupidest prank video idea ever."
Some YouTube commenters also tried their hand at explaining to the practical jokesters why sneaking up behind girls and grabbing them without permission might be problematic.
"How many people yelled 'rape'" and were cut out of the video, wondered one.
"Women aren't objects to 'sweep off their feet' and kiss without their consent," explained another. "This is, by any modest definition, a sexual assault."
Most of these voices, however, were drowned out by the bro-haha of the opposite side.
"The people saying this is rape are just the people who would not get picked up," insisted one prank apologist.
"How is it sexual assault if it's not sexual?" inquired another.
"This is risky," conceded a third. "Some girls might file charges of assault/rape... the cunt girls. I'd only do this to girls I know."