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Has the popularity of “prank” shows, starting with Candid Camera and *Punk’d” and then on to the massively popular (and utterly garbage) Impractical Jokers, contributed to a lower-trust society? Or is it merely a reflection of the decline in social trust?
It seems, naïvely, that prank shows like these could not have existed in (at least American) 1940s or 1950s society; the overall sense of propriety in public spaces, and the general expectation that one should be what one purports to be and deal forthrightly and in an upstanding manner with others, seems like it was far too high to permit would-be pranksters to operate without scorn.
It seems to suggest something ugly and mean-spirited about our culture that so many TV watchers apparently enjoy watching pranks played on others, and enjoy watching grown men walk around in public creating mistrust and confusion. I don’t like the idea that people are being rewarded for helping to foster an environment in which one can never truly be sure if the guy they’re dealing with is someone totally different from who he purports to be. If I go to a restaurant or a grocery store, I want to be pretty much 100% certain that I’m not going to be forced to participate in tomfoolery instead of just getting what I wanted and expected based on normal societal functioning. If I get asked to a job interview, I want to be damn sure it’s a real job interview and not some farcical joke.
Am I just being a massive fuddy-duddy? Is my obviously-escalating cortisol level turning me into a dour misanthrope? Is the existence of popular prank shows actually helping to strengthen our society’s inoculation against actual con-men, by cultivating people’s healthy suspicion of the motives of others? Is all of this just totally irrelevant and it’s not that deep?
Is is a consequence of shitty behavior no longer being unacceptable. These shows are the symptom of the enshittening of the culture. Which, I suspect, is a consequence of post-modernism, ultimately - if nothing has any meaning or value, then everything is equally shitty, so why bother not being shitty? Some people find their answers to that question, but many don't.
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