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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?
I think you are on to something, of all the entertainment genres comedy seems to be the most dependent on the mood of the times. Standup, comedy films and TV shows rarely age well (there are notable exceptions).
But there's another element, people today enjoy cringe which also seems to be a more recent phenomenon. People like seeing others humiliated. Schadenfreude is a natural human vice, but enjoying that feeling you get when you watch a video of someone be humiliated? I don't recall America's Funniest Home videos featuring cringe to that extent, really /r/cringe on Reddit portrays a genre that doesn't seem to have a pre-internet equivalent.
I think the rise of cringe humor is mostly due to the popularity of The Office and its various copycats. I also feel like cringe humor was more of a 2010s phenomenon (the way "random" humor was a 2000s phenomenon) and this decade we're seeing more of what I would call "saccharine" humor in shows like Ted Lasso where the goal is to making jokes that no one could possibly find offensive (and I therefore find totally unfunny).
It really is incredible how quickly the reddit tier comedy memes come and go, and you look back and wonder how anyone found them funny. Comedy seems to be a very communal form of entertainment where everyone is on the same wavelength through some sort of psychic powers. Other genres seems more individualistic and timeless, like romance or adventure. Comedy ages like milk.
I don't know if comedy always ages like milk, even if it's very "of its time." For example, Beavis and Butthead is very characteristic of 90s "dumb idiot" humor (Homer Simpson, Adam Sandler movies, Dumb and Dumber, etc.) but has stood the test of time quite well IMO.
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