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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 strongly suspect that some the low-tech equivalents of prank shows were existed in the 1940s and 1800s, whether that be individual groups of young people pulling pranks. Can't think of any examples off the top of my head though. Also pretty sure scams were widespread (although likely less than now, internet makes finding good marks easy and the current grant of anonymity to internet users (which could rescinded should a govt choose!) makes punishing scammers harder).
If humor is about exploring contrast or confusion, pranks serve the function of playing around with situations that are socially marginal or bad, informing individuals of what happens within them without actually causing the potential harm. So a prank where you steal a friend's trinket might help illuminate the routes by which an actual thief could steal something important. Obviously that literal prank serves no such function today, but you can imagine how something something evolution and how humor might serve that function in some ways today.
And that doesn't mean prank shows are good - it's still a simulacra of something that once had purpose but no longer does - but it's not really reducing trust as the thing it mimics normally builds trust, in the same way that fucking around with your friends builds trust.
Okay, a quick google found this. Which, after I googled, I noticed was in your OP! But wikipedia describes it as a popular TV show beginning in 1948. So, clearly, they did exist in the 1950s? "it often featured practical jokes" ... "The show involved concealed cameras filming ordinary people being confronted with unusual situations, sometimes involving trick props, such as a desk with drawers that pop open when one is closed or a car with a hidden extra gas tank. When the joke was revealed, victims were told the show's catchphrase, "Smile, you're on Candid Camera." The catchphrase became a song with music and lyrics by Sid Ramin."
I've also never been 'pranked' in a grocery store, or a job interview, and don't think many randomly-selected americans have been either. I haven't met anyone who has. I think in at least half of all pranks (e.g. on youtube or tiktok), the supposed victims are in on it, and the other half are infrequent enough that pranks themselves aren't an issue.
I highly recommend the candid camera movie spin off "What would you say to a naked lady" which I believe is still on Amazon prime. It's the basic premise, but the hidden camera just films people confronted with a naked young woman in various quotidian circumstance. Some laugh, some ogle, some try to cover her up or help her, some proposition.
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