Life

This Tinder Prank Is Doing It All Wrong

by Kat George

Whatever happened to the good old days when we were doing the best pranks ever. Back when Ashton Kutcher would hire movers to repossess Justin Timberlake's property, and then jump out from behind some bushes to yell "PUNK'D!" at which point the two millionaires would laugh, ruffle each others hair, and go out for some diamond-encrusted milkshakes to have a chin wag about the whole thing? These days, pranks are much less involved, and Ashton is nowhere to be found. (Please, Nev and Max, if you're reading this, next time someone gets Catfished can we please have Ashton there to yell "CATFISH'D!"?). There is no finesse to pranking these days! It's so vulgar and rough and lacking all the lightheartedness it once did. Take, for example, this stupid, Kutcher-less prank: Guys were set up on a Tinder date with a beautiful woman whose ex would show up mid-date to...I guess make the date guy afraid for his life? Because a huge man or woman threatening you with violence is FUNNY, RIGHT!?

The "exes" in this video are either a huge man, or an equally tall and imposing woman. In one scenario involving the male ex, he backs the Tinder suitor into a corner, presses his body intimidatingly against the smaller, surrendering man's and says, "I'm going to kill you." In the scenario with the female ex, she pulls out a gun, pretty much causing the Tinder date to piss himself. I really don't get why that's funny. There are a million and one ways a Tinder related prank could be made funny—making people fear for their lives isn't one of them. Tinder dates are already awkward and embarrassing enough, so why not just employ methods to make it MORE awkward and embarrassing? Fear and violence is cheap and not to mention mean, and I'm sure the pranked guys felt the same way given their faces are totally blurred. (My guess is that none of them wanted to sign a release, for which I cannot blame them.)

The aim is to show men that Tinder dating is dangerous for them too, which is stupid, because is we took the statistics of date rape and put them against "death by random Tinder date's angry ex" I'm sure we'd find that the two don't even come close to overlapping. This is basically the prank equivalent of Gwyneth Paltrow trying to spend $29 for a week's worth of groceries: It started out thinking it had a good point but wound up making everyone involved look like a moronic asshole. Things start going REALLY badly in the prank when one of the Tinder date guys wants to FIGHT the ex-boyfriend. Then when the prank is revealed to him, he wants to fight the host too. Watch the whole horrible shit show below:

Meanwhile, let's cleanse our palettes with some good old fashioned Punk'd-ing, thanks to Mr. Kutcher. Because as we all know, a rich, famous, beautiful celebrity crying over another rich, famous, beautiful celebrity doing an embarrassing prank on them is like men's rights groups crying over reverse-sexism, i.e., not a thing. Here are my favorite Punk'd moments (if you didn't pick up on it by now, I love Punk'd). Although it could just be because I like saying Punk'd minus the "e".

1. The Beyoncé Christmas Punking (back when you could still do shit like this to Beyoncé, who was still making music with Sean Paul. I dare someone to try this now.)

2. The punking that started it all: Justin Timberlake's repossession (WITH DAX SHEPARD AS THE REPO GUY!)

3. When Kim Kardashian got punk'd and totally totally threw Lord Disick under the bus

4. The one Ashton punks Britney but obviously she's a Queen about it and does this rap

5. When Usher got Punk'd but really just proved how much of an amazing older brother he is (ALSO STARRING BJ NOVAK!)

Image: MTV