When planning a joke or prank one of the wisest things to know… is your audience.
Videos of pranks going wrong are all over the internet.
And oh how so many have gone wrong.
Always prepare for fallout.
Case in point…
Redditor Appletarian wanted to discuss their experience and get some feedback. So naturally, they came to visit the “Am I The A**hole”(AITA) subReddit.
They asked:
“AITA for pretending to be an ‘Appletarian’ (eating only apple derived foods/drinks) for 3 weeks as a prank, causing my friends to have an intervention for me?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I got the idea a few weeks ago to prank my friends by pretending to be an ‘Appletarian.'”
“Meaning somebody who only eats food products that are derived from apples and would only drink apple juice or apple cider.”
“I told them them all that I had read on the internet that eating only apples was the healthiest thing for you.”
“When I first told them they thought I was joking.”
“But they underestimated how committed I would be to a joke.”
“So, whenever in the presence of one of my friends (or friend-of-friends/coworkers/etc who knew them) I was very careful to only be seen eating apples or drinking apple juice/cider.”
“Apples whole, apples diced, apple sauce, the inside of an apple pie, baked apples, candy apples with the chocolate shaved off, etc.”
“Finally after about a week they bought that I had become an Appletarian.”
“They started giving me information about how unhealthy it was to only eat apples, and growing increasingly exasperated by it.”
“Some of them even got angry.”
“But I wanted to stick with the joke.”
“Finally, after the end of 3 weeks, I walked into what I was told was a movie night but was actually an intervention for me.”
“They were all super concerned about my well being and had all sorts of information or whatever.”
“Finally I started laughing hysterically.”
“They were confused as hell so I told them I had been faking it the whole time and had been eating real meals outside their knowledge.”
“I even took out some beef jerky from my pant pocket to prove it and munched it.”
“I thought they’d appreciate the joke but they were actually really annoyed.”
“My girlfriend even broke up with me over this because a few days ago I had ruined our date night when I told the waiter I only wanted apples because I was an Appletarian.”
“And had ’embarrassed her for a dumb joke.'”
“In my opinion the joke was solid and they should appreciate my commitment to the prank.”
“But, did I go too far?”
“AITA?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed some options to the question AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Many Redditors declared OP was NOT the A**hole.
“NAH. I may be in a minority, but I think this is freaking funny as hell.”
“I feel like your girlfriend over-reacted but maybe in the future, include girlfriend in said prank.”
“Because I don’t want to reply to this several times.”
“When I mention including girlfriend in the prank, I mean either his now ex if they get back together or any future girlfriends.” ~ REDDIT
“NTA absolute legend.”
“That level of commitment is on par with the method acting of Daniel Day Lewis.”
“Thanks for the late night laugh.” ~ Not_Mt_Everest
“Seriously. How old is he??”
“I am super impressed.”
“This is a feat and a story that will be told for the rest of his life.”
“OP will go very far in life and I’m not kidding.”
“The attitude and dedication this takes to pull off with no friend’s knowledge or help is actually mind boggling.”
“Congrats OP you are awesome.” ~ jillanco
“I don’t think we can be sure OP did that though.”
“For all we know she’d have been cool with it had she been included.”
“She also may really enjoy almost every other type of joke OP would pull, just didn’t appreciate being the only target of the joke that one time in public.”
“She could also be entirely incompatible with OP and this is the best thing that could have happened.”
“That’s why I agree with /u/Kerlysis, NAH, but the date thing was pushing it.”
“It’s okay, but it’s also worth him taking a bit of a closer look at.” ~ Soup_Kitchen
“YTA. Probably.”
“Seems like you must have gone too far, since people got genuinely worried for you, and your G[irl]F[riend] broke up with you.”
“Personally, I admire your commitment to the joke.”
“Then again, I once made a friend cry because she never knew when to worry and when not to because another friend and I would always make stuff up.”
“Turns out it is probably better to be kind to others and consider their feelings than to feel awesome about the pranking.” ~ REDDIT
“I feel like it’s likely the gf organized the intervention, and lost a lot of face with people.”
“It’s important to keep in mind that we’re only hearing this from OP’s P[oint] O[f] V[iew] as well.”
“Which could very well be putting rose colored glasses on the whole situation, and leaving out any other relationship problems that OP may or may not have been oblivious too.”
“Additionally if I were a friend of OP’s I wouldn’t be so worried about the diet after 3 weeks as I would be about concerned with what the hell is going on with their mental health to cause such a bats**t insane non insignificant lifestyle change.”
“Sure long term only apple is probably not great, but that’s kinda change would have me worried about their mental.”
“It’s not like going vegan or vegetarian or pescatarian where we’ve got this public discourse that’s normalized the diet.”
“Especially if you were to go and google Apple only diet and not find anything.”
“Additionally we don’t really now if this kind of prank is normal behavior for OP or if they’re just starting and immediately turned it up to 11.” ~ SimbaOnSteroids
“The problem for me is the duration.”
“Like yes, jokes are funny and pranks are too sometimes but you have to have the good sense to know when to stop.”
“If I were the gf, I probably would have found this to be harmless right up until the point it affected somebody else negatively.”
“Not the other friends being worried, but the waiter.”
“OP put that waiter in a super awkward position during a time when said waiter was at work, trying to be professional.”
“Super rude, super inconsiderate, and you shouldn’t involve unassuming strangers in your pranks.”
“OP is TA for involving a stranger, INFO on how often he pranks the girlfriend, and otherwise how he treats her.”
“Not TA for pranking his friends and making them worry.”
“Personally, I like very few pranks.”
“This one seems pretty harmless.”
“But pranking gets too close to the line of bullying, for me, so I’m super wary of people who do a lot of pranks without respect for how the person they’re pranking is going to feel about it.” ~ mleeholm
“NTA. Your gf is an a**hole for breaking up with you after embarrassing her once.”
“I’m sure that if you asked people I have dated they would say I embarrassed them on a weekly basis in one way or another.” ~ Viselli
“NTA (kind of) yes you’re an a**hole, all pranks have that about them, but not in a bad way, from what you’ve said no one got hurt, and there’s no permanent damage.”
“Apart from, it seems, your relationships.”
“I’m trying to put myself in their shoes, and I can imagine that they’re annoyed because you’re a really good liar.”
“No one likes being lied to, especially when it caused them to actually take you seriously and be worried about your health.”
“Your gf is overreacting I think, but I don’t know her, is she quite uptight usually?”
“And I wasn’t there for the date, how embarrassing were you?”
“I do think they all deserve an apology at the least.”
“Yes it was a prank, yes you executed the prank incredibly well, but pranks are lies, and lies need to be apologised for.” ~ saraloverock
“NTA, but the first rule of comedy is: know your audience.”
“A joke is something that’s funny to the people you’re telling it to.”
“I personally think it was hilarious, but who knows, maybe in your friend’s shoes it was annoying because they were stressed out worrying about you.” ~ Discothecube
“NAH. Your prank was super hilarious and I whole heartedly love you for it.”
“Your friends were just super concerned and probably talked daily about you soon dying or stuff like that, so that’s why it’s understandable why they’ll be mad at first.”
“In a few weeks they’ll laugh about it, because it’s just that ridiculous.”
“Your gf is just weird man.”
“‘You embarrassed me, so now I break up with you,’ but she would have stayed together with you if you were a legit Appletarian?”
“I feel like she just uses this incidence as a reason to finally break up with you.”
“Not sure though.”
“Thanx for making my day!” ~ REDDIT
“NTA. The joke is relatively harmless and has no victim.”
“3 weeks is not really that long for a practical joke.”
“One date being ‘ruined’ is also ridiculous; if your partner can’t be mildly inconvenienced or embarrassed occasionally then sounds like a person you wouldn’t wanna be with.” ~ BennyA***enis
“NTA. Not only is it act pretty funny, but you caused absolutely 0 harm to anyone.”
“I don’t get people saying you took it too far, how the heck can you take eating apples too far?” ~ dezzi240
Well OP, sounds like Reddit is with you, for the most part.
Your commitment is admirable.
Sounds like everyone may just need a little cool off period.
Good luck.