Online Prank: Harm Outweighs Fun

by Christian Villamor

                In a time where pandemic disease havoc to lives and economies in the world, everyone strives to sustain their daily needs. Yet, for some people, pandemic crisis is not a big deal at all. They even made fun of it to have some entertainment.

              Various posts and stories of delivery drivers being pranked by customers through ‘order-cancellation’ are widely-spread in social media. These incidents are concrete evidence of how people outweigh emotions over intellect. Once entertained, they do not care about consequences anymore. This made me realized that at some points, some social media people tell netizens that it’s okay to play with feelings and get satisfied with “entertainment” they think they give to their viewers setting aside the feelings of people got pranked. What do they get in return? Millions of views? Monetary reward? Fame?

               Playing someone’s feelings for entertainment is never fun. It causes stress and trauma to not just the person, but to his/her family as well. Whatever satisfaction or material rewards they get from this activity on social media, these cannot overpower the fact that at some point they played with other peoples’ emotions.

                May we all be mindful of the words we utter, more mindful of our actions via social media platforms, and most mindful of the emotions and feelings of our audiences, in general. Miss Universe 2015 Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach once said and I put emphasis once more: Think before you click.