What We Can Learn from That Prank That Went Royally Bad

You've probably read or heard this news this weekend. One of the nurses at the hospital where Kate Middleton stayed for a few days due to HG, committed suicide just two days after a prank was pulled on her and her co-nurses. This prank was done by two Australian DJs, "shock jocks" as they call them, whose program is known to do this sort of thing.

The nurse who took her life was the one who picked up the DJs' call and patched it through Kate's nurse. In other words, she wasn't able to screen the call, and so the other nurse thought they really were talking to the Queen of England and gave updates about their patien's condition.

Here's a proper report:

Cropped from Sky News

People have been too quick to blame the DJs for pulling this prank, being the instigators of what others say was a mean joke.  To a some extent, I would agree that the jocks are not completely blameless. However, this story has sprung so many other issues that made me realize a few things:

1) This is no longer the era of Candid Camera. This is the era of Twitter and Facebook; of social media where most "breaking news" happen even before legitimate news agencies have it.  The stunts pulled by pranksters today are bolder and more dangerous. And yet they continue to exist because there will always be someone who will "get" the joke and would want more of it.

Is it bad to like pranks? Most people would say it isn't nice to laugh at someone else's expense. While I admit that I get a kick out of watching Japanese prank videos on Youtube and I laugh really hard at how "Wow, Mali!" pull theirs, I would probably not be laughing if those happened to me. I don't know how it is on the radio, but I am aware that on television,  most of these shows normally have to ask their "victims" to sign a release before they can air it. But when something like this happens to you even if you don't consent to having it out in public, you still cannot take the experience of the humiliation back.

And when it's on the internet, it's there forever.

The game has changed for us now. Anything we do or say can actually be used against us with just a simple video upload or a photo update on Twitter.

People on the internet can sometimes get too carried away and make a big deal out of the littlest things. I'm fully aware of this, being a netizen who has bitten into the hype more than once. And that's the reason why campaigns like this exist.

2) We have lost sight of respect and compassion for others. By its very nature, pranks have all the intention of mischief.  By its definition, "mischief" is supposed to be just playful. You know... like how kids are being playful. It's supposed to be naughty but harmless, and that you'd have to have the tiniest bit of sense of humor to appreciate it.

But like I said, the pranks pulled today are so dangerous, lines can be crossed. Which is to say that our actions really have this ripple effect on other people.

We can never assume that the other person would be okay with what we do. What we can learn from this is that maybe before we actually pull something off, we need to think about its repercussions a million times. And then, if we clearly see that the other person is not okay with what's been done, then maybe the best thing to do would be to ask for discretion to avoid offending further.

3) We need to be armored with resiliency. Because humiliation can immediately go on a global scale, if our heart is too weak for it, the anguish of going through the motions can be truly unbearable, to the point that taking your own life may be the answer.

But...news flash:  life is already challenging long before the world changed. Unfortunate incidents happen and continue to happen to all of us. There will always be that person who will cross us and offend us. So what could be so, so bad that the only solution would be death?

Suicide, they say, is the act of the weak. And I would've believed that statement a few months ago, only I just recently lost a family friend because of it. It still baffles me a great deal, to this day.  Which brings me back to what I said earlier: we can never assume we know what the other person is going through.  What we've got to do, though, is learn how to cope with life's challenges, bounce back and pick up the pieces.