Will everyone really be on edge and ready to defend themselves immediately (with weapons), ruining all the fun?

анонимный вопрос

Alexander Rozov, in his recent books from the endless Meganesian cycle, painted a rather vivid picture of what unfortunate pranksters face in a society where everyone is on edge and ready to defend themselves immediately. In those stories, the pranksters took a severe beating, but since the footage of them getting beaten was broadcast live, their ratings only grew, along with their monetization. It’s a strange way to make a living, but people commit to even more serious eccentricities just for the sake of a joke.

Generally, a sense of humor is the ability to derive pleasure from the discrepancy between what is observed and what is expected (not my definition; I don’t remember where I read it). In a society where everyone is on edge, it will indeed be difficult to maintain a sense of humor in situations where you have every reason to perceive a subject’s actions as an attack, only for it to turn out to be a prank. However, the already famous prank with Vader and the street toilet is perfectly suitable for replication in any armed society. Even if the girl in the screenshot had a submachine gun instead of a bag, she would hardly have opened fire, but she certainly could have raised her weapon to see how these guys liked a counter-prank, and whether Lord Vader would wet his pants.