Like April Fools’ Day writ large, prank shows don’t make a whole lot of sense. Ostensibly funny, they mostly make victims of people who are too trusting and provide an inexplicable social justification for being a jerk.
“Punk’d” wasn’t too bad, because celebrities can definitely pay for therapy, and “Impractical Jokers” is mostly just annoying. But Netflix has a new idea for pranking the populace, and it’s even worse than its predecessors.
The streaming service has roped “Stranger Things” star Gaten Matarazzo into executive producing a show that, from its first descriptions, sounds savage enough to make even Ashton Kutcher cringe.
Deadline reports: “Each episode of this terrifying and hilarious prank show takes two complete strangers who each think they’re starting their first day at a new job. It’s business as usual until their paths collide and these part-time jobs turn into full-time nightmares.”
Yes, it is literally the stuff of nightmares to start a new job and to realize you’re being thrust into awkward or uncomfortable situations beyond your control. The unemployment rate hit a 50-year low this spring, but that doesn’t mean now is a good time to start messing with the unemployed.
Nevertheless, Netflix may have misread the room, because its audience doesn’t appear to be excited about a show that exploits the working class.
Yeah because when I get a new job to support myself. What I really want is some rich kid already making 100x more then me pranking my ass on tv for laughs. #PrankEncounters #StrangerThings https://t.co/gCWlRXTdRA
— chris calhoun (@chrishope50) June 15, 2019
Genuine cruelty. Do better @netflix .
— Mimsy Clemente ⚾️ (@MimsyYamaguchi) June 15, 2019
No further details about the show have been revealed. So it’s still possible that “Prank Encounters” isn’t that bad. But it’s hard to imagine that there’s a silver lining to realizing that your new job is not really a job at all and that its whole purpose is to turn your life into a fun-for-the-family hellscape.
Maybe the backlash will encourage Netflix to rethink “Prank Encounters,” or maybe it’s just a chance to realize something producers should’ve recognized all along: Kids grow out of pranks, and television has outgrown prank shows.
