You have probably seen the new prank hitting the Internet recently. Parents, siblings, or friends blithely subject kids to the anxiety or vexation of believing that they have become invisible. The videos of these pranks on YouTube and social media almost always evoke laughter, albeit at the expense of the kids suffering a temporary emotional trauma.
How the new prank all started
The prank is based on one episode of the Netflix show “Magic for Humans.” The show (a clip of which is embedded below) features a magician tricking two adults into believing that they have actually become invisible. With everyone in the audience as accomplices, it’s understandable how the “victims” were convinced that they ceased to be visible (note: the persons pranked will be referred to as the “victims” hereon).
The show’s producers organized an outdoor magic show that was supposed to attract one “victim” to join the audience. The magician performed some magic tricks to help set the mood. Eventually, the magician invited two people from the audience to join him in a performance. One of them was an accomplice, and the other was the victim of the prank.
The magician asked the two invited audience members to sit on the chairs in front. He then proceeded to turn the accomplice invisible by covering him with a blanket, counting from 1 to 3, and pulling the sheet off to show that the person was no longer visually perceivable. He successfully made the accomplice disappear right before the eyes of the victim and everyone else. This step is vital in building up the believability of the magic.
The magician then covered the victim with a blanket to initiate the process of making him invisible. As the magician pulled the sheet off, everyone in the audience acts shocked or bewildered. Everyone was trying to convince the victim that he too became invisible.
At some point, audience members (accomplices) approached the seat where the victim supposedly disappeared to take a selfie with the newly invisible man. They then acted shocked that the victim did not appear in their photo. They intentionally dangled their phones so the victim could see the “shocking” image they took.
To make the magic more believable to the victim, the magician then pretended to shout out instructions to the accomplice who was supposedly the first to be made invisible, while explaining that he and the audience could neither see nor hear him. The magician pretended to ask the “invisible accomplice” to hold a bottle up in the air and, through his tricks, made it appear that someone invisible was holding the bottle up in the air. He then asked the victim to do the same, and the audience acted like they were seeing the bottle suspended in the air on its own.
The victims in the show appeared totally convinced that they became invisible. They were shown doing things in an attempt to confirm if they have indeed vanished from sight. It’s difficult to ascertain, though, if these victims were genuinely tricked. They could have also been actors hired to act gullible and fooled.
How the prank works
The prank is considerably more straightforward than the setup mentioned above.
Before the execution of the prank, the pranksters took a fake photo (the selfie in which the prank victim does not appear). This phoney photo is an essential prop that will be indirectly shown to the subject of the prank later on. It’s not necessary to be precise with the fake photo. What’s important is the illusion of invisibility depicted in it.
During the actual prank, the target is covered by the blanket, and the prankster utters an incantation or does a count. As the blanket is removed, the accomplices then showcase their acting chops, pretending as if the invisibility magic is working.
Many kids will not immediately believe everything. That’s why the next step, the taking of the selfie/groupie, is needed. In most of the videos of this prank, the strongest reactions from the kids happen when they see the fake photo of them not appearing in the selfie/groupie that was supposedly taken with them on it. The disbelief translates into a scream, a hysterical cry, or a shock that makes them speechless or anxious.
Incantations and histrionics
One of the features of the prank is the use of chants that supposedly induce invisibility. Different pranksters have their own versions of the magical incantations. Not everyone uses these, though. Those who recite their incantatory phrases use gibberish, foreign words, or some real words unfamiliar to the kids. Some pranksters try to make their chants less suspicious by using a book prop from which they supposedly read the magical words.
These incantations don’t appear to matter that much in the prank. Kids usually don’t pay attention to them. Without them, the prank would still have the same effect. In one video, the pranksters simply uttered “telekinesis” repeatedly, and everything still worked as expected.
Warning from psychologists
Child psychologists warn that this new prank could negatively affect children. Psychologist Aryeh Sova of Child & Family Treatment in Lincoln Park and Skokie explains that it can emotionally and behaviorally harm a child. Sova says the prank tends to mock and shame children in front of people they care about. Additionally, it can make children distrustful as the disappointment of getting deceived lingers. The video recording and online sharing of all of these also don’t help.
Another child psychologist, Fiona Martin of the Sydney Child Psychology Center, has unfavorable thoughts on the prank. Martin believes the prank is creating unnecessary distress, with children crying and some even reacting hysterically to it. She does not see any cognitive or developmental benefit in doing the prank on kids.
Why do kids fear invisibility?
It’s interesting to see children dreading their becoming invisible when invisibility is supposed to be a superpower familiar to kids. Many shows about superheroes feature invisibility in a positive light. In 2017, Ripley’s Believe It or Not commissioned a survey that found that most kids see their parents are superheroes with superpowers. One of the most popular superhero skills or superpowers children believe their parents possess is invisibility.
Almost all of the pranked kids dreaded the experience of becoming invisible, which does not seem to add up. The common belief is that kids love their superheroes and would want to have their powers. Those who have seen many of these prank videos, however, would likely figure out why the fear exists. It’s different becoming invisible voluntarily and suddenly disappearing and becoming inaudible to the people you love and trust.
There are videos of the prank that show kids getting excited at the thought of becoming invisible initially. However, they turn anxious later on as they realize that they are no longer able to communicate with their family or friends. It seems it’s not exactly the invisibility that scares them; it’s mostly the thought of losing connection.
Does it work with adults?
The chances of making this prank work on adults are rather slim. Even the adults in the Netflix show that started this prank didn’t appear to be that credibly duped. There were traces of them acting like accomplices themselves to fool the viewers of the show. However, the possibility of this prank effectively convincing adults is not entirely nil. With the right setup and acting, it’s possible to convince adults to believe something everyone would typically consider unbelievable.
Take a look at the famous Brazilian mirror prank below. It shows convincingly real people who appear to genuinely believe that they don’t have reflections on a mirror. With a controlled environment and twins credibly acting like mirror images of each other on the opposite sides of a plain glass window, several unsuspecting random people fell for the prank.
The takeaways
Two points stand out in all of these. First, children are largely trusting and gullible especially when it comes to their family and friends. The prank works on them even with bad acting or poor execution mainly because of the trust they have in their family and friends. Abusing this trust can harm children in the process.
The second point is that the fear of invisibility is mostly about the fear of losing connection. That nobody sees or hears you induces anxiety and frustration. Kids don’t see any benefit in becoming invisible as they realize that it isolates them. As the kid in the first video above explained, he was scared as he thought he was already in the spirit realm.
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