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Originally Posted by sanddrag
Every event that starts with "a little bit of fun" has the potential to end in disaster. Please think about all possible outcomes before you do anything stupid.
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Sanddrag,
I concur with the above half of your statement. I agree that the "perfume incident" that you described above was indeed dangerous, ignorant, and disrespectful. However, I believe that a key difference exists between what happened to Vishal and the perfume prank.
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You are lucky none of the victoms if this creaming incident jumped out of bed and punched you in the face and beat you to the ground. You're lucky they didn't eat or inhale any of it. Just think of all the possible outcomes, that is all I ask.
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The members of team 25 and 56 know each other and share very close bonds of friendship - I hung out with them on Friday night at IRI for a while, and I witnessed their interactions first-hand. What separates the creaming incident from the perfume incident is the existence of a bond of friendship between the parties involved. There is a difference between creaming a complete stranger walking down the street, and creaming one of your buddies as a harmless joke.
When it comes to the ethicality of prank-pulling, you must consider the uniqueness of each individual situation. In this case, I believe that there was little potential for anyone to get hurt, and because Vishal was friends with those who were pulling the prank, I doubt that he would have "jumped out of bed and punched" anyone in the face. Most likely he was slightly annoyed, but probably got over it relatively quickly and regarded the incident as a humorous memory afterwards.
This reminds me of something that happened to me when I was at the team social in Atlanta. Someone (ahem... you know who you are) decided it would be funny to shove a brownie in my face. After the initial shock wore off, I thought it was pretty funny. This person is a good friend of mine, and because he was doing it to tease me in a friendly way, I didn't mind. However, if they had decided to do that to a complete stranger, it would have been completely inappropriate. Again, the key difference between a prank that is harmless and a prank that is insensitive is the relationship between those involved. When the prank is between friends (and does not seriously endanger anyone), I believe it is acceptable. When a prank is perpetrated against a complete stranger, is dangerous, publicly humiliating, and plain old NOT funny... then it becomes inappropriate and wrong.
With that said, I agree that you should be careful when determining the appropriateness of a prank. Indeed, you SHOULD consider all of the possible outcomes. In this case however, I think that the creaming incident was relatively harmless, and, because it was between friends, was funny to both of the parties involved. Friends generally have good judgment about where to draw the line with each other, and I doubt that Vishal, or anyone else, felt that they were in danger or were seriously offended.
-- Jaine