Personal belongings strewn out on the quad in a yard sale, doors and curtains removed from a dorm room, someone running screaming through another dorm half dressed, or hiding someone’s car by covering it in snow exactly where he left it. These are but a few pranks pulled by Sophomore Garret Holt since attending Hillsdale College.
“Pranking is an essential part of the dorm life because it makes people very on guard and very spontaneous,” Holt said.
In any environment where a large groups of people live in close proximity there is expected to be some measure of mischief. Pranking seems to allow a certain amount of mischief to be expressed while remaining in the bounds of both the law and healthy fun.
“Rule number one is by initiating pranking you are expecting retaliation!” senior Laura Wegmann said. “Sometimes people don’t understand this rule, and when someone gets them back with a bigger, badder prank, they get a little pouty.”
According to Holt, there are a variety of types of people when it comes to pranking. The key is to prank people who don’t take it like a beaten puppy but at the same time, don’t take it personally when someone pranks them.
“It’s tricky because there is a fine line between pranking and vandalism and it needs to find a middle ground with the psychotic and the passive puppy personality,” he said.
Even so, some pranksters find it necessary to draw a line even within the accepted realm of pranking.
“There’s pranking and then there’s straight shenanigans,” Holt said. “From library pranks, like sneaking books into backpacks when you leave the library, spying on someone, etcetera. Usually [shenanigans] are less directed at one person or group and more for the exceeding joy to a group. There’s no malice.”
Many people just dabble in the “shenanigan” category of pranking, others spend ample time crafting the perfect prank.
“I don’t prank a lot, it takes a lot out of me. It takes a lot of time, last time I did it took me a couple of months,” sophomore Katie Malm said. “ I like it to be something a little more interesting and a little more tasteful.”
The key to a good prank is planning and knowing your target, Malm said, and avoid vandalism and breaking laws.
“I talk to a lot of people and get a lot of advice before I do anything, and I wouldn’t put it past me to get family involved!” she said. “All I can say [about my last prank] is that it ended up with four cop cars, but nothing illegal!”
tsawyer1@hillsdale.edu
