Prank Wars

[Bartmanhomer]

Has anyone ever been into a prank war against another person who resorts to pranks, roast and jokes?

[Aedilred]

resorts to pranks, roast and jokes?

Isn't that the point of a prank war?

The idea of a "prank war" in itself seems to me to be a sitcom thing as much as anything: a self-contained episode where there can be a defined start and end and both parties can learn a lesson. In reality, and outside elaborate practical jokes (mostly April Fools related), these things tend in my experience to be opportunistic and indefinite. If I see an opportunity to play a practical joke on someone who I think will appreciate it, I'll do it. With many of my friends, and indeed with my family, the kitchen is open for roasts 24/7 (except when it's clear that it wouldn't be appropriate (e.g. during bereavement periods)). Sometimes this is prompted by a misstatement or something silly they've said, sometimes just for the hell of it.

As anyone who has spent any time with me in a group chat on WhatsApp, Skype or Discord can confirm, I will take any excuse for jokes or general irreverence.

The closest thing to a sitcom-style "prank war" I've been involved in was a series of April Fools' Days with my dad, who caught me out with a couple when I was fairly young (about 11-12) and against whom I retaliated in subsequent years.

[Bartmanhomer]

Isn't that the point of a prank war?

The idea of a "prank war" in itself seems to me to be a sitcom thing as much as anything: a self-contained episode where there can be a defined start and end and both parties can learn a lesson. In reality, and outside elaborate practical jokes (mostly April Fools related), these things tend in my experience to be opportunistic and indefinite. If I see an opportunity to play a practical joke on someone who I think will appreciate it, I'll do it. With many of my friends, and indeed with my family, the kitchen is open for roasts 24/7 (except when it's clear that it wouldn't be appropriate (e.g. during bereavement periods)). Sometimes this is prompted by a misstatement or something silly they've said, sometimes just for the hell of it.

As anyone who has spent any time with me in a group chat on WhatsApp, Skype or Discord can confirm, I will take any excuse for jokes or general irreverence.

The closest thing to a sitcom-style "prank war" I've been involved in was a series of April Fools' Days with my dad, who caught me out with a couple when I was fairly young (about 11-12) and against whom I retaliated in subsequent years.

Yes that the whole point of it.

[el minster]

never a prank war but once an actual skirmish between the 7th and 8th grades involving mass chaos in the school building

[truemane]

I've been in a couple of small, contained prank wars of the You-then-Me-then-You then I forget about it. I'm not much for pranks, in general. And it's hard to be in a 'prank war' that remains at a level that amusing but neither mean nor cruel nor genuinely inconvenient.

My old manager once had a screensaver that was the company name scrolling across the screen. One day I went in and changed "Company Name" to "Company Name [enough spaces to fill one screen] Company Name [enough spaces to fill one screen] Company Name [enough spaces to fill one screen] All Hail Lord [Manager]" Or something to that effect. So he would have to happen to be look at his screen at just the right moment to see it.

It took almost two months. The wait made it funnier.

He then put tape over the bottom of my mouse. Good times. I retaliated by taking a screenshot of his desktop and making that his background and hiding all his folders so he couldn't click anything and didn't know why.

But that was about enough.

[el minster]

I once hid the folders of a classmate. The teacher went ballistic on me.

[Lacco]

If you do not lock your computer when you are away from the desk, people will put a duck picture as your background. If you are really not careful and leave it unlocked several times, you may find an e-mail to your superior detailing how you wish the company would treat unicorns with dignity or that you would like to propose a new meeting agenda that includes food wars and clown outfits.

Since the superiors are rather strict about IT security, they actually like this proactive approach.

Other office pranks included calls that came as soon as the person was leaving office for coffee, putting salt into sugar bag when someone was "borowing" it even if it was signed (which usually means "mine mine, only mine") and timed queueing of 20-30 e-mails on someone's birthday (each containing exactly 1 half of a joke).

We do the harmless stuff.

[Khedrac]

If you do not lock your computer when you are away from the desk, people will put a duck picture as your background. If you are really not careful and leave it unlocked several times, you may find an e-mail to your superior detailing how you wish the company would treat unicorns with dignity or that you would like to propose a new meeting agenda that includes food wars and clown outfits.

This one usually leads to an email being sent from your account saying that cakes are on you tomorrow...

However the second-year computer science students at university were a little nastier (note, this wasn't a version of MS windows - it was X-windows).
Step 1: find an unlocked terminal.
Step 2: screen-grab an image of the user's desktop (with all the icons etc.)
Step 3: move their application icons and shortcuts off the visible area of the screen (yes, it used to be possible).
Step 4: set the screen-grab of their original desktop as the background picture.
Step 5: wait, then laugh as the user wonders why none of their icons respond to being clicked on...

[Lacco]

This one usually leads to an email being sent from your account saying that cakes are on you tomorrow...

However the second-year computer science students at university were a little nastier (note, this wasn't a version of MS windows - it was X-windows).
Step 1: find an unlocked terminal.
Step 2: screen-grab an image of the user's desktop (with all the icons etc.)
Step 3: move their application icons and shortcuts off the visible area of the screen (yes, it used to be possible).
Step 4: set the screen-grab of their original desktop as the background picture.
Step 5: wait, then laugh as the user wonders why none of their icons respond to being clicked on...

One of the more-epic e-mail pranks came from neighbor office. Two colleagues that sat on opposite computers both left their computers unlocked. A single proactive colleague engaged in frantic e-mailing from one to the next, sending over 30 e-mails from one to the other. It was rather epic chain which ended with the two professing love to each other.

As for the screen-grab joke: we used to do the screen-rotation (ctrl+shift+arrows) prank quite often as a warning before a duck, so the poor soul that left his computer unlocked came back with their screen rotated/flipped.

When people got used to it, we switched to a screen-grab & rotating the screen by 180 degrees. They came back to a rotated screen where nothing worked properly.

And then: rotate the screen-grab, rotate the screen. The background is correct, the taskbar is up, mouse is reversed.

Oh, fun times.

[HalfTangible]

My little brother used to work at my uncle's company, and one day my uncle told him he needed to borrow his car. So bro lets uncle borrow the car, because he's the boss of the company and you don't talk back to the boss. When uncle brings the car back, it's filled to the brim with shredded paper that bro has to clean out.

Little did my uncle understand the prank war he'd just started.

First thing bro does is go out and buy like 50 of those air fresheners you find in cars, and he starts taping them up all over uncle's office. Some of them are obvious but he also hides a bunch of them, in places like the air vent or underneath a trophy. When uncle goes into his office, he immediately reels back because the smell was practically a physical force. Bro also looked up online how to reprogram uncle's mouse so that the left and right click swap. My uncle was actually pretty good-natured about it. He got frustrated and screamed out bro's name when his mouse stopped working properly, but that was the extent of his worse reactions. This went on for... I believe two weeks back and forth before they both agreed to just call it off so they could get more work done. I don't remember every prank they did to one another, but those were the big ones that always make me laugh.

---

My mother tried to prank me once. When we moved to our current home, she bought me new towels and floor mats that were all furry, bright pink and sparkly. To her disappointment I just accepted this and dealt with it because I figured it came with the house (it didn't).

It was then that my family learned that pranking me is pointless because I just won't realize it was a prank.

---

In high school, we would go to our teacher's classroom after lunch and wait outside until she came to open it. Sometimes it would already be unlocked, others not. One time it was unlocked, but I arrived first, so after realizing it was unlocked, I sat down by the door and waited. About half of the class arrived and also sat down to wait with me because they assumed the door was locked. Eventually I just started laughing and opened the door myself.

[clingydreamers]

I'm scared to go too far with my pranks, but I change the spoons in cereal for forks. XD

[2D8HP]

Has anyone ever been into a prank war against another person who resorts to pranks, roast and jokes?

Does gaslighting count?

[Calthropstu]

I have. Middle school. It got vicious.

It started with me declaring that the "popular kids'" table was now my table. I literally kicked all the popular kids out of their favorite table. I wanted to prove a point, that "their table" didn't have their name on it, and anyone could sit there.

Needless to say, this made me public enemy #1. Someone wrote loser on my locker and I started getting "jostled" in the halls. I responded by supergluing all of the locks on their lockers so that they couldn't rotate anymore. They started leaving tacks on my seat and all sorts of other crap. I responded by stealing their homework after they had completed it but before turning it in (I had a perfect opportunity show up for it) They responded by destroying my bridge I was making for science.

There was more back and forth, but what ultimately brought it to an end was when someone removed the bottom of my bunsen burner and put some oil on my desk. Person doing it got expelled. I and the others got a 4 day suspension because we started bickering about the prank chain in front of the principle.