April 5, 2025 • 28 mins
Prank scares are funny. But, why are they funny? And, why do so many prank scares take place in or around the bathroom? This April fool's day episode, we explore prank scares as they related to scaring people in the bathroom.
Watch this Episode on YouTube!
Connect: www.privy-cast.com
Social and Contact Links: linktr.ee/privycast
--
Give Thanks, Give Back: Wounded Warrior Project Living Water International -- Music: Intro and Outro Derived from: "Barroom Ballet" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ - Transition Music: "Warbled Reflection" by Podington Bear
--
Privy is proud to be hosted by Podbean. Looking to start a podcast? Learn more at: https://www.podbean.com/Privycast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
That's extreme.
Now if you've got diarrhea, like diarrhea happens.
It happens to the best of us.
But you gotta know you, you know?
Welcome back to privy privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom.
(00:25):
I'm your host Hunter Hoover and I love bathrooms.
Welcome back everyone.
At the point of this episode's released you have survived prank season.
Happy April.
Normally when we close out the month of March we begin looking at a variety of
(00:46):
bathroom pranks to gear us up for pranking season at the beginning of April.
That said, OWWA is currently traveling and I did not want to deal with an abundance of newbathroom pranks as I'm going to be busy enough.
Sorry kids, leave me alone.
(01:08):
But it's pranking season or at least it was.
And in the past, we've looked at a number of pranks and you know what?
I'm going to be honest with you.
Every year I make a comment about how like, don't actually know if anybody's doing AprilFool's pranks.
And then every year I got somebody that tries to April Fool's pranks me.
(01:30):
Like leave me alone.
I'm an adult.
I'm an old man.
You're going to harm me pranking me with your ne'er do well nonsense.
And we've looked at a number of bathroom pranks and I think what's happened is in lookingat these
I've actually inadvertently or maybe on purposely, I went back and listened to one ofthese pretty heinous ideas that I have put forth into the world.
(01:55):
But I think what it really is, is it's just giving like punk, but teens firepower to levyagainst the teachers, adults, parents, and the people in their lives via bathroom
shenanigans.
And we've talked a lot of bathroom pranks since the start of this show.
(02:16):
upper deckers, fake soap, pee pee traps, cellophane gags, dyed shampoo to dye your hair,poopy porch bombs.
There's truly been no shortage to ways that you can prank some.
Feel free to go back and listen to any number of our April Fool's Day prank relatedepisodes if you want a treat or maybe some ideas for next year.
(02:42):
And this year for April Fool's Day,
or at least in, we're getting close and I mean we're within the ballpark.
We're four days off.
It's the fifth.
We are not going to be looking at pranks this year.
Rather, we are going to be exploring an idea that I believe is prank adjacent.
(03:03):
I think every good prank when you prank somebody, pranked, it's nice to be able to revelin the prank.
You know, you gag some, not gag them, dear Lord.
Help us all.
Forgive us, Father.
We've strayed far from you.
But you pull a goof on somebody, and part of the joy of the goof is you get to kind of sitin the goof for a little bit.
(03:28):
I sit in my goof regularly.
Sometimes I goof myself really hard, and I just have to sit and just sit in the goof for aminute.
And I was going through comments on Spotify, and we're going to get to more of thosecomments at the end of the show.
But one of the comments that was on actually last year's privy pranks episode was to rubhot sauce on somebody's bar soap.
(03:52):
Now, I would even argue you could get away with deodorant.
Now, let me tell you something.
It's very adjacent.
And thank you, America.
I think it was America for posting that on Spotify.
Thank you for putting that out there.
I'm not going to say.
It's very close.
It's very similar.
A few years back, we said rub icy hot or ben gay, as the kids call it.
on someone's bathroom products.
(04:14):
But man, hot sauce is pretty diabolical.
Like, depending on the hot sauce, you could do some serious damage.
Like, if you get hot sauce in your eyes, it can be game over jelly.
Like, yeah.
Prank!
But this year's prank, and it's a prank in quotation marks because it's not exactly aprank per se.
(04:34):
And I'm gonna explain, before we get into this phenomenon.
I want to explain why I specifically want to talk about this.
Recently, my internet scrolling, my doom scrolling, the 20 minutes of doom scrolling I doa day, has been littered with scare videos.
(04:55):
Now what I mean by this, this is not videos that scare me.
These are videos where I get to enjoy somebody scaring someone else.
It's a treat.
It's always a good time to see these scare prank prank videos.
It's videos of people getting scared and kind of what I want to explore here.
(05:16):
And we're gonna get to the bathroom, I promise.
We're in the bathroom.
We're gonna get to the bathroom is the topic too.
But I want to explore why these videos are so funny.
Like, they're just hilarious.
And it begs a question.
Why is people getting scared so funny?
Like, what is it about people getting hoogity dang old boogity that just brings me suchdelight?
(05:42):
It's not even a prank.
It takes very little planning.
It's not even that high brow of a thing to do.
Yet, here I am laughing hysterically at people getting scared.
Now, I'll also say, if I get scared, I get so mad.
Like, it makes me angry.
I get triggered.
(06:04):
There's people's reactions and there's some classic like on TikTok, there's a number ofclassic scares.
Like you have your characters truly.
There's the lady that pees her pants.
We're going to talk about that.
There's the thick gentlemen.
We're going to talk about him.
And then there's the like, the ones that are really good are the people that like lay onthe floor, like right outside the bathroom.
(06:26):
And when people come out of the bathroom, it's just their head like on the floor staringup at them and they just bug out like
These people come out of their skin because this person is laying there.
And I gotta explore why is it so funny when it pisses me off so bad when I get scared?
why is the bathroom so often so associated with scaring and pranking?
(06:53):
What is it about this space?
Here we are.
Here's the, I'm gonna turn you here for a second.
There's all them toilet papers.
know, last month we closed out the month with an episode of Ranked and man, I still have alot of toilet paper to use.
We're gonna be working on the leftovers of that Ranked toilet paper for a while, I'll tellyou that.
(07:16):
There's one universal rule for people when they are scaring this pranking season.
And that is this.
People have a number of reactions to
being scared.
Some are fleers.
This is the flight part of the fight or flight.
(07:37):
But then there's those that are just going to start swinging.
These are our fighters.
And when you go to scare somebody, it is important to maybe have done enough marketresearch about who you're scaring to know if you need to give them space to run or if you
need to improve your dodging skills.
Even funnier though,
and much more bathroom related, I might add, is that sometimes the people who are scaredjust totally pee or poo themselves when they get scared.
(08:10):
When this happens, and it's like, well, why?
Like you get scared, but like, why'd you crap your pants?
there's nothing wrong, like it's fine, Linda.
Just hold your diarrhea through the scare.
You know what saying?
Like.
If you can't like sphincter sec it through the scare, I think you need to like giveyourself some practice or something.
(08:35):
don't know.
But when you get scared, it activates a fight or flight response in you as I stated.
And when that fight or flight response is activated in you, your bladder contracts toprepare for the fight.
And in some people's case, that pelvic floor, that's the floor of the zone down there, thedownstairs zone, it loosens up.
(09:05):
Now don't know why your pelvic floor would loosen up if you're scared, if your bladder'scontracting, why would your pelvic floor loosen up?
I don't know.
Like, I don't know.
But when these two things combine, when your bladder contract and your pelvic floorloosens, they can result in rigorous leakage, also known as completely whizzing yourself.
(09:35):
It's a tough look, and it's an even tougher look when your friends upload that to theinternet for others to laugh at.
From what I can tell based on these TikTok videos that I've been watching and from what Ican tell based off of just my basic Googling and searching for this episode, people peeing
their pants when they're scared happens a lot more than you might think, like way more.
(10:02):
Like I was baffled by how much more it happens.
And while pee is more likely to occur in these instances,
especially in good old fashioned prank scaring.
Like it should be noted that in severe cases, a person can poop themselves chas royale ifthe fear and anxiety they are experiencing is so great.
(10:28):
Here's what I wanna say.
If a person craps their pants off of a basic, just some casual daytime prank scaring,there's something going on there.
Like they might need counseling.
I'm just gonna say it.
Because I'm not convinced that casual daytime prank scaring should scare you to the pointwhere you incontinent your butthole and poop your pants.
(10:53):
Like, that's extreme.
Now if you've got diarrhea, like diarrhea happens.
It happens to the best of us.
But you gotta know you, you know?
Like you gotta know what you're working with.
And hopefully the people in your life that may or may not be scaring you, hopefullythey'll be acquainted with you
to know that, yes, yes, they're a diarrhea, they're a diarrhea sufferer, and I ought totake their diarrhea into consideration before I prank scare them.
(11:21):
Just scare the mud pie right out of these people.
But with all these dangers in mind, peeing yourself, pooping yourself, getting swaying on,like, why is it so funny?
Like, why is it so funny when people get scared?
What makes it so entertaining when people get scared?
(11:49):
And there's a number of theories here, some of which I personally think are just stupidnonsense.
One theory that I want to rule out right away is sadism.
This just says that like, people scare people because they're awful and they like totorture others.
I don't think so.
I don't think that's why people do this.
I don't think that people scare people simply because they're jerks and they just like tomake people feel bad.
(12:14):
I don't think that's why it's funny either.
Like,
When I laugh at somebody just getting freaked, I don't laugh because I'm like, you yes,you sick urchin, no.
I think part of it is this.
We have all been there.
We have all been on the receiving end of the prank scare.
And as a result, it's funny to see someone else be there when we are not the receiver.
(12:43):
It's kind of like, you know, it's like misery loves company.
It's a shared experience.
And you vicariously through this person are like, yes, I have been scared and I've feltjust as triggered as you do right now.
It's kind of a shared experience.
To that regard, watching somebody get scared is kind of like, like ripping a good beaver,like, like just tooting off a nice fart and you know, sharing that sharing that smell with
(13:12):
people like.
It's kind of like a good fart or a long turd.
Like it ought to be observed and enjoyed by the collective.
Collective turd viewing brought to a bathroom stall near you.
And I think part of this is just seeing the person's reaction.
And I think we laugh at their reaction because we know our reaction would be and probablyhas been in the past something that others are going to laugh at as well.
(13:37):
It's a shared experience.
People getting scared is funny because it's surprising.
There's a big payoff to the scare.
Like, and usually when it's framed right, you know, like the person's in hiding and youcan see the hiding and you know somebody's gonna get just absolutely spooked on.
And then when it happens, it's like this big release, you know, it's like, yes, there itis.
(14:02):
Seeing people get scared is funny because we aren't the ones getting scared.
We are safe and that's important.
I think you could make a
Argument for all pranks on that pranks are funny Because when someone else is gettingpranked usually we are not I think it's also true of farts Don't think about it too much
(14:22):
another clear reason why this stuff is funny is The way which we have been there again.
We've all been scared We've all had someone stand behind a door or lay on the floor inwaiting to pop out and spook us as we get ready to walk pot
and get mad and we know the emotions that we have to those things.
(14:44):
And so when we see those emotions play out in others, we're like, yes, we have been on thereceiving end too.
And I know how you feel.
And so we can begin to get a grasp on why the prank scare really any prank, butspecifically the scare is so funny.
But now on the tail end of our episode and perhaps maybe in the context of our episodehere on a bathroom podcast,
(15:09):
We need to have a conversation about like, what is it with the bathroom and the space inthis room and the things that go on here?
What is it about the bathroom that attracts scares?
And what is it about the bathroom that attracts pranking?
Something that I've noticed since when we did our movie scenes in the bathroom, we've donea couple of these and there's two genres of film.
(15:39):
that rely heavily on the bathroom as like, this is a touch point for this genre.
Comedy and horror.
When I watch videos of people getting scared, so many of them happen in the bathroom.
And when you watch a scare prank video, it's kind of the melding of comedy and horror.
(16:02):
Like somebody's getting scared and I am laughing at
And so Hollywood understands that the bathroom space, there's something inherently likespookable to it, accompanied by the reality that there's much potential for humor out of
this space.
And when I watch these videos, so many of them happen in the bathroom.
(16:25):
One of my particular favorites, so I told you there's a number of like regular prank scarecharacters and then they pop up and as soon as you see these
These lovable friends are just like, I know exactly what I'm getting ready to get.
But there's this one guy, he's a bigger dude.
He's a pretty big, he's thick.
He's a full-bodied boy.
(16:45):
That's what they called me in eighth grade, full-bodied boy.
But it's this big British guy.
And when this guy gets scared, he just whooshes his neck.
I hurt myself doing it.
He whips his neck back so fast.
Like he just, I mean, it just.
And there's no way that this is anything but like his reflexes to being scared.
(17:08):
Like truly, it's just so violent.
And sometimes when he does that, it looks like he's breaking his neck.
Like he gets so scared that it looks like he breaks his neck.
And it's wild to see this.
But one of the best of the prank scare videos involving this gentleman is the, is hesitting on the toilet and somebody scares him and he just.
(17:28):
gets scared so bad that his neck just goes full giraffe neck, just wha-pah, just flipsthat joker back and his phone goes flying.
I mean, where's it at?
It's probably stuck in his ceiling.
He skeeted that phone so fast into the ceiling.
It was wild.
Now, I don't think it got stuck, but still.
And there's so many scares that happen in the bathroom.
(17:52):
Why is the bathroom such a trap for scaring people?
And if you think about it,
It seems to me that every culture has a scary story or some sort of lore or some sort of,you know, strange myth that takes place in the bathroom.
(18:16):
Ghost stories, Bloody Mary, drain monsters, and for that matter, drain monsters and allthese things.
Why bathrooms?
Because like kitchens have drains.
Like you could have a hoogity boogity come out of your drain in the kitchen.
Why has it got to come out of the bathroom?
What is it about bathrooms that attract scary scenes, scary stories, jump scares, and areoften coupled with mass goofy hilarity as well?
(18:46):
And to that I have to say it has a lot to do with vulnerability.
Same with dark.
When you walk into a dark room, you don't know what you're going to get there.
You don't know what's in the room.
The room is dark.
You don't know what's in it.
As a result, simply by the rules of the game, you are vulnerable.
You can't see well.
(19:06):
You don't know what's going to happen.
Now that vulnerability in your brain.
I want you to take a moment and name for me a more vulnerable room in your house than yourbathroom.
Like it's the most vulnerable spot in your in your home in any building almost, I wouldsay.
(19:28):
Like in your bathroom, you regularly strip down buff, 100 % buffy the clean toilet slayer.
In the bathroom, you find yourself in the most vulnerable positions you're going to findyourself in.
Two key vulnerable positions that you will find yourself in, I would say frequently in thebathroom, number one, all sub-soaped up and nowhere to run.
(19:54):
Like you have fully lathered it.
Like you're just head, knees and toes lathered and the spook comes.
Like it doesn't, where are you going to go?
Where are you going to go?
Your little digits hanging out and you're all soaked up.
Like where are you going?
(20:14):
You're vulnerable.
And the second is dropping Chaz Royale just pants at the ankle, mid-deuce.
It's vulnerable.
And as a result,
People begin to let their guard down or they take the safety of the room a little bit forgranted because it's their space.
(20:36):
It's your inner sanctum.
It's your sanctum of stank.
It's your stanktum.
TM, TM, TM, stanktum.
Enter the stanktum.
gosh, what a great idea.
Enter my stanktum.
Welcome to my, welcome to my stanktum.
Welcome to the inner stanktom.
The inner stanktom.
Stanktom, stanktom.
(20:57):
I think that's why way back in the day when Olin Rogers was doing his like stories, he didthe story Ghosts and the Stalls.
I think that's why he got such a big response from that dude out of Target.
Because the guy thought he was safe in there.
It's funny.
When we're in the bathroom, that vulnerability and sense of safety in the space is playedon to result in some awesome scares.
(21:22):
And I'm convinced.
Like, I'm convinced that that's why there's so many of these bathroom pranks and bathroomscares and scare pranks.
It's classic stuff.
But it's that way because the bathroom is so vulnerable and we let our guard down.
Another good reason, and I'm convinced, is mirrors.
Like, mirrors increase the hoogity boogityness of a room.
(21:46):
Mirrors have a way of playing tricks on us and we often hold this belief
that if we can see, like I can see this mirror right now and I can see what's in it.
But I'll tell you, if somebody popped out stage right and I'm like, gosh, it's gonna do mein.
Like I'm gonna freak out.
Mirrors have a way of playing tricks on us because we hold this belief that if we couldsee the mirror for me, this is how Hunter's brain works.
(22:12):
If I can see the mirror, I'm more safe than I was.
But the trouble is, is that's a false sense of security.
someone boosts in destroys the charade and the scare is even worse.
Normally for April Fool's Day, we set up pranks and jokes to gag one another.
I gotta quit saying gag one another.
But it turns out the elaborate prank may really be overkill for what you need to do to bea prankster this year.
(22:39):
Turns out you can just pop out, yell hoogity dang old boogity and spook someone when theydon't expect it and do it in and around or outside the bathroom.
Turns out.
It has maximum effect.
It's a pretty good place for it.
If you decide to do that and you're like, oh man, I'm going to scare somebody outside thebathroom and scare them really bad, try to film it.
Send it to us.
(22:59):
We'd love to see that.
We might even share it on our socials and tag you and make sure everything's kosher inthat regard, but it would be funny.
Share it out on the privies.
It's Facebook group.
It's open.
You can go join it, the privies.
Plenty of bathroom memes are shared there.
If you like poop humor and bathroom humor and silly bathroom ideas and inventions andgoofiness, the privies you could do much worse.
(23:25):
This brings us to the end of another episode of Privy.
Here at the end of the episode, I wanted to read a listener submitted comment.
So this listener left a comment on one of our bathroom episodes and he asked what myearliest bathroom memory was.
(23:52):
So Marika asked, what's your earliest bathroom memory?
And man, you know, it's tough.
I thought about this for the last couple of days.
I like, what is my earliest bathroom memory?
Like, and two things came to mind.
And I know these are not my first bathroom experiences because like I don't remember beingpotty trained.
(24:12):
Like I know that I am because I don't poop my pants regularly.
two memories.
Number one is I remember, I don't remember how old I was, but I remember getting thestomach flu really bad when I was in grade school.
And I remember like half sleeping, like living next to the toilet.
(24:33):
I got the stomach flu a lot growing.
Like, I had a sensitive stomach, I think.
Which is weird because nowadays I seem to just do whatever I want.
But I remember just like, almost sleeping on the floor in the bathroom, just holding onfor dear life with the tummy rumbles in the upchucked city.
The other memory that I have though is one time I was tasked by my mother doing dishes inthe home of clearing the table.
(25:01):
And there was this pot and in my brain it was soup.
and it had like, you know, vegetables and all sorts of stuff in it.
And I'm sitting here like, I'm looking at this pot that's, it's got a substantial amountof fluid in it.
And I'm like, I don't know what to do with this.
Like, I'm gonna go outside, it's cold.
And so instead of like draining off the liquid and then scooping the vegetables in thetrash, which is now I know what it is, as a grown adult, I know is the solution to this
(25:27):
problem.
Like I've solved the riddle.
I elected to take the entire pot to the bathroom and
dump it all in the toilet and then flush that down the toilet.
I was explained by my mother that this is not a thing that I should do.
But that's one of my earliest bathroom memories.
There's a picture of me and my cousins in the bathtub together back when our parents weretrying to get us all to get chicken pox from each other.
(25:53):
Back when that was the guidance from the doctors.
It's like, yeah, they got chicken pox.
Make sure that they go like.
like dog pile their cousin with chicken pox that way they can all get it and now we canget shingles so that's cool.
But yeah, earliest bathroom memory probably the soup disaster would be the most one thatlives in my brain.
America, thanks for asking.
If you have a comment, leave us a comment on Spotify or a comment on YouTube and we alwaysdo our best to answer those.
(26:19):
Leave us a rating or review.
Sorry, I got something in my eye, it is wild.
Five star option is our preferred.
those reviews help others find the show.
when you leave us a rating or review, it just helps others like bump that show up in theline if someone searches something.
Share the show with a friend, tell them to rate it.
Say, hey, if you rate this show, the host is going to donate a dollar to the WoundedWarriors in Living Water International.
(26:44):
We do that.
So leave us leave us those reviews if you leave us a written review That means you typeout something fun and leave it on Apple podcast.
We will read that out here on the show We would love to read those out more often.
So go to Apple podcast Leave us a a typed rating and we'll bump up a little bit of moneyfor wounded warriors in living water To remind you to keep pooping in the free world that
(27:08):
free world was not always free and we're pursuing cleaner water for all because noteveryone has it Follow the show
On social media at privycast, follow me, I'm at Owl at 7.
If you're brave, go follow Randy Bowles.
Don't forget to join the privies.
Check us out online privy-cast.com.
If you're looking to start a podcast, you could do no better than Podbean.
(27:30):
There's a link down below for the affiliate link.
Podbean's been very good.
If you're looking to start a podcast, I highly recommend it.
Check it out down below.
Probably missing something.
Sticker mule stickers are still out there if you want to order some stickers.
I have a number of cool stickers that we have designed over the course of this show.
And if you want those to just rep the show in some way, there's a sticker mule store.
(27:52):
Feel free to hop on there and click around and order some stickers.
I think you have to buy like 10, but you know, it's like a dollar for a sticker.
That's what I think when it comes out too.
So check that out.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for listening.
Careful pranking each other, don't scare each other too bad this season.
This brings us to the end of another episode of privy.
(28:13):
Thanks again for being here.
Keep pooping in the free world.
Own your stank.
And now, as always, don't forget to flush.
That's extreme.
Now if you've got diarrhea, like diarrhea happens.
It happens to the best of us.
But you gotta know you, you know?
Welcome back to privy privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom.
(00:25):
I'm your host Hunter Hoover and I love bathrooms.
Welcome back everyone.
At the point of this episode's released you have survived prank season.
Happy April.
Normally when we close out the month of March we begin looking at a variety of
(00:46):
bathroom pranks to gear us up for pranking season at the beginning of April.
That said, OWWA is currently traveling and I did not want to deal with an abundance of newbathroom pranks as I'm going to be busy enough.
Sorry kids, leave me alone.
(01:08):
But it's pranking season or at least it was.
And in the past, we've looked at a number of pranks and you know what?
I'm going to be honest with you.
Every year I make a comment about how like, don't actually know if anybody's doing AprilFool's pranks.
And then every year I got somebody that tries to April Fool's pranks me.
(01:30):
Like leave me alone.
I'm an adult.
I'm an old man.
You're going to harm me pranking me with your ne'er do well nonsense.
And we've looked at a number of bathroom pranks and I think what's happened is in lookingat these
I've actually inadvertently or maybe on purposely, I went back and listened to one ofthese pretty heinous ideas that I have put forth into the world.
(01:55):
But I think what it really is, is it's just giving like punk, but teens firepower to levyagainst the teachers, adults, parents, and the people in their lives via bathroom
shenanigans.
And we've talked a lot of bathroom pranks since the start of this show.
(02:16):
upper deckers, fake soap, pee pee traps, cellophane gags, dyed shampoo to dye your hair,poopy porch bombs.
There's truly been no shortage to ways that you can prank some.
Feel free to go back and listen to any number of our April Fool's Day prank relatedepisodes if you want a treat or maybe some ideas for next year.
(02:42):
And this year for April Fool's Day,
or at least in, we're getting close and I mean we're within the ballpark.
We're four days off.
It's the fifth.
We are not going to be looking at pranks this year.
Rather, we are going to be exploring an idea that I believe is prank adjacent.
(03:03):
I think every good prank when you prank somebody, pranked, it's nice to be able to revelin the prank.
You know, you gag some, not gag them, dear Lord.
Help us all.
Forgive us, Father.
We've strayed far from you.
But you pull a goof on somebody, and part of the joy of the goof is you get to kind of sitin the goof for a little bit.
(03:28):
I sit in my goof regularly.
Sometimes I goof myself really hard, and I just have to sit and just sit in the goof for aminute.
And I was going through comments on Spotify, and we're going to get to more of thosecomments at the end of the show.
But one of the comments that was on actually last year's privy pranks episode was to rubhot sauce on somebody's bar soap.
(03:52):
Now, I would even argue you could get away with deodorant.
Now, let me tell you something.
It's very adjacent.
And thank you, America.
I think it was America for posting that on Spotify.
Thank you for putting that out there.
I'm not going to say.
It's very close.
It's very similar.
A few years back, we said rub icy hot or ben gay, as the kids call it.
on someone's bathroom products.
(04:14):
But man, hot sauce is pretty diabolical.
Like, depending on the hot sauce, you could do some serious damage.
Like, if you get hot sauce in your eyes, it can be game over jelly.
Like, yeah.
Prank!
But this year's prank, and it's a prank in quotation marks because it's not exactly aprank per se.
(04:34):
And I'm gonna explain, before we get into this phenomenon.
I want to explain why I specifically want to talk about this.
Recently, my internet scrolling, my doom scrolling, the 20 minutes of doom scrolling I doa day, has been littered with scare videos.
(04:55):
Now what I mean by this, this is not videos that scare me.
These are videos where I get to enjoy somebody scaring someone else.
It's a treat.
It's always a good time to see these scare prank prank videos.
It's videos of people getting scared and kind of what I want to explore here.
(05:16):
And we're gonna get to the bathroom, I promise.
We're in the bathroom.
We're gonna get to the bathroom is the topic too.
But I want to explore why these videos are so funny.
Like, they're just hilarious.
And it begs a question.
Why is people getting scared so funny?
Like, what is it about people getting hoogity dang old boogity that just brings me suchdelight?
(05:42):
It's not even a prank.
It takes very little planning.
It's not even that high brow of a thing to do.
Yet, here I am laughing hysterically at people getting scared.
Now, I'll also say, if I get scared, I get so mad.
Like, it makes me angry.
I get triggered.
(06:04):
There's people's reactions and there's some classic like on TikTok, there's a number ofclassic scares.
Like you have your characters truly.
There's the lady that pees her pants.
We're going to talk about that.
There's the thick gentlemen.
We're going to talk about him.
And then there's the like, the ones that are really good are the people that like lay onthe floor, like right outside the bathroom.
(06:26):
And when people come out of the bathroom, it's just their head like on the floor staringup at them and they just bug out like
These people come out of their skin because this person is laying there.
And I gotta explore why is it so funny when it pisses me off so bad when I get scared?
why is the bathroom so often so associated with scaring and pranking?
(06:53):
What is it about this space?
Here we are.
Here's the, I'm gonna turn you here for a second.
There's all them toilet papers.
know, last month we closed out the month with an episode of Ranked and man, I still have alot of toilet paper to use.
We're gonna be working on the leftovers of that Ranked toilet paper for a while, I'll tellyou that.
(07:16):
There's one universal rule for people when they are scaring this pranking season.
And that is this.
People have a number of reactions to
being scared.
Some are fleers.
This is the flight part of the fight or flight.
(07:37):
But then there's those that are just going to start swinging.
These are our fighters.
And when you go to scare somebody, it is important to maybe have done enough marketresearch about who you're scaring to know if you need to give them space to run or if you
need to improve your dodging skills.
Even funnier though,
and much more bathroom related, I might add, is that sometimes the people who are scaredjust totally pee or poo themselves when they get scared.
(08:10):
When this happens, and it's like, well, why?
Like you get scared, but like, why'd you crap your pants?
there's nothing wrong, like it's fine, Linda.
Just hold your diarrhea through the scare.
You know what saying?
Like.
If you can't like sphincter sec it through the scare, I think you need to like giveyourself some practice or something.
(08:35):
don't know.
But when you get scared, it activates a fight or flight response in you as I stated.
And when that fight or flight response is activated in you, your bladder contracts toprepare for the fight.
And in some people's case, that pelvic floor, that's the floor of the zone down there, thedownstairs zone, it loosens up.
(09:05):
Now don't know why your pelvic floor would loosen up if you're scared, if your bladder'scontracting, why would your pelvic floor loosen up?
I don't know.
Like, I don't know.
But when these two things combine, when your bladder contract and your pelvic floorloosens, they can result in rigorous leakage, also known as completely whizzing yourself.
(09:35):
It's a tough look, and it's an even tougher look when your friends upload that to theinternet for others to laugh at.
From what I can tell based on these TikTok videos that I've been watching and from what Ican tell based off of just my basic Googling and searching for this episode, people peeing
their pants when they're scared happens a lot more than you might think, like way more.
(10:02):
Like I was baffled by how much more it happens.
And while pee is more likely to occur in these instances,
especially in good old fashioned prank scaring.
Like it should be noted that in severe cases, a person can poop themselves chas royale ifthe fear and anxiety they are experiencing is so great.
(10:28):
Here's what I wanna say.
If a person craps their pants off of a basic, just some casual daytime prank scaring,there's something going on there.
Like they might need counseling.
I'm just gonna say it.
Because I'm not convinced that casual daytime prank scaring should scare you to the pointwhere you incontinent your butthole and poop your pants.
(10:53):
Like, that's extreme.
Now if you've got diarrhea, like diarrhea happens.
It happens to the best of us.
But you gotta know you, you know?
Like you gotta know what you're working with.
And hopefully the people in your life that may or may not be scaring you, hopefullythey'll be acquainted with you
to know that, yes, yes, they're a diarrhea, they're a diarrhea sufferer, and I ought totake their diarrhea into consideration before I prank scare them.
(11:21):
Just scare the mud pie right out of these people.
But with all these dangers in mind, peeing yourself, pooping yourself, getting swaying on,like, why is it so funny?
Like, why is it so funny when people get scared?
What makes it so entertaining when people get scared?
(11:49):
And there's a number of theories here, some of which I personally think are just stupidnonsense.
One theory that I want to rule out right away is sadism.
This just says that like, people scare people because they're awful and they like totorture others.
I don't think so.
I don't think that's why people do this.
I don't think that people scare people simply because they're jerks and they just like tomake people feel bad.
(12:14):
I don't think that's why it's funny either.
Like,
When I laugh at somebody just getting freaked, I don't laugh because I'm like, you yes,you sick urchin, no.
I think part of it is this.
We have all been there.
We have all been on the receiving end of the prank scare.
And as a result, it's funny to see someone else be there when we are not the receiver.
(12:43):
It's kind of like, you know, it's like misery loves company.
It's a shared experience.
And you vicariously through this person are like, yes, I have been scared and I've feltjust as triggered as you do right now.
It's kind of a shared experience.
To that regard, watching somebody get scared is kind of like, like ripping a good beaver,like, like just tooting off a nice fart and you know, sharing that sharing that smell with
(13:12):
people like.
It's kind of like a good fart or a long turd.
Like it ought to be observed and enjoyed by the collective.
Collective turd viewing brought to a bathroom stall near you.
And I think part of this is just seeing the person's reaction.
And I think we laugh at their reaction because we know our reaction would be and probablyhas been in the past something that others are going to laugh at as well.
(13:37):
It's a shared experience.
People getting scared is funny because it's surprising.
There's a big payoff to the scare.
Like, and usually when it's framed right, you know, like the person's in hiding and youcan see the hiding and you know somebody's gonna get just absolutely spooked on.
And then when it happens, it's like this big release, you know, it's like, yes, there itis.
(14:02):
Seeing people get scared is funny because we aren't the ones getting scared.
We are safe and that's important.
I think you could make a
Argument for all pranks on that pranks are funny Because when someone else is gettingpranked usually we are not I think it's also true of farts Don't think about it too much
(14:22):
another clear reason why this stuff is funny is The way which we have been there again.
We've all been scared We've all had someone stand behind a door or lay on the floor inwaiting to pop out and spook us as we get ready to walk pot
and get mad and we know the emotions that we have to those things.
(14:44):
And so when we see those emotions play out in others, we're like, yes, we have been on thereceiving end too.
And I know how you feel.
And so we can begin to get a grasp on why the prank scare really any prank, butspecifically the scare is so funny.
But now on the tail end of our episode and perhaps maybe in the context of our episodehere on a bathroom podcast,
(15:09):
We need to have a conversation about like, what is it with the bathroom and the space inthis room and the things that go on here?
What is it about the bathroom that attracts scares?
And what is it about the bathroom that attracts pranking?
Something that I've noticed since when we did our movie scenes in the bathroom, we've donea couple of these and there's two genres of film.
(15:39):
that rely heavily on the bathroom as like, this is a touch point for this genre.
Comedy and horror.
When I watch videos of people getting scared, so many of them happen in the bathroom.
And when you watch a scare prank video, it's kind of the melding of comedy and horror.
(16:02):
Like somebody's getting scared and I am laughing at
And so Hollywood understands that the bathroom space, there's something inherently likespookable to it, accompanied by the reality that there's much potential for humor out of
this space.
And when I watch these videos, so many of them happen in the bathroom.
(16:25):
One of my particular favorites, so I told you there's a number of like regular prank scarecharacters and then they pop up and as soon as you see these
These lovable friends are just like, I know exactly what I'm getting ready to get.
But there's this one guy, he's a bigger dude.
He's a pretty big, he's thick.
He's a full-bodied boy.
(16:45):
That's what they called me in eighth grade, full-bodied boy.
But it's this big British guy.
And when this guy gets scared, he just whooshes his neck.
I hurt myself doing it.
He whips his neck back so fast.
Like he just, I mean, it just.
And there's no way that this is anything but like his reflexes to being scared.
(17:08):
Like truly, it's just so violent.
And sometimes when he does that, it looks like he's breaking his neck.
Like he gets so scared that it looks like he breaks his neck.
And it's wild to see this.
But one of the best of the prank scare videos involving this gentleman is the, is hesitting on the toilet and somebody scares him and he just.
(17:28):
gets scared so bad that his neck just goes full giraffe neck, just wha-pah, just flipsthat joker back and his phone goes flying.
I mean, where's it at?
It's probably stuck in his ceiling.
He skeeted that phone so fast into the ceiling.
It was wild.
Now, I don't think it got stuck, but still.
And there's so many scares that happen in the bathroom.
(17:52):
Why is the bathroom such a trap for scaring people?
And if you think about it,
It seems to me that every culture has a scary story or some sort of lore or some sort of,you know, strange myth that takes place in the bathroom.
(18:16):
Ghost stories, Bloody Mary, drain monsters, and for that matter, drain monsters and allthese things.
Why bathrooms?
Because like kitchens have drains.
Like you could have a hoogity boogity come out of your drain in the kitchen.
Why has it got to come out of the bathroom?
What is it about bathrooms that attract scary scenes, scary stories, jump scares, and areoften coupled with mass goofy hilarity as well?
(18:46):
And to that I have to say it has a lot to do with vulnerability.
Same with dark.
When you walk into a dark room, you don't know what you're going to get there.
You don't know what's in the room.
The room is dark.
You don't know what's in it.
As a result, simply by the rules of the game, you are vulnerable.
You can't see well.
(19:06):
You don't know what's going to happen.
Now that vulnerability in your brain.
I want you to take a moment and name for me a more vulnerable room in your house than yourbathroom.
Like it's the most vulnerable spot in your in your home in any building almost, I wouldsay.
(19:28):
Like in your bathroom, you regularly strip down buff, 100 % buffy the clean toilet slayer.
In the bathroom, you find yourself in the most vulnerable positions you're going to findyourself in.
Two key vulnerable positions that you will find yourself in, I would say frequently in thebathroom, number one, all sub-soaped up and nowhere to run.
(19:54):
Like you have fully lathered it.
Like you're just head, knees and toes lathered and the spook comes.
Like it doesn't, where are you going to go?
Where are you going to go?
Your little digits hanging out and you're all soaked up.
Like where are you going?
(20:14):
You're vulnerable.
And the second is dropping Chaz Royale just pants at the ankle, mid-deuce.
It's vulnerable.
And as a result,
People begin to let their guard down or they take the safety of the room a little bit forgranted because it's their space.
(20:36):
It's your inner sanctum.
It's your sanctum of stank.
It's your stanktum.
TM, TM, TM, stanktum.
Enter the stanktum.
gosh, what a great idea.
Enter my stanktum.
Welcome to my, welcome to my stanktum.
Welcome to the inner stanktom.
The inner stanktom.
Stanktom, stanktom.
(20:57):
I think that's why way back in the day when Olin Rogers was doing his like stories, he didthe story Ghosts and the Stalls.
I think that's why he got such a big response from that dude out of Target.
Because the guy thought he was safe in there.
It's funny.
When we're in the bathroom, that vulnerability and sense of safety in the space is playedon to result in some awesome scares.
(21:22):
And I'm convinced.
Like, I'm convinced that that's why there's so many of these bathroom pranks and bathroomscares and scare pranks.
It's classic stuff.
But it's that way because the bathroom is so vulnerable and we let our guard down.
Another good reason, and I'm convinced, is mirrors.
Like, mirrors increase the hoogity boogityness of a room.
(21:46):
Mirrors have a way of playing tricks on us and we often hold this belief
that if we can see, like I can see this mirror right now and I can see what's in it.
But I'll tell you, if somebody popped out stage right and I'm like, gosh, it's gonna do mein.
Like I'm gonna freak out.
Mirrors have a way of playing tricks on us because we hold this belief that if we couldsee the mirror for me, this is how Hunter's brain works.
(22:12):
If I can see the mirror, I'm more safe than I was.
But the trouble is, is that's a false sense of security.
someone boosts in destroys the charade and the scare is even worse.
Normally for April Fool's Day, we set up pranks and jokes to gag one another.
I gotta quit saying gag one another.
But it turns out the elaborate prank may really be overkill for what you need to do to bea prankster this year.
(22:39):
Turns out you can just pop out, yell hoogity dang old boogity and spook someone when theydon't expect it and do it in and around or outside the bathroom.
Turns out.
It has maximum effect.
It's a pretty good place for it.
If you decide to do that and you're like, oh man, I'm going to scare somebody outside thebathroom and scare them really bad, try to film it.
Send it to us.
(22:59):
We'd love to see that.
We might even share it on our socials and tag you and make sure everything's kosher inthat regard, but it would be funny.
Share it out on the privies.
It's Facebook group.
It's open.
You can go join it, the privies.
Plenty of bathroom memes are shared there.
If you like poop humor and bathroom humor and silly bathroom ideas and inventions andgoofiness, the privies you could do much worse.
(23:25):
This brings us to the end of another episode of Privy.
Here at the end of the episode, I wanted to read a listener submitted comment.
So this listener left a comment on one of our bathroom episodes and he asked what myearliest bathroom memory was.
(23:52):
So Marika asked, what's your earliest bathroom memory?
And man, you know, it's tough.
I thought about this for the last couple of days.
I like, what is my earliest bathroom memory?
Like, and two things came to mind.
And I know these are not my first bathroom experiences because like I don't remember beingpotty trained.
(24:12):
Like I know that I am because I don't poop my pants regularly.
two memories.
Number one is I remember, I don't remember how old I was, but I remember getting thestomach flu really bad when I was in grade school.
And I remember like half sleeping, like living next to the toilet.
(24:33):
I got the stomach flu a lot growing.
Like, I had a sensitive stomach, I think.
Which is weird because nowadays I seem to just do whatever I want.
But I remember just like, almost sleeping on the floor in the bathroom, just holding onfor dear life with the tummy rumbles in the upchucked city.
The other memory that I have though is one time I was tasked by my mother doing dishes inthe home of clearing the table.
(25:01):
And there was this pot and in my brain it was soup.
and it had like, you know, vegetables and all sorts of stuff in it.
And I'm sitting here like, I'm looking at this pot that's, it's got a substantial amountof fluid in it.
And I'm like, I don't know what to do with this.
Like, I'm gonna go outside, it's cold.
And so instead of like draining off the liquid and then scooping the vegetables in thetrash, which is now I know what it is, as a grown adult, I know is the solution to this
(25:27):
problem.
Like I've solved the riddle.
I elected to take the entire pot to the bathroom and
dump it all in the toilet and then flush that down the toilet.
I was explained by my mother that this is not a thing that I should do.
But that's one of my earliest bathroom memories.
There's a picture of me and my cousins in the bathtub together back when our parents weretrying to get us all to get chicken pox from each other.
(25:53):
Back when that was the guidance from the doctors.
It's like, yeah, they got chicken pox.
Make sure that they go like.
like dog pile their cousin with chicken pox that way they can all get it and now we canget shingles so that's cool.
But yeah, earliest bathroom memory probably the soup disaster would be the most one thatlives in my brain.
America, thanks for asking.
If you have a comment, leave us a comment on Spotify or a comment on YouTube and we alwaysdo our best to answer those.
(26:19):
Leave us a rating or review.
Sorry, I got something in my eye, it is wild.
Five star option is our preferred.
those reviews help others find the show.
when you leave us a rating or review, it just helps others like bump that show up in theline if someone searches something.
Share the show with a friend, tell them to rate it.
Say, hey, if you rate this show, the host is going to donate a dollar to the WoundedWarriors in Living Water International.
(26:44):
We do that.
So leave us leave us those reviews if you leave us a written review That means you typeout something fun and leave it on Apple podcast.
We will read that out here on the show We would love to read those out more often.
So go to Apple podcast Leave us a a typed rating and we'll bump up a little bit of moneyfor wounded warriors in living water To remind you to keep pooping in the free world that
(27:08):
free world was not always free and we're pursuing cleaner water for all because noteveryone has it Follow the show
On social media at privycast, follow me, I'm at Owl at 7.
If you're brave, go follow Randy Bowles.
Don't forget to join the privies.
Check us out online privy-cast.com.
If you're looking to start a podcast, you could do no better than Podbean.
(27:30):
There's a link down below for the affiliate link.
Podbean's been very good.
If you're looking to start a podcast, I highly recommend it.
Check it out down below.
Probably missing something.
Sticker mule stickers are still out there if you want to order some stickers.
I have a number of cool stickers that we have designed over the course of this show.
And if you want those to just rep the show in some way, there's a sticker mule store.
(27:52):
Feel free to hop on there and click around and order some stickers.
I think you have to buy like 10, but you know, it's like a dollar for a sticker.
That's what I think when it comes out too.
So check that out.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for listening.
Careful pranking each other, don't scare each other too bad this season.
This brings us to the end of another episode of privy.
(28:13):
Thanks again for being here.
Keep pooping in the free world.
Own your stank.
And now, as always, don't forget to flush.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!