Simon Veksner: In praise of prank calls
December 10 2012, 7:16 am | | 8 Comments
By Simon Veksner, head of ideas, Naked Communications Australia and NZ
Obviously I don’t mean last week’s call by 2DayFM DJ’s Mel Greig and Michael Christian, which ended in tragedy.
For me, the genre works best (and occupies a higher moral ground) when the victim is an authority figure, or at least makes some claim to authority, as in the example below of a prank call to a TV psychic.
8 Comments
Simon,
it comes down to the balance of power.
All these calls (the ones you’re highlighting, the 2DayFM ones, Matt Tilley’s gotcha calls etc) are taking the piss out of someone.
When you take the piss out of someone in a position of power it’s satire. Ringing a person on the telly who’s exploiting the gullible and making them look gullible is the perfect form of satire – hoisting them on their own petard.
But when you take the piss out of someone who is not in a position of power, someone who is weaker than you, that’s being a bully. It’s laughing while the jocks give the scrawny kid a wedgie and stuff him in the bin at school.
Sometimes, it can be a fine line. Think about The Chaser, for example. They put a camera in the face of Malcolm Turnbull and take the piss, fair enough: the bloke’s a big target. He’s powerful, rich and puts himself out there.
But, when they walk into an Optus store and pick on a minimum wage retail assistant because they’re making a point about an all-powerful multinational telecommunications company, they’re just the big kid picking on the little kid. It’s just that they use brains and cameras instead of big muscles.
Matt Tilley’s stuff, on the other hand, has the power balance spot on. His gotcha calls are mates dobbing in other mates. So it’s not Matt picking on anonymous people, it’s mates playing pranks on their mates using Matt as their instrument.
On the face of it, calling the royal family and asking to get put through to the Duchess of Cambridge’s room is taking the piss out of the powerful. It’s a funny idea (although it’s her first pregnancy and being sick in your first trimester is pretty stressful so maybe it’s a bit cold). The problem was, they weren’t calling the palace: they weren’t dealing with the power systems of the establishment and satirising them. They were dealing with a hospital and none of the people they spoke to were powerful or represented power.
20/20 hindsight on this and you scrap the idea because it’s bullying not satire. In the moment, that kind of thing can be a tough call. But these calls are all pre-recorded. Listening to it afterwards, the first question that should be asked is: the people we spoke to, more powerful than us or weaker? The “fail” with 2DayFM was no one in a position of power asked that question.
Satire or bullying? It all comes down to the balance of power.
Spot on Cognitively Dissonant, Chaser always looked small when fooling the girl/guy in the street.
Talking prank calls and Pizza Ned always gets a guernsey:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=NXW1Sllxlj8
Insightful view, Cognitively Dissonant. Couldn’t agree more.
It was scary how quickly every social media channel for comment was shut down by 2DayFM. What ever happened to the “conversation”?
A media firewall is essential after an incident like this so a conversation can take place without the initial hysterics’ knee jerk reaction hijacking rational debate.
@CogDissonant: Absolutely agree with your well reasoned, well articulated response.
Has Cognitively Dissonant posted the most logical, rational post on CB, ever?
Spec. In North Korea, perhaps. But not in Oz. ‘Emocial’ content is the life blood of SM. killing it at source is a ridiculous knee-jerk that will have destroyed every ounce of trust in the brand. They should have let it run, but not responded. Have you seen how many venting FB fan pages started up as a result of this decision?