Some of my most vivid childhood memories involve pranks. My uncle was a big prankster. Every Christmas, I looked forward to what he had planned and prepared. My family had experienced a number of painful losses, which gave our gatherings a certain gravity. The holidays also brought very different personalities, generations and worldviews together. There was a lot of expectation and tension around the rituals of coming together, eating course after course, and spending hours in each other’s company. His pranks created comic relief. For me, they were what I looked forward to most.

A prank is a playful disruption. It loosens the ties and constraints that we all feel. It takes something very seriously in play. It makes something unimportant suddenly very important. And for a moment, it shifts our perspective on what we usually consider important.

I love that pranks have no real purpose. They cannot easily be turned into something productive. Taking the time to think about a good prank is an everyday game. A small way of introducing play into grown-up life. I think there is an art to it. A good prank needs thought, timing and commitment. It should be real, but not hurtful. It should interrupt without destroying.

In a way I see pranking as a kind of everyday clowning, without the folklore of the clown. More hidden. More mundane. Less a lifestyle of deviance and trickery, and more a practice of disrupting everyday life from within.
A prank is a fun interruption of the seriousness of everyday business.

This page is a meant to become collective archive of pranks, stories and thoughts on the art of pranking. What you find here is just the beginning. Know a good prank? Have a story or a thought about pranking? Send it my way.
Let's celebrate The Art of The Prank.