The phenomenon on Youtube of real pranks
It hasn’t even been a year since Didac Ribot uploaded his first video to YouTube and he has already made a place and a name among the trending prank and hidden camera videos in Spain. In less than a year, he has gained more than 2 million subscribers to his channel.
Who is he?
Not much is known about his life because, as far as is known, he has only given one interview. And he did so precisely to a fellow professional and his own competitor, Tipacarraco, something that speaks in his favour. Thanks to this interview, we know some interesting facts about his life previously unknown:
1.- Didac Ribot is his real name.
2.- He began studying Physical Activity and Sport Sciences.
3.- He has worked as an electrician and at the airport.
4.- He has collaborated with more hidden camera channels.
5.- To make some of his videos, he bases them on American prank and hidden camera channels. Other ideas are 100% his own, such as a video in which Didac is on the beach applying litres of sunblock or even wearing winter clothes.
6.- One of the things that annoys him most are channels that upload fake hidden camera videos.
7.- He does not talk about his private life and neither confirms nor denies if he has a partner.
His favourite pranks
With more than 50 videos uploaded to his channel, the young Catalan already exceeds 2 million subscribers and has videos with more than 10 million views.
Looking through his history, it is easy to see that there are a handful of quite recurring themes among his videos. On one hand, he seems to be a great lover and consumer of pizzas since on numerous occasions he orders one to snack on in one of his pranks.
Also, he really likes to eat his portion of pizza in a library, one of his favourite settings to film hidden pranks.
And to top it all off, we can find the delivery man on some escalators in the middle of a shopping centre. These kinds of places, it must be said, are the other great filming environment for Didac. In fact, his video with the highest number of views, 11 MILLION VIEWS!, has as its backdrop one of these escalators. You can watch it below.
Laughter relieves our sexual tension and other theories
The truth is that it is not easy to answer this question. There are different theories trying to explain why we laugh at pranks, jokes, some situations... Some of these theories point out that the urge to laugh is a reward from the brain for having found a mistake; others, like the Freudian ones, link laughter with sex and claim it calms sexual tension.
It seems that lately a theory is gaining more strength that says we laugh when we understand that some social, moral, linguistic, etc. code has been broken, but that breach is not seen as a threat. Humour would be determined by culture and by what each individual or society establishes as a harmless transgression.
What scholars on the subject seem to agree on is that existing theories explain humour based on two premises:
1.- Incongruity: we laugh at what surprises us because it does not correspond to reality. Let’s imagine talking animals, wordplays, ironies and hints…
2.- Superiority: this premise says that situations that make us feel superior to others cause amusement. When someone is distracted on the street and bumps into a lamppost, for example, the person looks bad and that makes us feel good. We feel so good that we are even able to laugh.
Whatever the explanation, we stick with this new theory, which we love and suits us very well: laughing can lengthen our life by 4.5 more years!
