In the age of YouTube, people will do almost anything to nab a viral hit. YouTube prank videos can rack up hundreds of thousands of views and often make unsuspecting kids the butt of the joke. But a recent YouTube prank uploaded by a Florida barber has people wondering if some of these online pranks are going too far. The barber is being called "cruel" after he recorded himself pretending to cut off a 10-year-old boy's ear in a gruesome and bloody practical joke.
Jude Sannicandro, owner of Hair Medics in Naples, Florida, pulled the prank after his 10-year-old client duped him with a fake cockroach last month.
The boy, Vito, left the fake roach on the counter of the barber shop at his last appointment. “It scared the crap out of me, especially because earlier that day, there was a real cockroach in our bathroom,” Sannicandro told Yahoo Lifestyle. “I told Vito that he opened a can of worms, but he said that he wasn’t scared and was too old to cry.”
And that's how the ear-chopping prank shown in the video above was born.
Sannicandro says he got permission from Vito's parents before moving forward with his sinister plan.
He purchased a fake ear and some faux vampire blood online. When Vito came back for his next appointment, Sannicandro pretended to nick the back of the boy's neck with the razor, and then squeezed the fake blood from a plastic bag concealed in a wad of paper towels he used to put pressure on the "wound."
"Mommy!" the boy shouts as he feels the fake blood on his skin. The barber tells him he's okay, but then stops short and gasps, "Oh my god! Don't move!"
The barber continues to act like Vito is gravely injured, telling him at one point that they might need to call an ambulance. Twice, Vito begs the barber to please "call my mommy."
Hilariously, despite how scared he is, Vito agrees that a bandaid is probably enough to cover the wound -- then the barber lets the "ear" go flying.
Somehow, the 10-year gets through the ordeal without having a total meltdown and ends up laughing at the end. Still, the level of fear he shows in the video has people online wondering if the barber took his prank too far.
Over 1 million people have viewed the prank video on YouTube, and a lot of them called the barber out for being "cruel."
"So cruel! That kid could have gone into shock," another woman wrote on Facebook.
Some people said the prank was the opposite of funny and worried about the kid's emotional health.
And they're not totally wrong to be concerned. YouTube pranksters have a long history of putting kids through questionable, dangerous, and traumatizing "jokes" for the sake of getting laughs. Parents have been accused of perpetrating actual abuse on their children in their videos, and recently one dad on YouTube even fed his own young children laxatives as part of a "practical joke."
But not everyone agreed that Sannicandro's antics could be compared to other abusive YouTube pranks.
"KUDOS!! This is hilarious, and the kid will have a great story to tell for years to come," another YouTuber wrote.
A lot of people also applauded the kid for not crying and freaking out, despite thinking he'd just suffered a pretty major injury.
And others just can't wait to see what little Vito comes up with as payback for his barber's scary practical joke.
Ultimately, only Vito and his parents can say how this prank truly affected him. But if their laughter at the end of the video is any indication, this is one prank battle that's not about to end any time soon.
