I Was a Victim in a Prank Video in Kuala Lumpur

So everyone has seen those gag shows like Candid Camera and the Canadian one that uses amplified fart noises to excess where actors go around pulling pranks on people in the streets. I believe it is a natural response to ponder how we might react if we were ever caught in one of these public pranks. Well, on a more diminutive scale, this happened to me in Kuala Lumpur in October 2014.

I was walking through a dark part of town at night and saw a young guy sitting on a park bench with a camcorder recording a long shot down the street ahead of me. My first reaction was, “Man, that guy is going to get his camera jacked.” When I noticed what he was filming my section reaction was, “Man, what a creep.”

Two young women in hijab and flowing robes were walking up the street. There was a wooded slope that sharply rose up from the sidewalk to a park (I believe) on a hill above. This was a stretch of street that I imagine locals may even be a little weary of walking down at night, as it was dark, secluded, and the cars drove by at such a speed that they probably wouldn’t notice someone in distress on the sidewalk. It was the kind of place that you would imagine a mugger jumping out from the woods and putting a knife to your throat.

And so it happened: Just as I was about ready to walk by the two young women a guy jumped from the woods clad in black and wearing a wolf mask. He roared. The women screamed. The wolf man gave chase, the women screamed some more. The wolf man removed his mask and began laughing.

“Come back, come back!” he called out. “It was just a prank, it was just a joke.”

The girls didn’t want to come back. They were pissed.

Watch the prank here

Fortunately, I was more or less a bystander in this prank and could join in on the laughter. I was startled, yes, but that quickly gave way to WTF?, then I just thought it was funny.

I initially thought the wolf man was some kind of deranged homeless guy living in the park. Interestingly, I experienced no semblance of a “hero” reaction. I would have just stood there while wolf man did his thing to those girls. It’s always funny when you have yourself so brashly shown to you.

After the prank had concluded I did a brief interview with the people running it. They were from a local group of pranksters who publish on the Letzuploadit channel on YouTube. Basically, they go around Kuala Lumpur fucking with people. Sometimes they scare people, sometimes they act hurt and try to get people to help them, sometimes they simply make people feel awkward. They always think they’re funny.

Interview with Sherry Parker from Letzuploadit