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Positive Prank Calls!!

2010-09-18 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Global development · comedy performance

Hank takes up positive pranking by prank-calling strangers in his town with true, encouraging statistics about the world, arguing that people get discouraged only because they hear the bad news and never the good.

What is said

00:00:20 — Hank follows John and Amy Krouse Rosenthal into positive pranking: the prank call turned positive with true encouraging facts; Montana's all-party recording law

  • ★★★ Hank says he has decided to follow John's and Amy Krouse Rosenthal's lead and do some positive pranking. — 00:00:20 · Amy Krouse Rosenthal
  • ★★★ Hank turns the most common prank, the prank call, positive: he calls people with encouraging and true facts about the world. — 00:00:35
  • ★ Hank says Montana is one of twelve states where a phone call cannot be recorded unless all parties agree, so viewers only hear his side. — 00:00:42 · Montana

00:00:53 — The positive prank calls: teen smoking, pregnancy and drug use; cancer rates; global poverty; divorce; bald eagles and the Endangered Species Act; violent crime

  • ★ Hank's posted script adds that human lifespan has increased by over 35 years in the last 100 years, from an average of only 45 years. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank tells a stranger that teen smoking, teen pregnancy and teen drug use have all declined significantly since the late 1990s. — 00:00:59
  • ★★ Hank says cancer rates are falling significantly year over year, not only because lung cancer is falling but also thanks to screening for precancerous lesions and the HPV vaccine. — 00:01:17
  • ★★ Hank says global poverty rates have dropped 30 percent since 1990 and are on track to drop another 10 percent before 2015. — 00:01:48 · extreme poverty
  • ★★ Hank says divorce rates are much lower than people assume: 80 percent of people married in the 1980s are still married. — 00:02:02
  • ★★ Hank says there were only 400 breeding pairs of bald eagles in the 1970s, but since the Endangered Species Act there are over 10,000. — 00:02:13
  • ★★ Hank says violent crime rates have dropped every year since 1970, and by 5 percent between 2008 and 2009 alone. — 00:02:29

00:02:41 — Ten calls done; script in the doobly-doo so viewers can make their own calls; thanks to Twitter followers who suggested the statistics

  • ★★ Hank says he positively prank-called 10 people, which he thinks is a good day's work, though occasionally people seemed somewhat annoyed. (hedged) — 00:02:34
  • ★★ Hank puts the script of his positive prank calls in the description so viewers can make their own, noting that they are perfectly legal. — 00:02:45 · doobly-doo
  • ★★ Hank thanks his Twitter followers: he asked them for encouraging statistics about the world, and they suggested most of the facts he used. — 00:02:56 · Twitter

00:03:05 — Hank hopes the people he called feel better about the world: we get discouraged because we only get told the bad news; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank hopes the people he called will feel better about the planet and society; he thinks it is easy to get discouraged only because we get told the bad news and never the good. (hedged) — 00:03:05

Humor (significant)

  • Hank, 'a person who only exists in videos', adds colour to his skin by changing the camera's white balance. — 00:00:15 > «Now I'm extra orange. And now I could go out clubbing on the Jersey Shore!»
  • Hank demonstrates the most common form of prank, the classic prank call. — 00:00:31 > «Well, you better go catch it.»
  • Hank decides hanging up right after the fact is more prank-like, and cuts off a woman mid-sentence after the poverty statistic. — 00:01:53 > «She was talking and I just hung up on her. Haha! Pranked!»
  • After telling a stranger that most people married in the 1980s are still married, Hank laughs at his own thrill. — 00:02:10 > «It's fun, it's exhilarating!»

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