Study finds correlation between loving practical jokes and having no one in your life trust you or love you

The results of a new study on the joint phenomena of "pranking" and "practical jokes" have been released today by the Knoxville Institute. The 3-year-long research project by the facility has revealed an extremely strong correlation — if not direct evidence of causation — between enjoying the planning and execution of pranks and practical jokes on people in your life, and having none of those people trust you nor hold any affection for you.

"Some of us were surprised by the results," says Dan Margera, lead researcher on the study.

"But it really checks out once you think about it. People don't react well to abject cruelty and psychological torture, even if you laugh maniacally immediately afterward and say you 'got them so good.'"

"In fact, the laughter seems to make it worse, if anything."

Margera stressed the wide-ranging nature of the study, in order to back up the validity of its results.

"We didn't just look at ordinary, everyday members of the public. Former co-stars of renowned on-set celebrity prankster George Clooney were also consulted. How did that go? Well, note that I didn't say friends of George Clooney. Though I could have, if I were referring to what they were before his callous execution of the 'jokes,' and do put that word in quotes any time it appears in your article, please."

The team says that the motivations for the impulse to prank one's own friends — which can be described, in a distilled manner, as the desire to do bad things to the very people one claims to like and support — are a very deep, very dark mystery, as yet inexplicable and very much outside the bounds of this study.

"Oh, no no no. To understand the urge to do something like that, we would require many more years of study, and millions of dollars in funding," said Margera.

"And I don't mean millions of dollars that someone told us we won in a lottery, by giving us a lottery ticket for our birthday and then creating a fake news broadcast that gave those exact numbers as the winning ones for the $500 million jackpot that week," said Margera, gazing far off into space, seemingly reflecting on some past event and mumbling the name "Tyler."

At press time, Margera referred to his motivations for choosing this path of research as "ummmm, varied. Not about the lottery thing if that's what you're asking. Not all about that, anyway."

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