TikTok human mannequin prank backfires
A little girl was shocked and her mum was left furious after a TikTok prank went wrong.
Kids
Don't miss out on the headlines from Kids. Followed categories will be added to My News.
What a dummy.
A prankster’s attempt to pull off the viral “mannequin prank” backfired horribly after a little girl tried to sit in his lap, resulting in him getting scolded by her mum.
A clip of the botched gag currently boasts 21.5 million views on TikTok, while a Twitter re-post amassed over one million.
“Mannequin prank gone wrong,” reads the caption to the clip, which was uploaded Monday by the account @tugreckless.
The 30-second footage, which was filmed at an undisclosed Target, shows the unnamed man wearing a morph white suit in an attempt to masquerade as a mannequin. It’s suspected he was trying to execute the viral “mannequin prank,” in which people dress as department store dummies and then scare unsuspecting shoppers on camera for social media clicks.
However, his cover gets blown after a little girl who wasn’t the intended “target” attempts to sit on the living dummy’s lap. Hoping to avert disaster, the jokester breaks character, causing her to fall back onto her bum out of shock.
This outrages the tot’s mother, who turns and chastises the cameraman, fuming, “That’s rude, y’all are wrong for that. F – k y’all.”
“We ain’t do nothing wrong,” he splutters in response.
The clip, filmed on an unknown date, concludes with a store employee kicking the human-nequin out of the store.
“Honestly, her mum was pretty chill about it,” said one empathetic viewer. “Poor girl got spooked. She’s a KID. Her reaction was quite tame.”
Another wrote, “She’s obviously crying because she didn’t think a mannequin would move y’all. She’s a kid. Even a grown person would jump.”
“I can’t believe people are defending the prankers,” fumed one defender. “She’s a child, she got scared, and as a mum flipping you off was the least.”
“The people in these comments clearly don’t have kids,” wrote another disbelieving viewer under the Twitter repost. “Why she sitting on a mannequin? Why do kids do any of the crazy things they do??”
Others found it ironic that viewers were criticising the child’s behaviour and not that of the grown man doing display dummy cosplay.
“Soooo u not gon ask why a grown man is dressed up as a mannequin at Target?” wondered one on Twitter. Another wrote, “Okay the kid is a kid though, how old is the person dressed as a damn mannequin at Target?”
Meanwhile, some astute viewers pointed out that the prankster was sitting in the “infant and toddler” section.
This article appeared in the New York Post and has been reproduced with permission.
More Coverage
Originally published as TikTok human mannequin prank backfires
‘Important’: Reaction to major childcare reform
Recommendations for major changes to the childcare system have been described as a “really important piece of work”.
‘Important’: Reaction to major childcare reform
Recommendations for major changes to the childcare system have been described as a “really important piece of work”.