About

Prank Him John or Prank 'Em John refers to a viral skit originally uploaded to Vine in 2015 where one character tells another named John to "prank": the friend who fell asleep first at a sleepover, resulting in John punching the sleeping person in the face. An edited version of the video where it's implied that John rapes his sleeping friend via a clapping sound effect became popular in 2021 in edits on YouTube and TikTok.

Origin

On October 1st, 2015, Vine^[1] user CalebCity posted a skit in which he plays three characters at a sleepover: John, a friend and a sleeping friend. The video starts with John saying "Hey yo, look who fell asleep first," then his friend saying "prank him, John." John says "you already know," then stands over the friend and puts on a serious face before punching him right in the face (shown below, reuploaded to YouTube). The Vine gained over 1.1 million loops and 26,000 likes before Vine closed. In August 2020 an Original Sound consisting of the video's audio inspired a number of skits on TikTok.^[7]

\On August 1st, 2021, YouTuber^[2] Hypocritical uploaded an edited version of the video that cuts before he punches the friend in the face and extends the view of John's face and adds screaming and slapping noises to the video as if John is sexually assaulting his sleeping friend, gaining over 954,000 views in two months (shown below).

Spread

On August 17th, 2021, TikToker^[3] @.inky9 posted the edited video by Hypocritical, gaining over 1.1 million views in two months. The sound became notably popular, inspiring a trend where TikTokers reenact the video with either another sleeping person or pet (examples shown below, left and right). The trend also took place under an Original Sound by TikToker^[4] @tss_zaxify.

On August 21st, YouTuber^[5] PizzaBoy posted a recreation of the video using Roblox animation, gaining over 126,000 views in two months (shown below).

On September 24th, iFunny^[6] user ZesterZero posted an image macro showing Shinji standing over Asuka from a scene in The End of Evangelion where he masturbates over her comatose body, gaining over 12,700 smiles in a month (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References