Psy and pranksters in hot water

SOUTH Korean rapper Psy performs “Gangnam Style”. file photo

Korean entertainer and “viral star” Psy has been having a great time as his international career zooms, his “Gangnam” singing and dancing style taking him all the way to the top, entertaining an audience that included no less than US President Barack Obama and his family on Dec. 9.

Unfortunately, just as he was moving into the big time, Psy’s past caught up with him, and video clips were released showing him dissing all Americans and even threatening to inflict physical harm on them!

The new star was quick to apologize for his potentially career-curdling gaffe, lamely insisting that his incendiary remarks may have been misinterpreted, but US media people weren’t buying it.

The general feeling was that, if Psy was so down on all Americans, he should cancel his American engagements and stay home, where there are no Yankees to get his dander up! How will the (former) fave get out of this one?

For our part, we aren’t sad to see the “Gangnam Style” of entertaining being threatened in this wise. Frankly, we’ve had it up to here with all of the pseudo Korean “cowboy” imitators who have jumped on the “gaya-gaya Gangnam” bandwagon and have been dancing their versions of it, not just in front of the TV set at home, but also at school and office parties, ad nauseam and ad absurdum.

We dread to see the day that the fad will be taken to its spaced-out conclusion this season, and Santa Claus will be depicted dancing “Gangnam Style,” as he whips his reindeer to arc their way into our living rooms this Christmas!

Unexpectedly tragic

KATE Middleton in her latest photo AFP

Other “public” people found themselves in hot water last week, but their experience was even worse, because their penchant for pulling pranks took an unexpectedly tragic turn.

The culprits in question were two Australian TV people who thought up a silly prank and impersonated England’s Queen Elizabeth to find out the latest about the infanticipating Kate Middleton’s medical condition at the hospital where she was confined for a particularly strong case of morning sickness.

The vocal impersonation was so bad that it shouldn’t have fooled anyone, but the nurse who answered the phone was perhaps more guileless than most, so she bit the bait and gave a rather detailed report on the duchess of Cambridge’s condition.

The TV hosts got a lot of media attention and everybody had a good, raucous laugh at the clueless nurse’s expense—until a subsequent report instantly stilled the cacophony of laughs and jeers: The nurse killed herself as a result of her being globally ridiculed for her monumental cluelessness.

Right away, media coverage of the gaffe went from vicious brays of laughter to shock, and everyone, not just the guilty pranksters, was forced to reevaluate what he did or didn’t do.

Moral of the unintendedly tragic tale: The “harmless” prank you think up one day may come back to kick your ass the very next, because someone has been hurt by it to the point of not being able to salvage his or her reputation or feeling of self-worth. Pranksters, beware, there are complex human emotions involved!