Most pranks or ‘social experiments’ as they’re known these days aren’t so much pranks as they are invitations for strangers to punch you in the face, but a dude named Alan Colie went several steps further than that by shooting YouTuber Tanner Cooks in the chest after he kept harassing him in a shopping mall in Virginia:

YouTube “prankster” gets shot at a mall for harassing a delivery driver.

Do you think the delivery driver is guilty? pic.twitter.com/Iiy1ATOKDz

— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) September 30, 2023

Amazingly, Colie, 31, was acquitted of aggravated malicious wounding in the shooting of the 21-year-old, who runs the ‘Classified Goons’ YouTube channel. The jury was split on two lesser firearms counts, and decided to convict him on one and acquit him on the other. There will now be a hearing next month to determine whether Colie will spend further time in prison.

So, was shooting this annoying, overbearing YouTuber warranted? Colie did ask Tanner to “stop” several times and kept backing away, but 6ft 5 Tanner kept getting in his face. So I can see the case for self-defence, but probably a bit excessive to shoot the guy without a warning first. I mean, there’s literally no pause between the moment he pulls out his gun and shoots Tanner!

Luckily for everyone involved, Tanner survived the shooting to his lower left chest, and is still making videos which earn him $2,000 to $3,000 a month. Just imagine the publicity he got from this one? Totally worth being shot, you could argue.

For the time Mr. Beast was paid $250,000 to film a video saying “Hi” to a billionaire’s son, click HERE. There’s levels.