‘Open your mouth, ha ha ha…’: When a Telugu YouTuber took dark comedy too far

YouTuber Praneeth Hanumanthu’s ‘roast’ video on a ‘dark comedy-based reel’ featuring a father and daughter has sent the Internet into an overdrive — thoughts, opinions, debates have been flooding comment sections.

Hyderabad: Was it just for laughs? Was it just another sitcom video by a run-of-the-mill ‘influencer’? Did underlying sadistic, incestuous fantasies just breach the filters of social media? Was ‘Freedom of Expression’ taken too far? Was the LINE crossed?

YouTuber Praneeth Hanumanthu’s ‘roast’ video on a ‘dark comedy-based reel’ featuring a father and daughter has sent the Internet into an overdrive — thoughts, opinions, debates have been flooding comment sections. In fact, it has prompted Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and the Hyderabad Police’s Cyber Security Bureau to step in.

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For the context, Praneeth, reported to be the son of an ex-IAS officer, recently hosted a YouTube stream wherein he and three others — Burra Yuvaraj, Adi Pedireddy and Bhargav aka Dallas Nageshwar Rao — passed a string of questionable comments on child sexual abuse. Laden with sexual innuendos, below-the-belt jokes and bellowing laughs that approve of what Praneeth & Co. thought would be funny (read: would get them hits), has left a bad taste in the mouth.

Dung hit the fan when actors Sai Dharam Tej and Manoj Manchu called them out, saying “monsters like these go unnoticed” and “this behaviour is not only disgusting but also dangerous”, urging the authorities to act immediately. And, the authorities did just that — Praneeth has been booked and the law shall take its course.

It’s appalling and intolerable to see individuals like @phanumantwo using social platforms to spread abuse and hate under the guise of humour. This behaviour is not only disgusting but also dangerous.

Over a year ago, I reached out to him through Instagram to support women… https://t.co/jQVlZEPqph

— Manoj Manchu🙏🏻❤️ (@HeroManoj1) July 7, 2024

This is beyond gruesome, disgusting and scary.
Monsters like these go unnoticed on the very much utilised social platform doing child abuse in the disguise of so-called Fun & Dank.

Child Safety is the need of the hour 🙏🏼

I sincerely request
Hon’ble Chief Minister of Telangana… https://t.co/05GdKW1F0s

— Sai Dharam Tej (@IamSaiDharamTej) July 7, 2024

Meanwhile, as outrage pours against him for ‘sexualising the father-daughter bond’, a dichotomy between ‘take a joke as a joke’ and ‘misusing freedom of expression’ has come to the fore. There are a few who feel that the “situation has been overblown” and that these movie stars are merely pretending to be ‘public defenders’ when it suits them. Some even say not that Praneeth and his gang committed sexual and heinous crimes against a child.

For instance, there has been a back-and-forth between Dharam Tej and a netizen, who identifies as ‘The Gas Stove’, on X. On Reddit too, there’s a discussion raging on the hypocrisy of the film industry when it comes to taking a stand on social issues. Where were they when members of their fraternity laughed and joked about body shaming women on TV series Jabardast? Where were they when women in Manipur were grotesquely paraded naked? These are some questions netizens have raised.

Now, humour me this: How far is too far when, on the pretext of a JOKE, one says: ‘She (the girl) went from Hi Daddy to Hi Nanna’, ‘He (the father) went from Pedo Nanna to Pedda Nanna’. Praneeth goes on to say that this template phrase — ‘He went from this to this’ — has a lot of potential for more ‘funny’ content. To this, one of them says: ‘From stream, I’m going straight to jail’, evoking a screeching laugh from the host. It goes on… they start finding rhymes that, they presume, are apt for the reel: ‘Open your mouth, ha ha ha’. With their creative juices in full flow, they succeed in finding many more, but it’s best left unmentioned.

In today’s day of wokeism, is this the kind of humour that sells? Is the mass outrage, which some call convenient, and the ‘take a joke’ attitude a reflection of a deeply divided, dumbed-down society? Well, there isn’t a straight YES or NO to these questions, it’s certainly not black and white, but the grey only seems to be getting greyer.