His Friend Played Pranks on Amish People. He Escalated the Bit With Photoshop: ‘We Just Started Generational Lore’
Members of the community believed there was a goose-cow and wolf-horse on the loose.
Pranks are meant to make people laugh, but some are more memorable than others. Mark Roberts (@mmarkroberts) recalled a seemingly harmless Photoshop prank his friend played on an Amish community, which seemed to have a generational effect.
“I grew up an hour or so outside of Amish country. And growing up, I had this friend who thought it was the funniest thing to go into Amish country and lie to the Amish,” Roberts told TikTok. Because the community is known for not using computers and phones, Roberts said that the people had no means to fact-check his friend when he pulled outrageous pranks on them.
“I was a kid. I didn’t know right from wrong. But one time, he took me on one of these Amish excursions, and I saw firsthand how these lies landed,” Roberts added. He explained that his friend was two years older, and Roberts, as a young person, admired him for bringing a car to school and knowing how to drive. Roberts described himself as this other boy’s “number one hype man,” and this friend drove him around town.
One day, he agreed to go with his friend to visit the Amish. On the way, Roberts’ friend pulled out his phone. He asked Roberts if he wanted to see the pictures he had of his “last Amish trip.” Roberts, not thinking much of it, looked and found a bunch of photos he didn’t expect.
“All of these photos were these hybridized versions of farm animals, photoshopped onto, like, an Amish backdrop. And it looked like he took them with his phone,” Roberts said. It was as if his friend went in and legitimately took pictures of animals that he found on Amish barns.
They had Photoshop and one diabolical plan
“There was a cow-goose hybrid. There was a wolf with a horse’s body—it was weird,” Roberts said. He found it strange, and what his friend told him next was nothing short of diabolical.
Roberts continued, “My friend goes on to tell me he photoshopped these images and that we’re going to go into the Amish community and ask people if they’ve seen these people, because we’re trying to ‘catch’ them.” There are those willing to prank their loved ones about getting married. Nevertheless, lying to a community with limited technology may be the only prank that beats the former. Roberts didn’t refuse his friend and went with him to spin a tale about bizarre-looking farm animals on the loose.
“We’re going into stores, we’re stopping people on the side of the road, and we’re showing them these photos. And when I tell you—they have a look of absolute horror,” Roberts recalled. He would later find out that the backdrops in the pictures his friend used were taken from locations in the community.
“These people think, like these creatures are a mile away from them,” he added. To make it worse, Roberts alleged that his friend put on a serious act, pretending to reassure the villagers that he had the situation under control. Nevertheless, Roberts claimed that the Amish people were most horrified by the goose-cow creature. At one point, he said that one of the men they stopped on the road ran back home to tell his family about the alleged goose-cow and wolf horse that had broken loose in the community. He also said that a woman from a store, whom they decided to prank, was left with a blank-eyed stare out of the window after they showed her the creatures.
It may have had a generational impact on the Amish
Roberts said that they eventually stopped tormenting the community and went home. He didn’t think much about the prank until he came back to school. A few days passed, and his friend told Roberts that he went back to the community. His friend said that the people were still talking about the goose-cow.
“We just started generational lore. Like, looking back, we could’ve started a religion,” Roberts said. But also, Roberts felt relieved that he and his friend didn’t have access to AI back then. Because if they managed to prank people about the goose-cow, the community might have been thrown into chaos upon learning that AI could “resurrect” deceased actors.
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