Prank: Goldfish in the Amphitheater

Text:

Informant: “Someone way before us did this, and it became kind of a legend because it was so crazy. My school had this Greek-style amphitheater that was basically a lower area, like a pit, and it was probably about five feet deep. Apparently one graduating class decided to do their senior prank there. In the middle of the night they filled the whole amphitheater with water and put a bunch of goldfish in it. The next day everyone showed up and was like, ‘What the heck?’ I have no idea exactly when it happened. It must have been in the late 2000s or early 2010s. Eventually the school had to drain the water and all the goldfish died.”

Interviewer: “How did you hear about the goldfish prank? Does everyone know it?”

Informant: “Everyone knows it. And then I would tell other people about it as the craziest prank I knew about. I don’t even know if it really happened, it was just something people said. Everyone agreed it was the best graduating prank that ever happened.”

Context:

The informant heard about this prank at their high school, where the story circulated widely among students as part of the school’s shared culture. According to the informant, the prank was said to have been carried out by a graduating class sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s, before the informant attended the school. Although the informant did not witness the event and is unsure whether it actually occurred, the story was commonly told among students and was often described as the most extreme senior prank in the school’s history.

Analysis:

These pranks usually occur right before graduation, a transition period when seniors are about to become graduates. This time can be stressful as students finish classes, exams, and prepare to leave school, so pranks can serve as an outlet to release tension. They become both a way to leave a final mark on the school and an act of rebellion. At the same time, organizing and carrying out a prank can unite the graduating class by giving them a shared goal and experience before they leave. In this sense, senior pranks function somewhat like a rite of passage, allowing students to assert their independence and mark the end of their time at the school through a visible and memorable act.

Senior pranks also reflect the folkloric concepts of multiplicity and variation. While the tradition itself exists at many schools, the specific prank changes depending on the graduating class. Each class attempts to create something memorable, often using recognizable parts of the school’s infrastructure or shared spaces, which leads to different versions of the prank across grades and schools.

In this case, the story about the goldfish prank also takes on the form of a legend because it continues to circulate even though the informant is unsure whether it actually happened. The exact time and details remain unclear, yet the story is still widely known among students and passed down to underclassmen because of its extremity. Over time, stories like this become part of the school’s folklore, as repeated retelling keeps the event alive within the folk group.