Grand Canyon Photo Prank Viral, Reddit Spreads Joke On Mom

A Grand Canyon photo prank gone viral is either hilarious or cruel, depending on whether you are a flippant college kid or mom of ungrateful brats.

The Grand Canyon photo prank calls to mind the recent Onion article in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, “Mom Just Called To Make Sure You’re Not Under That Dangling Crane.” In it, the fake news source lampooned a mom’s tendency to fear that whenever a massive and perilous danger arises, you will decide to waltz right into the epicenter and needlessly place yourself in harm’s way.

In the Grand Canyon photo prank, 22-year-old Samantha Busch — a young lady who is clearly not a mother herself yet — dangles over the precipice of the gorge with a panicked look upon her face. The twentysomething had posted the pic to r/funny, titled “Mom was worried about my trip to the Grand Canyon, I sent her this picture.”

Within hours, the image had skyrocketed across the web, and Busch was a meme sensation. Speaking to ABC about the Grand Canyon photo prank, the young woman explains:

“For five days up to when we left, my mom had warned me about falling off the cliff or being blown off … So when we were hiking around the corner, I found a good spot where I could stand on the ledge. He angled the camera just right and he took a great picture.”

But Busch wasn’t content to make her mom lose sleep alone over the Grand Canyon photo prank, and she decided to torment the woman’s co-workers as well:

“I messaged it to her first and she works for a medical auditing company and there are women who have known me since day one, and they freaked out over it also. I emailed it to them, too, and they were all freaking out over it saying I gave them a heart attack.”

Whether or not you think the Grand Canyon photo prank is funny or cruel, rest assured that one day, Busch is likely to have a daughter of her own that will decide to put her mother through worrying hell simply to get karma on Reddit.