NBC News99%

Viral high school senior prank landing teens in trouble with the police 92%

5/16/2026, 4:30:28 PM

Topics: Video
Keywords: Youtube

BS Summary: This video contains 11 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Emotion, and Availability Heuristic, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 84% saturation with 137 hits. Analysis detected 343 faulty-reasoning hits from 163 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 87.7% and a BS Rank of 92% (1,375 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 91.80% of the video peer group.

A police officer responds to a 911 call late at night in the Michigan suburbs, believing there might be a burglary in progress, according to local officials. 
>> What? 
>> He gets ambushed by a teenager with a gun. 
A water gun. 
>> Get on the ground. 
>> The rattled teenager apologizes. 
>> I'm sorry. 
>> We're looking for people stealing cars. 
>> The officer made a splitsecond decision not to fire. 
The teenager wasn't stealing cars. 
He was playing senior assassin. 
In the game that has become a spring pastime, players are assigned a target, a fellow classmate to shoot with a water gun. 
The winner is the last one who stays dry. 
It's supposed to be just harmless fun. 
>> But police departments nationwide are asking students to think carefully about how they play and use water guns that look like toys. 
The problem is some look like this. 
Confirmation Bias
0%
Anchoring Bias
0%
Availability Heuristic
17.8%
Representativeness Heuristic
0%
Hindsight Bias
0%
Overconfidence Bias
0%
Framing Effect
84%
Loss Aversion
0%
Status Quo Bias
0%
Sunk Cost Effect
0%
Optimism Bias
4.3%
Pessimism Bias
0%
Negativity Bias
7.4%
Self-Serving Bias
0%
Fundamental Attribution Error
0%
Actor-Observer Bias
0%
In-Group Bias
0%
Out-Group Homogeneity Bias
0%
Halo Effect
9.2%
Horn Effect
0%
Dunning-Kruger Effect
0%
Recency Bias
0%
Primacy Effect
0%
Blind-Spot Bias
0%
Ad Hominem
0%
Straw Man
0%
Appeal to Authority
30.7%
False Dilemma
0%
Slippery Slope
0%
Circular Reasoning
0%
Hasty Generalization
4.3%
Red Herring
7.4%
Bandwagon
14.1%
Appeal to Emotion
27%
Begging the Question
4.3%
Post Hoc (False Cause)
0%
Tu Quoque
0%
Burden of Proof
0%
Appeal to Nature
0%
Composition/Division
0%
Anecdotal
0%
No True Scotsman
0%
Ambiguity (Equivocation)
0%
Gambler’s Fallacy
0%
Middle Ground
0%
Personal Incredulity
0%
Special Pleading
0%
Genetic Fallacy
0%
Unattributed Quote
0%
Quote-first Misdirection
0%
Biased Writer Voice
0%
Indoctrination
0%
Politically Left Leaning Bias
0%
Politically Right Leaning Bias
0%
Attempt to Sell a Product or Service
0%

163 words analyzed.

Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.