Oh boy.

I’m sure those of you familiar with the Internet have come across the Youtube “Prank Channel” phenomenon. The point is to film pranks or stunts with unsuspecting members of the public and catch reactions on hidden cameras. They’re… not exactly well thought of because some of the ‘pranks’ really aren’t funny. Now it seems that the law agrees because one Youtube troll has gotten jail time for some of his.

Youtuber Van Le, of the channel Trollstation (a co-founder in fact) was arrested when filming one of the jokes that involved a teenager carrying a briefcase containing a clock or a ‘fake bomb’ which they would proceed to show to individuals at crowded tourist hot spots in London before rushing off without the case.

The ‘joke’ was filmed back in September and was supposed meant to be a homage to Ahmed Mohamed, an American teen whose homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb. However, whoever thought this a good idea must have a strange sense of humour and the police unsurprisingly didn’t see the funny side of the entire incident.

Van Le was the cameraman responsible for filming this antic, as well as another one that was also brought up in the case against him at the Tate and National Portrait Gallery that saw masked men running into the museum carrying paintings to convince visitors that a robbery was taking place at that very moment.

Van Le pled guilty to one count of bomb hoax placing with intent and has been sentenced to 24 weeks for that stunt, while the Tate gallery incident netted him another 12 weeks behind bars. That means that he’s gotten nine months of jail time for the sake of a Youtube ‘prank’. The teenage accomplice has also been found guilty but because of his status as a minor has been given a 12-month intense referral order.

A spokesperson for the Trollstation channel called the punishment “pretty unfair”.

“A big production crew for the Jackie Chan movie [The Foreigner] blew up a bus in London in February and didn’t warn anybody apart from some local people,” the spokesperson said. “In a way that impacted more people and scared a lot more people, but a small production does this low-budget thing and this is how it is dealt with.”