Funny Practical Joke Bushman Scare Prank Combined
San Antonio prankster Texas Bushman scares River Walk tourists, posts on social media
Reactions to the Texas Bushman pranks run the gamut, including petrified potty-mouths.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate
James Lea, center, and Nico Gonima, right, get pranked by the Texas Bushman along the River Walk. Joe Jones, 33, covers himself in imitation ivy and squats inside a planter to prank passersby, then posts videos of their reactions on YouTube and social media.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Express-NewsWhen it comes to making prank videos, Joe Jones doesn't beat around the bush. He just dresses equally i.
Jones scares up all sorts of laughs as the Texas Bushman, a applied joker in a leafy greenish ghillie suit who poses as a potted shrub and pops out at unsuspecting passersby. He records the whole affair and then posts videos of their hysterical reactions on YouTube and social media.
On a recent Friday afternoon, Jones set upward along the River Walk. One senior adult female screamed, "Ah, female parent (curse)!" loud enough to scare off the grackles. "I just about peed my pants," a pocket-size boy muttered subsequently his scare.
Simply both concluded up laughing and high-fiving Jones.
Since pulling his first prank over Labor Day weekend in 2019, Jones has amassed more than than 226 million video views and one.3 million followers on TikTok (@texasbushman), while on YouTube (youtube.com/texasbushman) Jones has more than than l million views and more than than 160,000 subscribers glued to every Bushman-induced scream, stumble or swear give-and-take.
"Why? It'll always be the same answer: To make people laugh," Jones, 33, said. "The things that are going on in the earth right now, I only feel like people need to remember how to laugh."
Joe Jones, 33, covers himself in fake ivy to scare people on the River Walk. Known every bit the Texas Bushman, Jones records the interactions and posts the videos on YouTube and social media. On YouTube alone, Jones'due south videos have more than 50 million views.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Express-NewsJones has freaked out pedestrians in Austin, Dallas and Houston besides as in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Just the quondam Midland diesel shop owner has a special place in his heart for San Antonio, then much so that he fabricated the Alamo Metropolis his home in November after deciding to brand Bushman videos full-time.
"Out of all the cities I traveled to in Texas, I gravitated more than to San Antonio," Jones said. "The energy, the vibe, the people, the compages. ... I fell in love with San Antonio."
There'south plenty of love for Jones, too — from his targets besides every bit his fans.
Earlier that contempo Friday afternoon, Khira Musgrave from Dallas had only seen Bushman victims online. So she joined the bushwhacked when Jones scared her, her twin sister Gabby and their mother Cherece.
"I've watched everybody receive, but I've never been on the contrary end (until at present)," Khira said with a smiling.
Joe Jones, 33, prepares to prank people along the River Walk. Known as the Texas Bushman, Jones covers himself in fake ivy and squats in a planter to scare passersby. Jones records the interactions and posts the videos on YouTube and social media.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Express-NewsJones first got the Bushman bug around iii years ago, when his female parent shared a video of the Florida Bushman, a YouTube prankster who often scares beachgoers in the Sunshine State.
"I could non stop watching his videos," Jones said. "I thought I'd give it a shot."
So Jones, still living in Midland at the time, picked up a ghillie adjust and customized information technology with imitation ivy, and then collection five hours to Austin to brand his Texas Bushman debut. A few months afterward, Jones teamed up with Oregon comedian Ryan Lewis, aka the Crazy Bushman, for a little collaborative tag-team fun in San Antonio in early on 2020.
Then the pandemic hit.
At beginning, Jones express his Bushman antics to just a unmarried video every month or ii. And then every bit lockdowns and restrictions lessened, Jones got back to scaring folks only still kept his social distance.
"I was real conscious to not touch anyone during the worst of that time," said Jones, who also wears blackness gloves while on Bushman duty. "No one really brought (any concerns) up to me."
Then final fall when Jones saw he was making more money working part-time on YouTube than total-time as a mechanic, he made the switch and moved to S.A.
James Lea, eye, and Nico Gonima, right, share a post-scare high-v with Joe Jones, aka the Texas Bushman, on the River Walk. Jones covers himself in fake ivy and squats inside a planter to scare passersby, then posts videos of their reactions on YouTube and social media.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Express-NewsReactions to the Texas Bushman pranks run the gamut. You have your petrified potty-mouths, like the senior adult female that Fri or the big guy in shorts and sunglasses who bellowed out a deep, "Oh (expletive)!"
Then you have those shake-ups to the bodily functions. "Dang, he scared the crap out of me," ane woman said with a piddling also much conviction.
And when two women who had screamed when Jones first popped upwardly at them afterwards approached him during his interruption, ane of them confessed she had to purchase herself a new pair of underwear.
"I'k not trying to get people peeing in their pants and embarrassing them," Jones said. "I e'er say if they're not laughing at the joke, them I'm not doing my chore."
Jones swears he'due south never caused a eye attack or whatsoever real harm. He never startles the elderly or parents with niggling ones on their shoulders. And Jones always give his victims a wave and a loftier-v to brand sure they're OK.
If anything, it's Jones who suffers the most for his art.
Jones is a one-man prove who carries all his equipment: a minor camera on a tripod, his costume and the plant pot he squats in. A typical Bushman shift runs four to 5 hours. Jones then whittles fifteen hours of footage into a 15-minute video for YouTube, which he dissects into smaller clips for Facebook and TikTok.
Then there are those occasional Bushman victims who strike dorsum in the heat of the moment.
Jones swears he's never been punched, but he has been pushed and "kind of Will Smith-smacked" in the back of the head, then he wears a cycle helmet nether his Bushman gear. He's also seen a few guns unholstered, merely never pointed at him or fired.
"I don't look at it as a threat against me," Jones said. "I remember it's more than of a defense. Because I am pretty scary, dressed upwards and popping out, half dozen-foot-1 hopping out at people. Then I get it."
Jones makes a living making people jump out of their peel by splitting advertising dollars with any platform hosts his videos. But with the way the net is moving, attention spans are shrinking and people are looking for more brusque-form content, which makes information technology harder to annunciate on those formats, Jones said.
It's also getting harder for Jones to hide in manifestly sight. The Texas Bushman has become somewhat of a San Antonio fixture. River Walk barge drivers moving ridge at him like a fellow downtown worker, which can tip off potential prank victims. And more victims stick around to come across the next leap scare, which makes information technology even harder to scare the next one.
But the Bushman takes it all in step. The more exposure and more people are having a adept time, the better.
"At the finish of the day, it's to brand people laugh." But only after getting them to shake like a leaf from fright.
rguzman@express-news.net | Twitter: @reneguz
Source: https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/article/River-Walk-prankster-Texas-Bushman-17179307.php