I'd say that the people doing it (and that enjoy watching it happen) are trying to downplay it (to themselves as well as others) by calling it a "prank." It toe

I'd say that the people doing it (and that enjoy watching it happen) are trying to downplay it (to themselves as well as others) by calling it a "prank." It toes the line of actually ordering a hit on someone. The intent is obviously not to kill the target, but I also doubt that the perpetrators would feel any remorse if it ended up in a death (they would rationalize it away as the police's fault, not their own). It's classification as a prank by the (teenager, gamer, 4chan, etc) culture that encourages this isn't helped by the fact that this is just an escalation of other "use a phone call to rain disorder onto someone's life" pranks: * Placing large pizza delivery orders for the target. * For a while you could order free boxes off of the USPS website, and I remember it being a thing where people would get a group to order a ton of boxes and send them to someone. Many people from that sub-culture see swatting as basically the "nuclear weapon" of those types of revenge "pranks." I can't say that I've personally witnessed the escalation to SWAT'ing, but it seems to be people from that sub-culture/mindset that see SWAT'ing as a funny joke to throw at someone that annoys them.