I love a good joke. I’d ask about who doesn’t, but then I remember cancel culture is a thing and remember that some don’t.

But there’s a difference between jokes and hoaxes.

Even there, there are hoaxes and there are hoaxes. The War of the Worlds broadcast wasn’t intended to deceive anyone, but some only heard part of the broadcast and thought we were being invaded.

Yet at some Georgia high schools, there was a hoax that was most definitely meant to deceive and wasn’t remotely funny.

A reported active shooter at Savannah High School on Wednesday was a hoax, according to school officials.

Law enforcement first received the call close to 9 a.m. that several people were injured in a school shooting. Multiple agencies responded to the school and began evacuating the building and investigating the scene.

An official with the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System said this call end up being a hoax and no one was injured.

Now, just one instance could be any number of things. It could be anything from a jumpy parent who heard a car backfire while talking to their kid or it could be an intentional act meant to delay that math test.

But it wasn’t just one high school in the state, either.

Not by a long shot.

An elaborate hoax of an active shooter was reported at Valdosta High School on Wednesday, leaving the Valdosta community shaken up.

The hoax was reported early Wednesday morning.

Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk said the hoax was “well coordinated.”

Valdosta City Schools said in a Facebook post that the high school “was one of several statewide schools that went into lockdown today after the threat of an active shooter on campus.”

So why did this happen? What was the goal?

Right now, we don’t know anything except that this was common enough across multiple high schools throughout the state.

And it seems the authorities aren’t interested in playing around on this, either.

“Rest assured, for the criminals who orchestrated these hoaxes, we will go after them with every single resource available,” [Georgia Gov. Brian] Kemp said in a statement on social media. “The FBI is actively investigating these acts of domestic terrorism, and we will continue to diligently work with them to see these culprits are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

That report notes that the hoax was called into at least five different schools scattered across the state.

And, frankly, whoever did this deserves whatever happens afterward.

We live in a period where active shooters in schools are a threat that has to be taken seriously. As a result, a large police response swoops in, directing resources away from real situations.

If this were one place, it might be easy to dismiss this as the act of a dumb kid who doesn’t understand the potential repercussions of such an act. But this is all over the state. This was coordinated and I’m completely baffled as to why people would do such a thing.

My hope is that they find whoever did this and make an example of them.

In the process, maybe we could get some answers as to why they did it.