Extreme "pranks"? Hazing culture? Omerta? Gang culture? Wolf of Wall Street / Boiler Room culture?The thin blue line? Church scandals? Basically every domestic terrorist group in history?
Four common patterns
* Recruitment techniques based around achieving worth by emulating some "alpha" male, usually physical and financial, sometimes spiritual
* Approval associated with risk taking behavior. Binge drinking, criminal activity, extrajudicial punishment, etc
* Complicity through witness and increasing levels of participation
And especially
* Code of silence
A heinous fifth pattern is commingling this behavior with family / work culture, creating tension between "the code" and actual codes and relationships.
Ultimately these systems let sociopaths, narcissists, and other mentally unwell men to flourish and prosper precisely because they can easily adhere to these artificial "codes" and power structures vs traditional ones.
Edit: at the risk of coming across of overanalyzing, asking your son to help with the oil potentially contributes to this behavior. You as a male he looks up to is "recruiting" him to do something he has no interest in doing otherwise.
In a vacuum it's benign of course and not toxic but some awareness of the power dynamics and making sure your son knows the difference between a "good" ask and a "bad" ask and how to say no is important.