April Fools

Wednesday, 01 April 2009

I'm sure by now we've all remembered that today is April 1. More commonly known as April Fool's Day. While the Internet has improved so many aspects of our lives, April Fool's day may be the one thing it has absolutely ruined. 

I remember when I was very young asking my dad what April Fool's day was, and he explained that it was a day that people traditionally play tricks on each other.  I don't remember if he gave me any examples, but I distinctly remember coming away from the conversation under the impression that it was really just the one day each year that it was OK to lie to each other.  I went around the rest of the day saying things like "Hey look, the sky just turned green.... April Fools!" or "I really love brussel sprouts... April Fools!"  On this day, I'd like to take a minute to clarify with both 1984 Andy and the Internet in general that your April Fool's pranks aren't clever, they're just lies.

Just about every site on the Internet thinks it is going to be the most hilarious thing in the world to write up a fake news story that people will thing is outrageous and either get everyone a) really excited; or b) really pissed off, until they realize what day it is and everyone has a good laugh over it.  There's one problem: everybody knows what day it is. Nobody is going to fall for it.  All you're doing is making it impossible to take anything seriously for an entire day. For example:

eHarmony Founder Finds Love on Match.com: NOT a good April Fool's joke. While I appreciate the irony of the CEO of one dating site finding love on a competitor's dating site, there's really no joke here.  It's just a made up story designed to see how many people they can get to believe it. But wait, it's April 1? Probably a joke, I'll just ignore it.

Bush Twins to Join Air Force Tech Unit in Iraq: NOT a good April Fool's joke. Again, this isn't a prank or even a funny trick. It's just a lie. It's not completely out of the realm of possibility that the daughters of the President might want to pursue a career in the army, so the "joke" is really just a fabrication designed to see who will believe it.  And nobody did, because The Register posted it on April Fool's day.

Isaac Hayes Not Really Leaving 'South Park': NOT a good April Fool's joke. This is probably one of the most convoluted non-pranks I remember from April Fool's past.  If you're a fan of South Park, I'm sure you'll remember that Isaac Hayes, who voiced the character Chef, quit the show after the creators aired an episode critical of Scientology. This attempt at an April Fool's joke was simply a story trying to convince people that Isaac Hayes wasn't actually leaving South Park, and it was all a publicity stunt. So not only was this just a plain lie, it was a lie claiming that the truth was a lie.  Not only just a lie, but a lie that people may have preferred. End result: either you realized it was April Fool's Day and didn't believe it, or you believed it and then were really pissed off that it wasn't true.

PC Users Brace for Attack by Conficker Worm: NOT a good April Fool's joke. On the days leading up to this year's April Fool's day, CNN has been posting stories repeatedly about the "Conficker Worm" that is allegedly attacking computes around the world.  Why is this not a good April Fool's joke? Because it's not a joke.  This story is actually real. And because we've been trained that April Fool's day is a day not to believe anything you read on the Internet, how many PC users out there are writing this off as another stupid joke?

So what's the solution here? I believe it is twofold: First, stop making up fantastic stories, posting them on your site and calling them "April Fools" jokes. An April Fool's prank should be a little more elaborate than that.  Second, stop feeling the obligation to put something out there on April first.  Just because it's April Fool's day doesn't mean that you have to try to fool someone. If you don't have a good idea, skip it; You're just going to ruin it for the folks that have good ideas.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go unplug my Internet connection, as it is completely useless to me today.

 

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