Being a fool has become a year-long occupation for many …
Yass… I woke up today and that’s the first thought that popped into my head. With clowns running the world and their demented jokes as reality… nothing is funny anymore.
I wonder what the white houses april fools joke will be. Probably something along the lines of “We’re sending humanitarian aid to Myanmar” or something tone-deaf like that
It’s just not fun anymore.
It used to be kinda humorous in an irreverent way back in the 2000s when Google used April Fools to announce things like the Google Romance search engine, or a facility to archive all your Gmails on printed paper. It was tech making fun of itself.
But these days when the mask is fully off, and we recognise that big tech and social media has been one of the greatest problems the world has ever faced, we’re not laughing any longer.
I mean, Google announcing a Möbius-shaped keyboard would still be a good April 1st joke, “obviously fake news” from a news source wouldn’t be because it’s not obvious, anymore.
I loved the time I tried to copy something on StackOverflow and a fake ad popped up for a SO-branded copy/paste device.
OP is exactly right.
My local newspaper stopped doing April Fools in 2017 due to the problem of fake news and discussions about media’s credibility.
Yeah, no newspapers in Norway have been doing April fool’s since around that time
The Onion problem.
Onion is almost spherical, it doesn’t have any problems.
This year I told my family that I’d seen the light and to celebrate because I’ve finally become a conservative christian. 🍾 🎊
Tomorrow is gonna be fun.
zomg pls update
Is this something they’d be delighted or horrified by?
Confused and bewildered mostly.
Sounds like it’d be closer to “horrified,” then!
Tomorrow:
No, after trying it, I decided being an arrogant, spiteful, narcissistic, selfish, hateful, vengeful, judgemental piece of shit is exhausting as all hell and also just kind of a little bit wrong, don’t ya think?
It’s a stupid concept anyway, it’s never been fun except to those few people who think pranks are awesome.
I remember once as a kid I moved to a school I really liked, the kids were nice, the teachers were cool and helpful and didn’t make me feel like an idiot, like I actually wanted to go to school, then April fools day comes along and my nan decided to call me and tell me the school had burnt down, this obviously made my 7 year old heart break and I started bawling worried I had to move back to the bad school, she had tried to say April fools but I threw the phone away so I didn’t hear it, she never April fools me again.
Fuck April fools day, some things deserve to die and be forgotten.
Today in headlines: Everything is normal. The USA is not the laughingstock of the world. Civil war is not imminent.
Haha! April Fools … yea that kind of sucks, let me try again.
Today in headlines: Elon Musk takes a sledgehammer to a Tesla showroom while screaming “I will fucking beat you to it you filthy terrorists!” … no, see, that could happen … I quit April Fools.
April’s fools jokes are tiring. I’m over them myself.
Businesses doing April Fools was fun until every gigantic corporation started doing it. Now it’s just bland, thinly-veiled marketing.
I like how Minecraft adds fun updates for 1 April. Not the pranking.
I wonder if AI companies basically disregard scraped data from 01/04 due to all the tomfoolery.
People trying to make others look foolish with mean spirited jokes and outright lies and then pointing and laughing at them has never been fun.
But maybe that’s me being autistic that I don’t get it.
Being ASD definitely makes it harder to enjoy April Fools pranks that are harmless and clever.
My ASD friends and family will frequently perceive the omission of information as an offensive lie, when the reality is us not on the spectrum didn’t consider it information worth sharing. Extend this to April Fools Day jokes, which should be intentional, harmless, clever pranks, and they just can’t.
Really good ones stick in my mind forever. Guild Wars once turned all the players into stick figures. I still laugh at that. Prior to enshitification Reddit had some great ones, like Orange Red vs Periwinkle. RuneScape always released upcoming features at the beginning of the month, and April Fools Day was always a fake one that sounded almost believable. I had friends swap clothes and classes for an entire day in college. I had a physics professor teach biology to each of his classes - a different lecture in each period. I had two friends announce they were ending their friendship on Facebook but intended to remain roommates, and continue to hang out with the rest of us.
It’s a social norm. Just like how sarcasm is difficult for some ASD to pick up. But, a lot of us non-ASD do need to choose our audience more carefully. I don’t play pranks on my family and those friends. I also refrain from sarcasm and exaggerating too.
The pointing an laughing at one or a few people is always assholish. A good prank involves everyone laughing together, and if it is targetted at anyone in particular they have to be comfortable with being the target.
Jokes that are aimed at a widespread audience get a pass because there will always be someone who doesn’t like something or feels foolish when they feel tricked no matter how lighthearted the joke is. So a game company announcing something ridiculous for their game needs some leeway when someone takes it personally when they fall for an announcement that Fortnite is removing dances or there would be no room for humor.
Widespread ones can still be mean spirited of course, but tricking people isn’t what makes it so.
I’m also autistic, and usually pretty bad at spotting jokes. But most April’s fools jokes that I’ve come across were just lighhearted fun and pretty obviously fake. Just real enough sometimes to make you go “really?! oh nvm it’s April 1st…”. What kind of mean spirited jokes are people making?
Nah, I’m not autistic and have always hated the idea of pranks like that.
It’s ruined in multiple ways.
People with low-hanging, unfunny ‘pranks’ or jokes.
Corporations being stupidly obvious and still trying to be hip.
Pools of people that would take great offense or lack a sense of humor.
There’s just no point in it anymore.
I think corporations using it in unfunny ways to sell something is the worst and killed it for real. But all your examples are good too.
