April Foul-ups: Some Dos and Don'ts for April Fools Pranks · 11:04pm Apr 1st, 2016
Ah April Fools Day. A time for merriment and silliness. Like Halloween, it's one of those days cordoned off for behavior that would normally be considered awkward or unusual. But, as often happens on these normalcy-flaunting holidays, people mess up. The social mores and rules are poorly defined, and people often rush to do something silly and step over the line. For today's meandering musing post, I'd like to discuss some things that make a good--or bad--April Fools prank.
The first thing to remember about April Fools pranks is that they should not disrupt the normal operation of your business/site/whatever. Presenting fake news on a news website, watermarking images on an image website, or disrupting/impeding users in any way is not a good idea. April Fools pranks should not be malicious in nature. They shouldn't be destructive or inconvenient or mean-spirited. FIMfic ran into this problem a few years ago: they announced they were banning HiE and people were appropriately annoyed. Derpibooru made a similar mistake this year.
The next thing to remember is that restraint is important. Making too many pranks not only makes each one less funny, it also increases the chances that each one may be taken seriously. Again, see FIMfic's botched April Fools day: not only did they make the aforementioned announcement, they also had 2 other joke posts from site reviewers and the FIMfic gold thing. Derpibooru not only watermarked their images this year, but also changed all their spoiler images to the same "premium content" image. Sometimes this can be a result of multiple subgroups within a community each doing their own thing, of course, but not always.
The final thing to remember is that it is okay not to do anything for April Fools. A good prank should not be rushed or poorly planned. Likewise, some things and services simply do not lend themselves to April Fools pranks. If you can't come up with a good one, then don't force something out. This can also heighten impact for later years: after all, if you skip doing a prank one year, then the next one will be less expected.
So what are some good examples of pranks that follow these ideas? A personal favorite prank of mine was Netflix's a few years ago: they replaced several of their usual categorical suggestions (like "Comedy", "Inspirational Documentaries", etc.) with some rather...specific ones (link because imgur and FIMfic don't get along).
What were some April Fools pranks that you found particularly memorable? And were they memorable because they were funny, or because they were bad/inconvenient/overdone?
I was going to link to a Wall Street Journal article about Google and Yahoo messing up their April Fools pranks this year, but apparently it's now hidden behind a paywall. So have a gif instead, I guess;
At least the Derpibooru prank can be disabled by an easily located checkbox.
3842252 Except it's not that easily located, since the notification for it doesn't call enough attention to itself. I just didn't bother using derpibooru last night since I was too tired to properly search for it, and didn't try again until today.
I think if they had stopped at the "premium content" joke that would've been a perfectly fine prank.
100% agree. I would say that, on the internet (with friends is a different, more idiosyncratic matter), the golden rule is that an April Fool's prank/joke shouldn't leave anyone feeling like an idiot, nor should it make stop people from doing whatever they come to your site to do.
I think it is okay for news sites to post fake news posts.
Why?
Because it keeps people on their damn toes.
April 1st is the one time of the year that people actually are skeptical about the shit they read online.
Don't take that away from me.
Also, the spaghetti tree hoax was glorious.
Though I think the best April Fool's Day Prank is announcing something that everyone ASSUMES is a prank, but isn't. Like GMail. :V
I'm still sad that the plans to make Duke Nukem Forever go gold on April 1st didn't end up happening.
Pornhub turning into Cornhub this year was pretty awesome, but I'm also hearing widespread praise for the rap album that the Hamburger Helper mascot released. That sort of spontaneous creativity just hits all the sweet spots for me.
3842523 Yes, this is more for corporations/businesses/entertainment outlets/personalities/etc. How you prank your friends is going to depend heavily on your friends. Different groups will have different rules, as with any other social activity.
3842995 I think that making fake news posts is a problem because it violates some of the main ethical considerations of journalism: making sure your reporting is as factual as possible, and ensuring that it limits harm.
It is a journalist's responsibility to be accurate, not keep people on their toes. It is the reader's responsibility to be skeptical and check the validity of the things they consume. When someone acts on fake news then yes, it is their fault. But it is also the fault of the news source.
Obviously there are exceptions: places like The Onion that only post satirical news anyway, for instance.
Also, point of order: making a legitimate announcement on April Fools day isn't really a "prank", it's more "subversive humor". Although if you intentionally dress up the announcement as a joke, then that subversion probably counts as a prank. Too meta.
3843027 I lol'd at the first track
wp, Hamburger Helper. Goes to show that putting some effort into your pranks goes a long way!
3843075
I disagree. The primary purpose of journalism is entertainment. Them writing false news stories on April 1st, and everyone trying to distinguish the real from the fake, is entertaining.
Almost nothing I read in the news impacts my life in any way, shape, or form. Does the Syrian refugee crisis matter? Does the attack in Brussels matter? Does the latest Trump or Sanders rally have any meaningful impact on my life? Does me reading about how the candidates are doing change the results?
Almost all of it is basically infotainment at best, and outright entertainment in most cases. Do political horseraces matter? How many news stories are basically this?
The news sources have figured this out. Heck, they figured it out a long time ago. Sports sections make up a huge amount of news. Do sport results matter at all? No, they're pure entertainment. Most quirky news stories exist for the purpose of entertaining us - we don't really need to know the ins and outs of the local high school robotics team, or a local shop owner's life, or the history of a local building.
Almost nothing we read about in the news impacts our lives, and we have no control over almost any of it. Unless you're invested in the stock markets, 99% of the news you read is utterly worthless to you outside of entertainment, most likely, and may actively be deleterious to your health if you worry about terrorists or people being stupid or whatever.
I read the news all the time, but I did not read a single news article today which made my life any better, and the time I wasted reading the news could have been spent doing productive things that I probably would have enjoyed more.
The news pretends to be important to suck people in. But in truth, it is ultimately a form of entertainment in the form of using real life as Reality TV.
3843279 Journalism is literally "news delivery". The content and delivery of that news certainly varies, as does the adherence to ethics.
Good journalism can be entertaining, but that is hardly its sole defining feature, nor is it a requirement. C-SPAN is journalism, and that is the opposite of entertaining.
Even when journalism is being more entertainment than news--a la the Daily Show and imitators--there should still be an expectation of ethics and professionalism.
Obviously that's my personal viewpoint, and it sounds like we'll have to agree to disagree. I would strongly advise any newspaper/website/etc not to run joke stories for many reasons. Even assuming that journalism is more entertainment than fact (and some do treat it that way), the entertainment value isn't worth the potential damage it could do to your reputation. Hell, Yahoo News (one of their subsidiaries at least) ran a joke article today about Trader Joe's going out of business. Both their readers and Trader Joe's were justifiably annoyed by it. Now obviously if we're talking about a tabloid or other unethical news source already, then this isn't a concern.
Perhaps that is why you enjoy The Onion so much: their philosophy of all entertainment and no actual news matches up with yours
For the curious, Google replaced, in gmail, a "Send and archive" button with "Send and mic drop", attaching a video of a Minion mic-dropping.
This led to many people being fired because they didn't realize it, and sent such to their co-workers, bosses...
Thus, Google pulled it fairly early in the morning.