I am not a fan of April Fool jokes. While they may be tolerable when practiced by very small children, I find the adult fascination with them peculiar.
The ones in the media are usually only mildly amusing. I never note the special day except that NPR usually does hoax stories on it that are so weird that I realize that something is off and remember that it is April 1. This year it was a story about eye surgery to allow people to see 3D films and TV without special glasses (on Morning Edition) and another about a coffee shop that provides old-time slow internet via modems as part of a movement to get people to slow down the pace of life (on All Things Considered).
The only people who enjoy such hoaxes are the perpetrators. While most are harmless and usually merely a waste of time, some people’s ideas of what’s funny can be dangerous and trigger the “What on Earth were you thinking?” feeling.
For example, this year the Plain Dealer had a story about a woman, a Cleveland city government employee, who called her boyfriend and said that she was hiding under her desk at work because a gunman had entered the building and was firing shots. He naturally called 911 and they sent out police and SWAT teams that swarmed through the building searching for the gunman before uncovering the hoax. Someone could have got hurt or even killed if the SWAT team misinterpreted an innocent action as threatening.
Having said all that, once in a while the extra latitude allowed on April Fool’s day allows some creative people to indulge in a piece of inspired whimsy, such as this one by the BBC in 2008. This is an example of where the victims also enjoy the joke because of the ingenuity involved and the beauty of the result.
You can see how it was done.
Unfortunately most hoaxes come nowhere close to that level of cleverness and are merely annoying.
That is clever. Never would have thought of it myself.
I’m completely with you on how April fools jokes are mostly just annoying. I was working on a project in Google docs on April 1 this year and they interrupted me with a pop-up about some new Google services. I don’t remember the wording, but it was just vague enough to not be clear what they were talking about. I thought it might impact what I was working on so I checked it out.
Even though I found “Google Ad Blimps” and “Motion Tracking for Gmail” mildly amusing, having my work interrupted by a seemingly important pop up just seems a bit rude.
Hi Mano,
I agree but I would also say if it is harmless and if the person/s the joke is being played on like that sort of thing than it can be very funny for all. However if this is not the case then don’t do it, your example above with the swat team is taking things way to far and people should think about their actions before being so stupid.