A Blog About Making Culture
Your April Fool's Joke Sucks.
March 31, 2006
Hey, there! I'm your friend, so I didn't want to be the one to tell you. But someone had to: Your April Fool's Day joke sucks.
Really, it does. April Fool's works really well if you're either genuinely funny or if you make something that's plausible enough to actually trick someone for a while. "Just do something stupid" need not apply. And it's especially hard to be appropriately clever on the web.
Now, I know with my old-fashioned outdated ideas of humor I sound like one of those prescriptive grammarians gnashing their teeth over Alanis' use of the word "ironic". And, friend, let me tell you: Sometimes, I am the kind of curmudgeon that makes Andy Rooney look like Jessica Simpson. But that, today, is not my motivation.
No, it's that I'm trying to help you raise the bar. Thus, a list of things which do not actually constitue a valid April Fools' Day joke:
- "I changed my stylesheet! To someone else's!" Why isn't that funny? Because I still knew it was your site.
- "Our tiny company bought/got bought by a giant company. Like Microsoft!" Wow, that's lame. Neither believable nor surprising enough to be amusing.
- "We are embracing this thing we've demonized forever!" So you're a pest removal service that's getting into the cockroach-raising business? Sigh.
- "We have a big announcement today!" No you don't. It's Saturday.
- "Our new product does the impossible." You mean like making an April Fool's joke on the web that's actually funny.
Anyway, enough bitching. Let's see if we've helped scuttle any bad ideas that were about to be inflicted on us. Happy April Fool's!
Previously: Hooray Blogs!
Waxy.org
Internet Jackass Day 2006: Like every year, I'll be rounding up my favorite pranks on Internet Jackass Day (aka April Fool's Day). In case... read more »TheBrad
Oh yeah?! Well lemme tell you something, buddy: Your panda joke…sucks eats shoots and leaves.
Anil Dash 
Hey, that’s… accurate. Sigh.
And Madlands is the exception. Madlands is mad funny.
Ben
I’m going to call you ol’ man Dash from now on in.
In my mind, you wear full length red underwear, and eat from a can of beans that has a label that says beans. You like to scare the children from the local orphanage by removing your teeth and pretending to be the ghost of FDR, your only true love.
But deep down I suspect you have a heart of gold.
Exquire
Ooh, sour! April Fools day is being embraced on the web in a big way this year. I say it’s good! Some things are not taken seriously enough. But other things are taken way too seriously. Even if not everyone is funny, I think April Fools Day is more or less as relevant to Internet users as Easter. See how many sites get into the “true spirit” of Easter this year.
Tradition and ritual is important for humans, and all the “holidays” we have now are false shams commercialised around one or two ideas from the original. It’s pathetic! No wonder so many people are diving into April Fools: finally a tradition relevant to our culture.
And some of the stuff out today is hilarious. Get to your favourite sites and check ‘em out you suckers!
Kevin Cheng
shit. what if our joke was we got bought out by a not big company? actually i don’t expect people to fall for our thing, it’s more the mockery that i’m enjoying.
and for the record, people DID fall for our stylesheet switch last year because we didn’t switch to someone else’s, we claimed a rigorous redesign that was as ugly as you could get.
Rod Begbie
I ranted about this a few years back. The internet does seem to have grasped “April Fools Day” as “Tell an unfunny lie” day.
Now Flickr’s cat hack, on the other hand, is fricking genius.
Grant Barrett
Ha ha. All that time on a April’s Fool’s joke that’s not funny.
Though, dude, Brad—that’s the best you’ve done yet. Reminds me when I had to hide my Mad mags under my mattress so my mom wouldn’t throw them out.
Noah Brier
What if you do all those things at once? Does it become funny?
Elmo at http://anechoicroom.blogspot.com/
Needs more cowbell.
jake
as usual, anil tells it like it is. i hate this stupid, lame ass holiday— it’s like christmas for idiots.
Julie Chadwick
This year has to be the worst I have seen in quite some time for April Fool’s jokes. Most of them that aren’t on the above list are already-played-out Web 2.0 jokes. And to think that I woke up this morning looking forward to some decent jokes!
brandon
Tie a rubber band around your website’s kitchen sink sprayer. Now that’s genuinely funny.
clm100
How about SQL on Rails? I think that’s pretty funny.
Cheryl
Thank god you said it. The April Fool’s jokes have been unbelievably lame. The Bill Gates death one is immediately obvious. Something like that would not happen without HUGE MAINSTREAM PRESS. Pathetic.
Laura Moncur
“Ironically” the funniest April Fool’s Jokes are the ones that aren’t.
They planned a bridal show for April 1st this year and it wasn’t a joke. Only in Salt Lake City…
alek
Ditto comments above … although I thought the Goatse skin for iPod was kinda clever and perhaps an accessory that Anil could use for his next NYT photo shoot … ;-)
Yes, it’s fairly safe to look at that URL.
William T. Foxtrot
Amen to that, brother. I’m combing through my RSS feeds trying to find something intelligent to read, and all I can find are these idiotic April Fool’s Day jokes. When will it end??!
Kent Brewster
This, on the other hand, is priceless:
http://www.waterfall2006.com/
jade
I think what Slashdot did was pretty hilarious.
Patrick
“And it’s especially hard to be appropriately clever on the web.”
And you are proof of that, aren’t you? Fer chrissakes, lighten up.
Alex
What exactly is your problem, mate? Did you try to find your soulmate and felt yourself like beeing spoofed? Relax.
Arlo Hippie
Your “Your April Fool’s Jokes Sucks” post sucks.
Who gives a shit about your lack of humor?
Russ Jones
Yeah, but what if your crappy fake news story showed up on a REAL NEWS SITE! http://www.xssfools.com takes advantage of XSS vulnerabilities on popular newspaper websites so you can seemingly post your own articles! Pretty rad.
Liam @ Web 2.5 Blog
I’d be interested to know if you think this one achieves escape velocity…
John Dowdell
… hmm, I think I see a ripe panel session for the next SXSW…. ;-)
Ethan
Tech.memeorandum became the lamest thing Saturday with attempts at being funny. It made baby jesus cry.
Ara Pehlivanian
I’ve got to say, it WAS annoying to check my blogroll on Monday morning only to see all kinds of things that weren’t true. “Oh really? Click… loading… read… aw crap another stupid April fools joke”… sigh
Harris Lapiroff
Hey now, I found some of those amusing and I’m willing to bet at least a few other people out there did as well. Isn’t that what makes something funny? That people think it’s funny? Otherwise, we must be dealing with some definition of funny that I was never educated on.
Don’t be such a spoilsport, I had fun seeing April Fool’s jokes and I’ll bet the people who made them had fun making them. Nothing’s worse than a critical analysis of something you could be enjoying.
ginevra
yeah, Anil, you and your dry humor are totally spoiling everyone’s favorite funny. Next thing you know, you’ll tell the internet there’s no Easter Bunny.
oh, oops.
Nick Douglas
I thought MAKE’s joke was funny.
fantasy fanatic
Well, sure if you come into it with this additude! nothing’s going to be any fun then.
bishop joey
you gotta get outta your screen and into the street to really feel the power of the ‘fools’ day. noon, pointy bldg, sf, ww.saintstupid.com
Tasabieh
i would like to make an april fool to someone’s who’s working with me in the department….she’s a lady (my supervisor) :d please advice
Anonymous
sigh
An unfunny post about unfunny posts.
You’re kind of stupid.
Elmo
Moody Blues …. (abbreviated)
Isnt life strange A turn of the page Can read like before Can we ask for more? Each day passes by How hard man will try? The sea will not wait You know it makes me want to cry, cry, cry -
Isnt love strange A word we arrange With no thought or care Maker of despair Each breath that we breathe With love we must weave To make us as one You know it makes me want to cry, cry, cry -
Isnt life strange A turn of the page A book without light Unless with love we write; To throw it away To lose just a day The quicksand of time You know it makes me want to cry, cry, cry -
Happy April Fools anyway :-)
Xydexx
A lot of folks claim I don’t have a sense of humor, but usually it’s just that they aren’t funny enough.
The Joker
Oh hey, thanks for letting me know. Ceiling Cat loves you too.
Stephan Schmidt
Thanks, I thought only I had the impression that there is no humor in the technology april fool jokes on the web. They are just not funny. And astonishing your 5 types of joke summarize 99% of jokes I’ve had to see in RSS aggregators yesterday.
Thanks -stephan
Glenn
Dude, put down your keyboard (or back away from it), get off your ass, and do something funny.
Tough, huh? Sucks hard to have people on the sidelines pointing their fingers at you and shouting “laaaame!” don’t it?
So some people just “phoned in” their “pranks.” So Freakin’ What? Move on!
(Now I’m curious as to why I felt strongly enough about this to actually post something. Pro’ly because bystander critics really, really suck… Pro’ly.)
Larry V
@ Glenn It’s that sort of attitude that proliferates the dumb, unfunny April Fools’ crap that is strewn all over the Internet every April 1.
If you can’t think of anything really funny, don’t do anything at all.
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