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.
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.
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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.
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.
I’m autistic and I loooaaaathe April Fools. 99 percent of the ‘jokes’ are just mean spirited assholishness I feel.
Random side note, feel suddenly didn’t look like a word to me.
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?
Yeah I saw a great one about how there’s a new book in a series my partner and I read that we thought was done for…saw the date, had a quick laugh about how silly we were to believe it so fast.
Yeah, honestly this sounds like some people are doing mean-spirited jokes with the cover of April fools.
I went to the toilet and shouted for my son that I needed toilet roll. When he came in, I grabbed it from him and touched him with my hand, which I had covered in chocolate mousse. Worked a treat.
I’ve seen the Tiktoks a million times, yes.
Light hearted pranks are still great for April 1st!
I’ve never seen a single TikTok. My dad did this one to me in 1988.
Good to know kids have been scarred with fake feces since the 90’s!
I asked my dad and his brother did it to him in the mid 60s. A classic prank.
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.
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?
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!
It was never fun to begin with.
The onion should post real news on april 1st
They always do. Satirical, but real.
i opened lemmy to this. april fools definitely cheered me up at least, lol :)
My local newspaper stopped doing April Fools in 2017 due to the problem of fake news and discussions about media’s credibility.
News sources shouldn’t be playing stupid April fools jokes. Everyone’s a fucking comedian. Certain people don’t get to make cute jokes, i don’t want that from my doctor either.
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.
Being a fool has become a year-long occupation for many …
Where I am, that day started 13 hours and 54 minutes ago … so far the news is indistinguishable from any fake or real news.
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
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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.
Tomorrow Nintendo Switch 2 gets more details and I heard about a Oblivion remake, this ain’t no April’s fools.
Nintendo Switch 2 getting more details, and knowing Nintendo probably a release date within a short time span, is true.
For one, April 1st has always been a date to make big announcements in Japan, not one for jokes. Nintendo just learned to move that one day for westerners (:
