Friday, April 1, 2011

April Fool's Day Sucks.

We all know what April Fool's Day is, when everyone is determined to make sure everyone else's day is pretty much as uncomfortable, inconvenient, and annoying as possible.  And, in most cases, simply for the goal of making an ass out of oneself.

Now, I'm sure we're all interested in The Origins of April Fool's Day, and I'm sure it's quite silly and fun and such, or maybe not, but really, who cares.  Why everyone clings to it so fervently is honestly a bit beyond me.  Which is to say, I'm not humorless, of course, you all know this by now.  But the problem with April Fool's Day is that 98% of the time, it just doesn't work.

Let's take Adult Swim for example.  A few years ago, on April Fool's Day, they decided, "Hey, let's get the worst movie we can find and play it.  It'll be hilarious!".  So, they played The Room.  Which, sure, it might have been okay the first year.  "Tee hee, oh this movie sucks, how unexpected is this".  But since, it's become a tradition, which is the antithesis of spontaneous, unexpected pranking.  Maybe I'm just lacking a pair of hipster glasses, but I can't bring myself to enjoy The Room ironically, as it's just awful.

 So, what are some other just, hilarious pranks that have been played on this day?
Cellphone ban: In New Zealand, the radio station The Edge's Morning Madhouse enlisted the help of the Prime Minister on April 1st to inform the entire country that cellphones are to be banned in New Zealand. Hundreds of callers rang in disgruntled at the new law.
Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station
In 2010, British newspaper The Sun ran an article about its new "Scratch and Sniff" paper, providing a sample of plain newspaper. This led to a lot of readers sniffing the paper in an attempt to smell the scent.
Assassination of Bill Gates: In 2003, many Chinese and South Korean websites claimed that CNN reported Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was assassinated, resulting in a 1.5% drop in the South Korean stock market.

Truly, some fantastic things in there, with absolutely nothing that might cause people to have shitty days.  Still, I guess a few people get it right.  Specifically this:

MechQuest, an online RPG, replaces their sound systems (battle sounds include explosions and lasers), with home recorded human voices, startling many players.
 Honestly, that would be pretty hilarious.  "PEW PEW PEW"  "Uhhh".  That's the way to do it; something silly, funny, and easily changeable in case you're of the humorless type.

I guess the only reason why I'm angry today (aside from some stress things) is that apparently the weather is trying to prank me.  It snowed yesterday and the day before.  It heated up today.  Quite a bit in fact.  So much so that it will probably storm in an hour or so.  So, hey, thanks for that, Nature.

2 comments:

  1. It can be stupid. It can be good, too. Depends, really.

    One example of 'good' for me was my personal favourite PC Gaming journalism site, Rock Paper Shotgun, spending a day doing nothing but articles from the perspective of 19th century Victorian authors. Topics covered included whether it was 'tasteful' to do a game based on the Mary Celeste, outrage over the dumbing down of boxing due to the Marquess of Queensbury, and commenting how one day in the future, it might be possible to review American (board) games in the same year they're published.

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  2. I loved it when Kotaku said they were bought out by Activision, and would henceforth be known as Koticku.

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