Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

The best April Fools joke I can remember was an anti-joke, when Google announced Gmail on the 1st of April. They were promising what were then unbelievably generous allowances and no one could agree on whether they were serious or not.

I find this a mean-spirited, depressing and (ironically) tone-deaf idea.

1. People need humour in challenging moments 2. Black comedy and gallows humour can lift the spirit at even the worst of times 3. As much of the northern hemisphere enters spring we could collectively do with a fillip to jolt us into a more optimistic mindset

The only value in this proposal I see is that if you are working on a tedious April Fools prank then yes you should drop it, which is true whatever year we are in.

> some people might take levity badly given the current world situation

Fuck this attitude. Just yesterday I joked in a comment on Youtube about the quality of James May's video for reminding people to stay at home. I wrote

"James May shamelessly reused the footage he recorded during the Spanish Flu pandemic".

6600 people liked the comment, it was by far the most liked comment on that video, until suddenly Youtube decided it was inappropriate and the comment was no longer displayed. Who are they to decide what people are allowed to find funny?

But you put us also in contsant mourn mode where nobody can even relax a bit with this situation.

I agree with you, but in agreement with OP, April Fool jokes just aren't funny. They're inherently mean. You can be funny without tricking someone, and everyone is already on an emotional knifepoint at the moment.