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The crushing lameness of April Fools Day on the Internet.

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: The crushing lameness of April Fools Day on the Internet.

#21

Post by pavlov »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

> It seems every single company and publication that communicates via the web has a corporate communications department or something that thinks it's a corporate priority to come out with something for April Fools. It's not really the lameness of April Fools Day, it's the lameness of internet businesses, social media marketing, or marketers and salesmen in general. They need to take over, trivialize, devaluate and de…

Even if we ignore the social impact of marketing, it's pretty sad when people who work in communications believe that they are only required to be original once a year.

The original carnival days like "Feast of Fools" [0] were an outlet for subversive undercurrents in the otherwise immobile medieval societies. You could be Pope for a day, but you were still a beggar for the rest of your life and nothing would change that.

Marketers who play April Fools unwittingly paint themselves as the beggar in this scenario. It's like they're broadcasting a message: "I feel like my work has no meaning in this world, but at least today I get to pretend that I'm the one making the news."

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Fools

Re: The crushing lameness of April Fools Day on the Internet.

#23

Post by onion2k »

If your hypothesis is correct and the reason that April Fool's jokes are lame is because there's one day dedicated to them every year, "an entire day every year", then a rational proposal for a solution would be for companies to put random funny things out more often. If we had a "Fool's Day" every month then there wouldn't be such a shock, and they'd start to be something enjoyable rather than laboured.

Additionally, we'd need people to make them, so employment would increase, and people could sell merchandise promoting the best jokes, services to quantify what's funny, and so on, so there'd be business opportunities created too.

This could be the start of a whole new industry.

Re: The crushing lameness of April Fools Day on the Internet.

#24

Post by hoodoof »

onion2k wrote: post #23

If your hypothesis is correct and the reason that April Fool's jokes are lame is because there's one day dedicated to them every year, " an entire day every year ", then a rational proposal for a solution would be for companies to put random funny things out more often. If we had a "Fool's Day" every month then there wouldn't be such a shock, and they'd start to be something enjoyable rather than laboured. Additional…

I think people who are good at being funny are the ones who should do the job of being funny.

Re: The crushing lameness of April Fools Day on the Internet.

#25

Post by devolute »

jessieplk wrote: post #16
TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

> It seems every single company and publication that communicates via the web has a corporate communications department or something that thinks it's a corporate priority to come out with something for April Fools. It's not really the lameness of April Fools Day, it's the lameness of internet businesses, social media marketing, or marketers and salesmen in general. They need to take over, trivialize, devaluate and de…

What if April Fool's jokes were actually funny ... I think half the annoyance is most of the time, unfunny people reveal themselves on this day.

It's not possible to be genuinely funny when the real objective is defined by traffic and 'clout' metrics.

Re: The crushing lameness of April Fools Day on the Internet.

#30

Post by neilellis »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

> It seems every single company and publication that communicates via the web has a corporate communications department or something that thinks it's a corporate priority to come out with something for April Fools. It's not really the lameness of April Fools Day, it's the lameness of internet businesses, social media marketing, or marketers and salesmen in general. They need to take over, trivialize, devaluate and de…

I just can't give enough +'s for that - well said.
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