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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.

#141

Post by Workaphobia »

> "How are we going to attract and recruit the best engineers unless we've got a reputation for the very best and most foolish April Fools trickery?"

You say that sarcastically, but I see that as a legitimate concern. Why miss out on a great opportunity to make a connection with thousands of users who otherwise wouldn't see any uniqueness or individuality to what you do? And the only risk is that they'd piss off someone with a corny joke.

That said, I sympathize. I enjoy jokes, but I'd like to read real news too.

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

#142

Post by jff »

snowwrestler wrote: post #91
jedrek wrote: post #37

April Fools' Day is amateur hour for people who aren't funny the other 364 days of the year. It's much like New Year's Eve for people who don't party or Valentine's Day for people who aren't romantic. They feel like they have to do this on this exact day, which of course leads to an embarrassing situation for everybody.

All of these holidays are also amateur hour for people who view themselves as intellectual social critics--people like the OP. I contend there are worse things that businesses can do with their time than think up bad jokes. Let's keep some perspective here, people.

Let me tell you about Valentine's Day and the greeting card industry. In excruciating detail.

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

#145

Post by dgabriel »

jafaku wrote: post #128
danielweber wrote: post #38

Don't forget to spend all day of the Super Bowl telling everyone on the Internet how you don't watch football.

Except we didn't subscribe to the LameJokes channel, so why should we receive jokes instead of whatever the channel was supposed to give us? You should realize that this is the internet, not America, and April's Fool is an American tradition.

This is completely incorrect. It's celebrated widely in European countries & elsewhere. April Fools didn't even start in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day

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

#146

Post by mcintyre1994 »

jafaku wrote: post #128
danielweber wrote: post #38

Don't forget to spend all day of the Super Bowl telling everyone on the Internet how you don't watch football.

Except we didn't subscribe to the LameJokes channel, so why should we receive jokes instead of whatever the channel was supposed to give us? You should realize that this is the internet, not America, and April's Fool is an American tradition.

FWIW, Wikipedia has good looking sources putting the April Fools tradition long before America [0]. I think it's safe to say it's a Western tradition at the very least.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day#Origins

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

#147

Post by bubbleRefuge »

So I heard on NPR this morning that San Mateo County was experiencing snow, sleet, and hail at the higher elevations on California 35 and that snow plows were dispatched. Can't tell if that is true or not due to April fools day + the fact that weather is unseasonably cold and rainy last few days. Very lame if its AFD joke.

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

#148

Post by dang »

I wonder if everyone here knows that we had a rather animated thread about this last night, after I asked people to flag April Fools' gags off the front page (and then amended it to say lame April Fools' gags):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506793

These threads are still open for discussion, but I'm going to downweight this one now, since it's been on the front page a long time and nothing new is likely to emerge from it. I applied the exact same penalty to my own post last night.

HN doesn't avoid humor, but it does eschew lame humor as part of eschewing lameness in general. Obviously, people's opinions about what's lame and what's funny differ wildly.

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