Suggest HN: No April Fools this year • Hacker News Board

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#31

Post by QuesnayJr » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:16 AM UTC

sdrinf wrote: post #14

Good rule of thumb, is April fools is funny, only if the recipient laughs with you afterwards. Spreading misinformation is not funny. Making others miserable is not funny. Schadenfraude is not funny. We need levity and laughter more than ever. Doing it well is where the dividing line is. I'd suggest do it well, or don't do it at all.

For me, what makes a good online April fool's joke is the gestalt switch, where I first believe it, then I read it with increasing incredulity, and then I remember that it's April 1st.

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#32

Post by trynewideas » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:16 AM UTC

April Fools among people with a mutual understanding of each other is levity.

April Fools as practiced on the internet and directed at strangers is bullshit on a good day and a headache on a bad one.

I've got enough bullshit to deal with.

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#33

Post by QuesnayJr » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

jansan wrote: post #25

> 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 de…

That's bizarre. It seems like a completely harmless joke.

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#34

Post by yreg » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:19 AM UTC

chimprich wrote: post #21

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.

GMail offered 1000MB of storage on launch. Their main competitors Yahoo! and Hotmail offered 10MB.

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3334201

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#35

Post by jmkd » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:19 AM UTC

midgetjones wrote: post #29

jmkd wrote: post #23

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 Foo…

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.

What about easter-egg style April Fools' like Google's 8-bit maps? Not an ounce of meanness https://maps.googleblog.com/2012/03/begin-your-quest-with-go...

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#36

Post by mav3rick » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:19 AM UTC

mstade wrote: post #16

royletron wrote: post #2

Personally I feel I am desperate for some humour in the current climate. I'm going into my birthday tomorrow isolated and in a few days would greatly appreciate a chuckle. Go for it.

Happy birthday buddy! Here's a joke for you: > Two elephants were skydiving > and suddenly one gets a > Cinnabon bun in the eye. I have to admit this doesn't seem very funny at all, but someone told me this and I couldn't stop laughing. Then again, I was twelve at the time. :o) Hope you have a great birthday, despite the times!

I don't get it ?

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#37

Post by Jaruzel » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:20 AM UTC

> Most April Fools pranks are tedious.

Totally agree. Also the problem with most April Fools events online is that unless you spend 30 minutes scrutinising the page, it's not apparent that it's a joke or fake. A bad joke is one that no-one gets. It doesn't make you clever to have outwitted your readers, just arrogant.

Let's face it, in these trying times, there's enough fools online and in the media trying to screw our lives up, lets not be part of that.

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#38

Post by jansan » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:21 AM UTC

QuesnayJr wrote: post #33

jansan wrote: post #25

> 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 de…

That's bizarre. It seems like a completely harmless joke.

Yes, and I still think this is hilariously funny. My guess is that Youtube currently filters all comments that contains coronavirus and related subjects. And to be honest, there are some truly stupid, awful and potentially harmful comments. I cannot imagine the comments are filtered manually.

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#39

Post by Etheryte » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:22 AM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #12

gherkinnn wrote: post #4

> As a general rule April Fools has become less popular on the web the more widespread it has become Agree. Most are somewhere between tedious and boring. “Oh look, we changed our company name to [something amusing only to a pencil pusher]. Aren’t we funny. Buy our products.” > some people might take levity badly given the current world situation Disagree and fuck them. The last thing we need is doom and gloom [0]. F…

As I said some people would take levity badly, I don't necessarily agree with them, but there are people who often say things are too serious to joke about or during. on edit: submitted before your edit.

Why do you care what people like that say? Especially so if you say you don't agree with them.

Re: Suggest HN: No April Fools this year

#40

Post by kd5bjo » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 9:22 AM UTC

midgetjones wrote: post #29

jmkd wrote: post #23

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 Foo…

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.

The traditional april fool’s joke (on the internet) is fundamentally satire, which is notoriously hard to do well. It needs to be something plausible enough to get people to start reading, but be absurd enough that people know it’s not real by the end without being told.