Social media has killed April Fools’ Day. This day used to be devoted to elaborate pranks that take days to plan. Because of this holiday, offices would have a spike in pranks. The FCC has regulations against pranks such as the infamous Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds that set up a nationwide panic of Martians invading.
If pranking was an art form, social media is the finger- painting of April Fools’ Day.
The Internet community has embraced April Fools’ and made it a popular gag. Companies now feel the need to release some joke site each year to attract views and trend on Twitter. Google is well-known for it’s annual gimmick product such as this year’s Google Scent—smart phones that can identify and share smells across the web. Other companies are now jumping on the prank wagon. According to USA Today, Twitter announced vowel-free tweets. Tech blog Gizmodo reported that YouTube is actually a contest and they are closing down and announcing the winner of all of YouTube. Video game developer and publisher Valve announced the release of the long awaited and much anticipated Half-Life 3 according to PC Authority.
It’s great that the Internet has opened up to these annual jokes. What they have lost in realism they have made up in a yearly excuse to make fun of themselves. Unfortunately, not everyone can grasp how to make a successful April Fools’ Day.
Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, allows users to prank all of their friends and followers across the web. Now that everyone and their mother has a Facebook, the popular joke is to post a sudden and dramatic status update. It seems that at the stroke of midnight, millions of people became engaged, pregnant, dropped out of school or won the lottery. Even though this fad has been going for a few years, users still seem to fall for these random life-changing updates. Humor is a hard thing to master and repetition of the same joke doesn’t make it better.
These status are now the same as buzzers in your hand, whoopee cushions on your chair or “your mom” jokes— lame and over done. But just like those lackluster examples, people keep falling for these status updates. Maybe the intended audience is parents and oblivious users or other people who are more inclined to fall for simple pranks. Regardless of who the jokes are for, they keep catching people in their trap every year.
The only upside to this plethora of bad pranks is the way they make true pranks look masterful.
Carl is a senior and English major.
