Welcome to April Foolsâ Day, one of the most annoying days of the year. Itâs the one day in which you canât trust anything that you see on the internet, because everyone is trying to trick you. Hilarious! But hereâs the thing: thereâs a pretty huge distance between making a joke and lying, and most April Foolsâ Day pranks fall distinctly in the latter camp.
April Foolsâ Day is to comedy what New Yearâs Eve is to parties: amateur hour. Itâs the one day a year that everyone thinks they are hilarious, and you canât escape the onslaught of poorly-conceived pranks and misinformation. Because today might be pitched as all about hilarious jokes, but the real focus is generally on tricking people into believing things that arenât true.
Sure, there are some well-done April Foolsâ Day gags. Funny or Die has been taken over by Rebecca Black today, and Improv Everywhere posted a video in which one of its agents was beaten up on the subway for dancing in a guyâs face while dressed as Jar Jar Binks. But these pranks are both fully-formed ideas, ones that were created by comedians who make funny videos all year anyways. If you are going to Funny or Die or Improv Everywhere, you want a joke video. Theyâre also self-deprecating jokes that end up making fun of themselves rather than anyone else. Thereâs nothing mean-spirited about either of them.
Compare this to âRIP Jackie Chan,â something thatâs been trending on Twitter all week. You see, people are saying that Jackie Chan is dead when he is in fact alive. Thatâs the prank. Also, it was started like four days before April Foolsâ Day just to trick more people. Things like this are not only not funny, but they make navigating the internet insanely frustrating, as you have no idea whatâs a prank and what isnât. When people are more focused on tricking people than making people laugh, they make their lies more subtle and hard to detect, which leaves people completely confused about whatâs real and what isnât all day long. And thatâs not really funny.
What youâre left with, when you take away the tolerable handful of jokes youâll see today, is a combo of unfunny lies being spread for no real reason and half-assed jokes made by companies looking to get their brand talked about (did you hear that Groupon is acquiring April Foolsâ Day?!). So please, pay attention and donât encourage this sort of thing by spreading it that around. And for the love of god, donât try to trick people.
If you want to do something funny on the internet, I fully support it! I would never want to discourage people from putting themselves out there and trying to make something hilarious. Just, you know, maybe wait until tomorrow.