April Idiots' Day

[tahnan]

I hate April Fools' Day. I really do. I like bullshitting, I know, but I hate practical jokes. Reading through the comments on Scott Adams's suggestions, I'm just appalled. Things that make people look a little silly for a minute, OK, maybe--swapping the contents of two boxes of cereal at home, that's harmless, that's perhaps mildly funny. But things like...

• Specifically, it requires someone with two identical phones on their desk - simply switch the handsets. When they "answer" the phone that's ringing, all they hear is the dial-tone, and as they're muttering and replace the handset, they cut the caller off.
• Some of my coworkers had at one time managed to switch the screen saver of another coworker to the windows 'It is now safe to shut off your computer' screen. Every time this guy would get up and leave his workstation for 10 minutes or so, he would come back to this message, groan about idiot technology, and reboot his computer. It took several such reboots and the repeated frustration of lost work before he cottoned on.

...and various other standard tech jokes (swapping the keys on someone's keyboard, etc. etc.)

How the hell, exactly, is it funny to disrupt someone's work? To force them to reboot their computer and lose their work, or to cut off someone who's calling them, or the like?

I think, ultimately, my favorite joke on the page, the one that really captures the spirit of the day for me, is:

• Find the co-worker that everyone hates. Go into her cubicle, stand behind her chair and say, "I'm having a hard time pulling up the forecast data sheet. Can you get into it?" When she turns to her computer, club her over the head repeatedly with a heavy, blunt object. Remember to hit her hard and often enough that she doesn't remember what happened when she comes to.

Comments

[saxikath]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who reacted to that list that way. Things that actually upset people and cause them extreme frustration and/or actual problems are not funny.

[tactical-grace.livejournal.com]

That last has some originality, but lacks replay value.

The things I like about April Fool's Day are usually restricted to the All Things Considered fake news item. I remember when it was an investigation into the new fad of having your belly button removed (to provide a smoother surface on the stomach for tattooing, or just general pleasingness).

That, and well, hopefully this April Fool's Day will have a nice extra.

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

Yup. Hate the day.

I hate going through the entire day thinking "Is that a real story?" or "Do you really mean that?"

Hate the pranks. Hate the meanness. Hate it in general.

[ericberlin.livejournal.com]

I would never dream of playing a joke on someone in my office unless I was actually friends with him -- good friends, and knew damn well that his sense of humor was attuned to the day. Proximity alone doesn't imply permission for this kind of thing, I completely agree.

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

In general, I agree with you. Such pranks aren't, and never have been, about humor; they're about feeling smug by humiliating others. They're about as funny as rain on your wedding day is ironic.

That said, I really enjoy the large-scale, public, victimless-crime sorts of foolery, such as the aforementioned All Things Considered fake news stories. Other good examples include Google's various fake pages over the years (my favorite I think being the PigeonRank explanation) and the famous comics-author switcheroo of several years back.

The difference here is that the purpose isn't to make you look like an idiot and then laugh at you; it's to get *you* to laugh, right around the point where your credulity finally snaps.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

It is true, I do enjoy the "bullshit" kinds of jokes--Anton Chekhov's book signing (http://www.improveverywhere.com/2004/02/29/anton-chekov/), say. But of course, Improv Everywhere's jokes are carefully designed to be victimless; when asked by a store manager to leave a store, they leave the store, and so forth.

Heck, there were a few things on the Scott Adams page that I found mildly amusing, specifically those that are harmless or good-natured. Putting out a bowl of fortune cookies on your desk with fortunes like "He who steals fortune cookies will slowly die of a venereal disease"--funny. Pre-sliced banana--funny. And, heck, I'm amused by the person who listened to two officemates describe a mildly cruel and disruptive prank (with no lasting damage), and who then played that exact prank on them.

But, generally, bah.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

So when any online service wants to know my birthday I tell them it's 1 April, on the grounds that the actual day is none of their business so long as I'm older than thirteen.
Does this count as a spiteful practical joke?
(I am reminded as the first of my annual April birthday wishes just arrived.)

CNet

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm, sounds like I need to be mindful of my team beating me with sticks at work today (Sunday), but that might be warranted even not on Apr. 1.

I thought today's fake CNet News homepage (http://news.com.com/1200-12_3-6172227.html) was funny, though.

g