The Sanctity of the April Fool
"You couldn't fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine!"
I'm a big fan of April Fool's Day; I think the concept of having one day to pull one over on your friends kicks ass. Last year, we successfully convinced Beth's mom that Beth was pregnant. She totally bought into it and you could hear her literally screaming over the phone. Priceless. I've also been on the receiving end of a few pranks that started on April Fool's Day, as I'm sure Jason can attest. There's nothing like opening up your underwear drawer before class only to find a note saying "Missing something?"
What makes April Fool's Day great can be summed up in one word - "surprise." If you can get someone to fall for your trick, you're money. The problem is, in recent years, the internet has really diluted the power of April Fool's Day. You can't swing a dead cat-5 cable without hitting a website running one or more joke stories. In and of themselves, most of these stories are pretty amusing, and it's pretty easy to pick the fake from the true. Therein lies the problem - as soon as someone becomes aware that it's April Fool's Day, say by reading 50-some joke stories first thing in the morning on the 'net, it becomes all that much harder to catch them off guard.
In that light, I present an April Fool's Guide to April Fool's Success.
1. Find 'em. If you're pulling a physical prank, do it early in the day.
1a. For best results, find someone who isn't net savvy or who you know won't surf the 'net until after you've fooled.
2. Fool 'em. If you're concocting a scheme that involves a web of deceit, aim for simplicity and believability.
3. Forget 'em. If your victim suspects you'll be on the Fooling Warpath, use the psychology of expectation to your advantage.
Comments
Thanks for the heads up! I'd forgotten all about it.
Posted by: lyssa | April 1, 2004 05:52 AM
I've given up on the "fooling" thing. I'm more about the quality of the attempt now. "Wow... they put some good effort into that, and even though I wasn't fooled, it was funny unto itself." Or, "That would be really believeable, if it wasn't April 1st. Nice work!"
Another key, is posting any internet pranks early. Leave the reveal for April 1st.
Last year (and just *prior* to April 1st) there was a great one pulled at AtariAge, where someone claimed to have purchased a long-sought-after prototype for the 2600 version of Turbo. Mockups of the game's screen had been seen for years, but no ROM had ever been found. However, this guy posted a convincing pic of the circuit board, photos of it running on his Atari 2600, and, after some "help" dumping it - an actual .bin file of the ROM which ran on emulators.
In the end, it turned out to be one of the homebrew programmers and a few cohorts who put it together. (If you played the ROM long enough, "April Fools!" came up on the screen.) Very convincing - despite the time of year, and a tremendous effort.
Posted by: Nathan Strum | April 1, 2004 07:19 PM
I guess I agree with Nathon. If I can fool someone for even 10 seconds with an internet article, and them make them laugh and reread it once they realize what's going on, then I consider it to be a success. It's a lot of fun to keep piling on the straws until eventually one of them breaks the camel's back. That's more or less the approach I took for the IMG gags I wrote.
BTW, congrats to Aspyr on that new Sims expansion!
Posted by: Matt Diamond | April 2, 2004 10:39 AM
Excelent simpsons quote however!
Posted by: Crusher4 | April 14, 2004 09:31 PM