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Comment by jmkd | Hacker News Reader

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 Fools prank then yes you should drop it, which is true whatever year we are in.

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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...

Fair enough, good ones can exist. But every year April 1st becomes such a barrage of PR stunts, mostly not of that quality, that I'd rather companies didn't waste the resource.

I definitely agree there is typically a lot of chaff to sort through.

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.

It's especially hard to do well when it's forced through the filter of a PR team. It's not humor for humor's sake, it's humor to improve a brand. I don't think this is impossible to do well, just very rarely done in practice.

Like Geico.

> I agree with you, but in agreement with OP, April Fool jokes just aren't funny. They're inherently mean.

This entire debate is mostly going to be heavy on the subjective and is largely pointless accordingly. It's opinion tossing, people hoping their opinion somehow magically weighs more.

I like pizza. No, pizza sucks, it's too hot. Pizza isn't hot enough. Only cold pizza is good. No all pizza is inherently evil. Pizza is hand delivered by the saints. Only pizza with pineapple is good. Pizza with pineapple is the worst thing ever.

Seinfeld sucks, he isn't funny at all. Seinfeld is a god.

The only people that think April Fools jokes are funny are the ones performing them, or PR departments. I have no idea what sort of pizza that would be, but I don't think it's that subjective.

All the people disagreeing with OP in this thread are misreading them as wanting to somehow ban jokes and humour.

Yeah, we need to get rid of "jokes" that mislead people, mock them, or otherwise hurt or disadvantage people. Especially since fake news and misinformation has become a serious problem online. Jokes that are actually fun are great. But those don't need to be restricted to April Fools either.

I agree. I haven’t found a single April fools prank funny in years. It’s just an annoying day where even more fake news is passed of as fact only this time tolerated by all because lols. In the past few years I’ve tried to simply stay offline for the day.

Joke all you like if that helps you stay sane through the pandemic, but leave those who don’t wish to out of it and don’t play pranks on people.

While they rarely hit the mark being funny, I still find that AF projects can be fun, and the ones by bigger companies don't seriously intend to prank people beyond the standard format of passing off creative writing in a factual format.

Sure, and many of the ones like Google’s, which are just fun things you wouldn’t normally expect, but aren’t so much pranks or anything, are totally ok. It’s the pranks, fake news and what not that’s not amusing or funny.

I kinda hate April fools in any case. I'd be up for banning it indefinitely going forward.

And while your username seems funny to you, i find it offensive.

For many, recent April Fools Day "pranks" come across as just another megacorp advertising opportunity. I don't personally find it funny, or even pleasant. It's forced...like someone's putting it on their promo packet as evidence of community service or something.

So yeah, I'm jaded, but that said I don't want to be a grouch about it (except for here, for argument's sake). If people enjoy it, then I'm cool with quietly simmering.

Hardly agree. I suppose if you're a patient or one of your family is, there's no room for stupid jokes that might make them feel better such as "developed a working vaccine" only to know it was a joke and they'll feel even more depressing than before.

I've always hated April fool's as nothing seems to be funny but only for those who pull it off. I tend to "turn off" the internet on the day just to avoid feeling I've wasted time.

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