Royal Mail wins worst April Fools' joke 2023 | Hacker News Reader

Royal Mail wins worst April Fools' joke 2023

theregister.com

24 pointsgjvc8 comments

This was a bad joke by a single local delivery office manager, not actually an official “Royal Mail” activity.

I have yet to see a good April Fools joke by a company. The whole concept is tricking somebody into feeling foolish. That part is easy. Doing it in a way that doesn’t irritate your customer or employee is hard. Why bother? Just do on April 1 the same job you do on April 2, and leave the pranks to individuals in their personal lives, not companies.

The cycling industry often goes to great lengths for creating April Fools prank products because it's a marketing opportunity if executed well.

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/round-up-april-fools-jokes-fro...

Games Workshop did a pretty good one this year - which I enjoyed and think you might enjoy because what's funny is the absurdity of it, not that it makes a fool of anyone: https://youtu.be/uWgKkN4c1QI

Many game studios release fake patch notes for April Fools. The IETF has such wonderful proposals as RFC 1149 (IP over avian carriers) and RFC 2324 (Hypertext Coffee Pot Control Protocol). These things are harmless and funny and make the world shine a little brighter.

Sega released a whole visual novel where the player has to solve the mystery of Sonic's apparent murder. That was well received online, and got a ton of high review scores:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murder_of_Sonic_the_Hedgeh...

And Minecraft usually releases joke updates on that day, which have been at least somewhat well received:

https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Category:April_Fools%27

Maybe it works better when a company releases a ludicrous product as a joke, and that said product is actually available for the customers to use.

But where is the poster?! I'm mildly annoyed that I just have to take their word for what it said.

I'm not sure why people would be pissed about it either. It's not like that delivery office manager is high management, it's just one step above the delivery personnel.

The union is using it to embarrass the management and drum up support for the workers. That’s part of their job. It’s in their interest to play up the insensitivity and impact of what was a stupid joke by a low-level moron.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com