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"I have a sense of humor. Really I do." Are you sure? I think you're taking yourself and the internet a little too seriously. If the jokes aren't funny don't l
by rnernento 13y ago
"I have a sense of humor. Really I do."
Are you sure? I think you're taking yourself and the internet a little too seriously. If the jokes aren't funny don't laugh and don't click. If it really bugs you go ahead and spend a day without reading news on the internet, you'll survive, I promise.
April Fools is interesting on the internet because attention is rewarded and that encourages companies to put real effort into silliness. It's okay to be silly sometimes, it's actually important. The fact of that a company like Google still has a sense of humor about itself renews my faith in them a little bit.
Look at Blizzard's April fools:
http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/games/outcasts/ http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/games/outcasts/
The credit card slots in the controller to make for easier microtransactions. With the new business models they're using for Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm it's actually pretty funny. The fact that they're acknowledging it softens me to them even just a little bit.
Some of us look forward to April Fools on the internet, maybe the jokes are lame but the effort makes the event interesting.
- mbillie1 13y ago> It's okay to be silly sometimes, it's actually important. I agree with this entirely, but I think the argument here is that none of these corporate April Fool's jokes are silly, or funny, or clever, or interesting. They're the minimum effort to justify being a "gag" in order to farm page hits. Honestly, when was the last April Fool's prank that "got you" or made you laugh?
- rnernento 13y agoBlizzard's made me laugh. I think the Google Pokemon map was funny. The celebrity photobombs on the front page of Google. These are nerds making these not standup comedians. Pretty much every internet April Fools gag is funnier than SNL these days...
- npsimons 13y agoPretty much every internet April Fools gag is funnier than SNL these days... That's a really low bar to hurdle.
- stcredzero 13y agoIt should all be a cautionary example about institutionalized humor.
- briantakita 13y agoWhat would make me laugh is a google.com "Fail Whale" on April Fools.
- RivieraKid 13y agoPokemon and other Google's "jokes" were just pathetic. Apparently, typical Googler has a sense of humour of a 5 years old.
- warrenmcwin 13y agoyou, sir, appear have the chubby fingers of a five year-old
- RivieraKid 13y agohahaha, you're so funny
- stcredzero 13y agoDidn't a famous software dev blogger write that everything he needed to know about managing programming teams was written in a book titled something like: Everything You Need to Know about Talking to your Five Year Old?
- 72deluxe 13y agoCorporations can spend their money on what they want. Whether they manage to get page hits is an aside! I haven't clicked on anything to do with April Fools. People forget that the Internet is a "pull" system, so they consciously have to decide to click on a link and visit a page. It isn't like they're subjected to incessant April Fools pages from corporations. Surely if someone doesn't want to view an April Fools page (or ANY page), they shouldn't CLICK on the link? The Internet isn't that serious a place. If there is outrage over April Fools pages, that's a bit sad. I mean of the 200 million top level domains housing perhaps thousands of pages each, of what percentage are April Fools pages? It's not a big issue really, nor one that I would see the "ugh sigh" attitude worthy of. As you say though, I can't remember the last April Fools prank that made me laugh. Now on to complaining about people smiling in public. . . .
- mjwhansen 13y agoI'd rather them make jokes and try to make me laugh to "farm" page hits rather than publish click-bait headlines that lead to idiotic articles. At least we're all in on the joke on April Fools.
- mbillie1 13y agoI don't know that I agree - I find really bad humor to be sometimes worse than no humor.
- hackinthebochs 13y agoAgreed. I often have to change the channel if a scene on a show (that I otherwise like) is just too cringe-inducing. I wonder if there's something underlying some people's sensitivity to this? Heightened activity of mirror-neurons perhaps (e.g. feeling embarrassed for someone else)
- wehadfun 13y agoThe last one I liked was http://www.google.com/virgle/ http://www.google.com/virgle/
- GrinningFool 13y agoYesterday. Rotisserie Chicken was actually pretty funny.
- stcredzero 13y agoAre you sure? I think you're taking yourself and the internet a little too seriously. If the jokes aren't funny don't laugh and don't click. If it really bugs you go ahead and spend a day without reading news on the internet, you'll survive, I promise. This is true. But I'd also like to point out that humor shouldn't be given a free pass on a little healthy analysis simply because it feels good and has been lionized in our culture. That's just a pretext for shutting our brains off. Often this is used as a way to attack analysis which makes things uncomfortable, and sometimes the analysis is uncomfortable because it is true.
- wraws 13y agoHere are 10 interesting ones: http://wraws.com/brilliant-april-fools-day-pranks/ http://wraws.com/brilliant-april-fools-day-pranks/
- jff 13y agoDid you just promote your own listicle?
- 27182818284 13y agoNah, most people have a sense of humor, but few people are comedians. Lots of people can read, few are good writers. I cannot think of a single Internet April Fool's joke that is funnier than the bottom-tier amateur comedians I know at the local club. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, though. Comedy is hard. A team of developers and project managers that try it once a year are...well... you know the expression "Keep you day job"? I think that sums it up.