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Why I Hate April Fools Day

The thing I hate about April Fools Day is that we already live in a world where it is so difficult to trust information you read on the Internet, where Snopes-disputed forwards travel into my inbox and even the mainstream media sometimes gets the news wrong.  Where so many of our day-to-day actions are moments that destroy trust.  That tear at the seams of communities.  We already have 364 days of catfishing and other online hoaxes.  And then we plop down this 24-hour period at the start of spring in which the entire point is to MESS WITH EACH OTHER.

What the hell is wrong with humans?

Do you think any other animal would ever come up with this?  Do you think if rabbits had access to Facebook, they would spend the day putting up fake pregnancy announcements?  Do you think giraffes would spread saran wrap over their toilet seats so their urine splashes everywhere?

I hate April Fools Day because it makes me second-guessing everything being said to me.  And I just don’t have the time or energy to decipher what is fact and what is fiction today.

So suck it, April Fools Day.

 

30 comments

1 Tracie { 04.01.13 at 7:21 am }

I agree. So much.

Now I’m wondering what rabbits would share. Maybe carrot recipes? We should all share carrot recipes today. Do it for the rabbits.

2 Pepper { 04.01.13 at 7:27 am }

Oh man do I agree.

I like the idea if carrot recipes. One can never have too many carrot recipes.

3 Tiara { 04.01.13 at 7:44 am }

I too hate April Fool’s Day. Being so gullible to begin with, I’m an easy target. & I’m scared to not believe stuff, like pranks from coworkers, just in case it’s true & will have negative consequences if I don’t follow up.

I thought the fooling could only be done until noon? Maybe that’s a Canadian thing? Or maybe it was a teacher’s mandate from when I was a kid…

4 Katie { 04.01.13 at 7:49 am }

A-freakin-men. I’m glad I have today off so I don’t have to leave the house and deal with this!

5 Justine { 04.01.13 at 7:50 am }

I hate April Fools Day, too. But I wonder if our feelings about it have a lot to do with the ways in which our own trust has been violated over the years. If we haven’t been hurt by people we trust, or if we don’t care much about whether people get their story straight, maybe we’re more liable to be OK with people playing pranks. But maybe those of us who have been hurt or see the long-term effects of trust betrayed (or just think about other people’s feelings more often?!) are more sensitive to it?

6 Carla { 04.01.13 at 7:53 am }

I’m with you. I’ve always hated pranks and never understood people who believe that humor has to come at someone else’s expense. Suck it, April Fools Day!

7 Peach { 04.01.13 at 8:36 am }

I agree….I can’t stand April Fools Day. I think it was started when honesty was an expectation from my people and personal integrity meant everything….so a day for kids to pull silly pranks was once a year and fun. Now the pranks have a whole new meaning…they go to levels that are WAY too far and people lie all year….everyday is April Fools Day now!

8 Chickenpig { 04.01.13 at 9:08 am }

I agree! My Freshman year in college some of my roommates when on a practical joke/prank spree which drove me bonkers! The final straw was when a couple girls mixed a vile concoction in a cup and left it in the sun for a couple of days, then propped it above our door so it would fall on the next person who opened it. I went to open the door, and something told me to step back. The nasty crap hit the floor right where I would have been standing. I just stepped over it. I think the look on my face said it all, because they just cleaned it up and that was the last prank ever done on that floor. That stuff was NASTY, and they were so lucky it didn’t hit me.

9 Bionic { 04.01.13 at 9:14 am }

I can deal with much of it, but the pregnancy announcements…no. Just, no. I have done my best to vaccinate my feed against that so of thing this year by announcing first thing in the morning who pleased I am to see no one’s done it this year. The person who’s fool pregnancy ruined my damn day three years ago has liked my status, but then, she is crazy as a June bug.

I don’t know anyone who would joke that their parent or similar had died, because we all (?) get that it’s just not okay to up people through that kind of emotional wringer. The pregnancy bit is the same, except it seems like the jokers don’t even realize the wringer exists, lucky bastards.

10 Delenn { 04.01.13 at 10:08 am }

Oh, but let me tell you why I hate it. Because my name happens to be that of a certain month. And people think that are oh so clever. Like in my whole 40+ years I have never heard anything so clever as the plays on my name they make. And especially on April 1st. Oh yeah.

And then everything else you said in the above post. Spot.On.

11 YeahScience! { 04.01.13 at 10:24 am }

Agreed, it drives me crazy, especially because I am so gullible. And yep — there was totally a fake pregnancy announcement in my Facebook feed today (fortunately I only believed it for a split second, as I know the father had a vasectomy)…

12 Denver Laura { 04.01.13 at 11:02 am }

I don’t normally prank but this year I decided I was going to prank my husband. I know it’s not original, but I saw a video on yt where somebody poured coffee in the toilet tank so the next person who flushed thought there was something wrong with the plumbing. Since hubby also does the repairs, I put a note on the inside of the tank so he wouldn’t go as far as calling a plumber. I’ve been secretly saving the leftover coffee for 3 days to pull this prank…

Then at the same time, since I pranked first, I’m wondering what he’ll do back to me.

13 Courtney { 04.01.13 at 11:29 am }

You crack me up, Mel! =) I gave up Facebook for Lent and have to come back to social media on April Fool’s Day. Seriously?!? I do like practical jokes that are non-harming, but the pregnancy announcements are just cruel.

Thanks for the post… I’m seriously thinking about sharing it to Facebook now!

14 Ellen { 04.01.13 at 11:40 am }

I don’t like April Fools Day, either. The jokes are usually mean spirited and cause embarrassment rather than shared laughter. Calling an ex to tell him you still love him, etc. Yeah, I did that.

15 RobinJP { 04.01.13 at 12:07 pm }

Back in the good old days … I do remember a couple of great April Fool’s gags that took time, patience and a straight face and had us talking about it for weeks.
In high school, one of the star athletes came to school on crutches, with a new plaster cast. People were shocked and worried about whether he’d be ok and be able to play again. This was a big deal. (ok, ok, it was the old days)

The next day he walked back in to school without the crutches, no cast. All better. April Fool’s. That didn’t hurt anyone. I love the clever gags that are no mean-spirited.

16 Brid { 04.01.13 at 12:33 pm }

I actually love April Fool’s day… It’s my one and only baby’s birthday! Four long days and nights of labour and he shows up on April 1st! He’s a born joker, so it’s very fitting for him. When he was little he’d pretend he’d forgotten it was his birthday!

17 Ann Z { 04.01.13 at 1:09 pm }

This seems to be a common theme this year. I think I’ve seen as many posts about people hating April Fools’ Day for the same reasons you listed, as those posting pranks. Of course, this was the year that I actually participated in 2 jokes, though I tried very hard to keep them lighthearted and in the spirit of getting people to smile, rather than to laugh at someone, or to do a big gotcha (the library I work at “changed” its name to honor our favorite campus cat, and I wrote a fake story about a study linking kids in glasses with cuteness).

18 Wolfers { 04.01.13 at 1:59 pm }

Ditto…. I don’t like April Fool’s Day… me being still raw about being CNBC, I notice I have a trigger- pregnancy announcements- so seeing pregnancy announcements popping so often especially today (April 1st), it’s all painful. It’s all “funny, ha ha”, they say- I’d ask, ‘what if your mom died today, and you said that- and everyone think you are doing a prank?” they said they’d not like that- and I said, “then how do you then think I feel when you share fake pregnancy announcements?”

April Fool Day was light-hearted many years ago, but now it seems there’s a lot of pranks, mean-hearted, cruel, – there’s blurring boundaries there on whether it’s bullying or jokes or pranks.
Just my two cents.

19 Kimberly { 04.01.13 at 2:43 pm }

Agreed. I hate it.

My husband is a natural born prankster. But over the years I’ve taught him that if he pranks me, I’m not as receptive to it and he better expect to be staying at his parents for a few days after the fact. So he went from pranking everyone to just pranking those who wouldn’t mind it. So now he pranks his mom on occasion and he’s always in a pranking war with his friends. I sometimes get the backsplash from a prank on my husband, but at least now, him and his friends take me and the other spouses and significant others into thought before pranks are pulled.

But oddly enough, my husband hates April fools day too. He always says that only some people are really meant to pull fun pranks that provide no damage, but if you give everyone a day to do it, there’s no thought behind it and suddenly you have people with varying senses of humor pulling the wrong prank on the wrong person. That’s when people get hurt or offended. My husband might prank, but at least he’s always been a responsible prankster. You know what I mean?

20 Catwoman73 { 04.01.13 at 3:44 pm }

Agreed. I’m having a miserable day, thanks to a pregnancy announcement on Facebook that may or may not be for real. I’ll be glad when today is done and over with.

21 Siochana { 04.01.13 at 3:57 pm }

I’ve never played any pranks on April Fool’s Day (and I don’t think I’ve had any played on me.) I haven’t really thought about it ever, but now that I do think of it, yeah it’s a silly holiday. But April is also one of my favourite months of the year, because in southern Canada at least, it’s the first month of real spring. The coming of spring is new and beautiful and amazing to me, every single year. I never get tired of it. So I celebrate April 1st as the beginning of spring. No time for fools.

22 Katherine A { 04.01.13 at 5:02 pm }

I don’t generally play pranks because I tend not to take them well when they’re played on me – and if I can’t take it, I’m definitely not going to dish it. While I don’t have much trust in the world at large, it really makes me mad when people I know/love/trust tell me untrue stories or embarrass me. It’s just not funny.

Every once in a while, I’ve seen a few well played, carefully thought out pranks/jokes that everyone, including the person pranked found funny, but that takes work, knowing the person that’s being pranked well, having a context, and knowing where the limit is/where to stop (and none of these jokes were pulled on April 1, strangely enough).

A lot of April Fool’s jokes just don’t have that kind of finesse. It’s easy to cross the line or unknowingly touch a sensitive spot, and that’s why I’ve never been a big fan of pulling pranks.

23 Katherine A { 04.01.13 at 5:06 pm }

Well-played, I should say, not by me. Typically the jokesters are a few relatives who play pranks on each other and we all hear about it after the fact.

24 LN { 04.01.13 at 5:15 pm }

Definitely not my favorite, but not my least favorite either. It’s my cousin’s birthday, and I always thought it would be a fun one because people are in silly moods. So many holiday exclude people (all religious holidays, in fact). This is at least one you can opt in or opt out of. Sometimes people can take it too far or be mean, but honestly, as a Jew, I’ve seen much more of that around Christmas, of all things. (Certainly not by most, but by a memorable few.) like Halloween or Purim, there is an element to April Fools that nothing is as it seems. Again, not my favorite, but at least CVS hasn’t had its decorations and music going for four months, while people spout off about how there’s a war on Christmas when inclusive people say Happy Holidays.

25 persnickety { 04.01.13 at 7:17 pm }

I am not a fan of practical jokes and pranks, but some of the gentler April fools stuff can be amusing – a Google treasure map!, my favourite book review site being taken over by Amazons (rendered less shocking and surprising, and more plausible by GoodReads acquisition that week), but a reference to overlords in the copy gave it away early. And in light of earlier font discussions- the Guardians San Seriffe travel special.

26 Jamie { 04.01.13 at 9:02 pm }

Agree. That is why I took the day off of work and went to the beach! Sun, sand and ocean…and my college roommate joined me, so I was in good company. 🙂

27 a { 04.01.13 at 10:10 pm }

Very happy that I didn’t have to suffer any pranks today…

28 Mali { 04.02.13 at 12:18 am }

As Tiara said, we’re the same in NZ – the pranks are supposed to only last till mid-day. Clearly not the case in the US?

(Yes, I’m with you – I hate practical jokes too, apart from the occasional amusing spoof piece in the newspaper.)

29 Sara { 04.02.13 at 7:08 pm }

I’m SO with you. I hate practical jokes of any kind. I really don’t see any difference at all between deliberate cruelty that is called cruel, and deliberate cruelty that is called pranks. Perhaps I have no sense of humor, but I find all kinds of thing funny, so I don’t think that’s it.

30 Stupid Stork { 04.02.13 at 9:48 pm }

Ugh… I am not a fan either.

I obviously try to make a funny out of EVERYTHING, but the one thing that’s never funny to me/I would never do is embarrass someone on purpose. Feeling embarrassed is just about the grossest feeling in the world.

And OMG the mother effing pregnancy announcements… I didn’t say anything on Facebook because I do think it’s just one of those things that people don’t GET and I don’t want to come off as over sensitive but good Lord…. Even if it doesn’t occur to you how mother effing insensitive that can be (and lucky you like another commenter pointed out – lucky you that you don’t know what a sensitive subject that could be) and mean, come up with something ORIGINAL for crying out loud. The lack of originality is embarrassing.

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