April Fools’ Day has become a time when corporations let their marketing and creative departments loose to create online trickery and fake headlines with the orders of, “Make this go viral.” It’s also the time of year when many people refuse to check their email, get on Facebook, log on to Twitter, and now avoid Tumblr for fear of falling victim to some cleverly masked deception. Well, you can come out of hiding, because the day has passed. Whether you hid yourself from the world because you know you’re the gullible type or you passed around that one hilarious video to fool your friends, a few of this year’s April Fools’ Day tricks may have passed by you. Here’s a compilation of a handful of fake announcements and products that made their debut in 2013 so you don’t end up looking like a fool when they inevitably make the rounds again in the next few weeks.
Google has taken to giving a multitude of gags each April Fools’ Day, and this year was no different. The mega corporation started off by introducing its new search feature, Google Nose.
I particularly like that ghost smells like “an eerily, gassy smell of antiques and forgotten pasts.”
Google also went blue, but not by telling off-color jokes. No, Google promoted its new type of email service, Gmail Blue, which is exactly what it says it is. Gmail, but blue.
The video branch of Google, YouTube, decided to finally reveal that it owes its past-almost decade of existence to being a contest that will reward the winner with a $500 stipend and an MP3 player that clips to your sleeve. YouTube filled its April Fools’ Day video with some of its most famous celebrities, both purposeful and accidental. People such as iJustine, Rafi Fine, Matt Harding, Antoine Dodson, Kassem G, and David from David after Dentist made appearances.
Closing out Google’s interesting forays into the prank world is Google Treasure Maps. Google claimed to have found the long-lost treasure of William “Captain” Kidd when it discovered a map during “a recent expedition in the Indian Ocean as part of a deep-water dive to expand our underwater Street View collection.” Obviously, the map and treasure are false, but Google Map’s treasure function currently isn’t. If you want to see what your city looks like if it possibly contained secret treasures for you and your fellow Goonies to find, click the “Treasure” button in the top right corner of Google Maps.
Hulu chose to go the route of making you whistful for the long-standing TV shows and classic movies that never existed. A quick perusal around Hulu’s April premieres presents a list of selections such as Inspector Spacetime from Community, The Itchy and Scratchy Show’s 85th Anniversary from The Simpsons, The Rural Juror from 30 Rock, and Space Teens with Robin Sparkles from How I Met Your Mother. How many people clicked on those options knowing full well that these were all fake choices but still hoping against hope otherwise?
Video-hosting service Vimeo went the tried and trusted internet route by injecting cats into its site and renaming itself as Vimeow. The new, feline version of the site promised that it has:
Room for all your cat videos
Think of Vimeow as a small, cramped house with a lot of stuff in it, and a weird smell, and there are already a bunch of cats living there, but you can keep taking in more and more cats, because, well, they each have their own unique personality and, to be totally honest, you’re kind of lonely.
It sounds like Vimeow knows the internet quite well. The people at Vimeow also truly understand the great driving force for cats.
Add aloofness to any video
Make it more like your favorite indifferent feline.
Even adult toy manufacturer Jimmy Jane got into the act with Hello Toes, a foot-fetish geared version of its real product Hello Touch.
No one outdoes internet prank stalwart Think Geek though. The online store has been creating full pages, videos, and fake products since 2001. Sometimes, like with the case of the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag, public demand of an April Fools’ Day product is so high that the company has no choice other than to make the lie into a reality. This year, the store gave people plenty of imaginary choices to cry out for real versions of. Among the many fake items at Think Geek, there’s the Minecraft USB Desktop Nether Portal that allows you to toss unwanted documents into the blocky world’s hell-like dimension, the Play-Doh 3D Printer that gives you the thrill of 3D printing without the hefty price tag, and the Adventure Time BMO Interactive Buddy that gives you your own living video game console who is also a video editor, video player, portable electrical outlet, music player, camera, alarm clock, and friend.
Our bet is on this one becoming a real product.
What was your favorite April Fools Day prank this year? Which one made you roll your eyes at its lameness? What did we miss that was awesome and must be shared because you wish it was real?
Thankfully, no one at Techcitement managed to find himself or herself a victim of any pranks. I am, however, excited to find out what BBQ pig wings taste like.
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