Oh, about April Fools

[ann_leckie]

Once upon a time, I had a Peter Gabriel fansite. There was a fun, small community of Gabeweb webmasters, and we hung out and chatted and whatnot and it was a good time. I'd probably still be doing it if I hadn't shifted my creative energies towards writing fiction. But anyway.

So, one year, one of us proposed that we all (okay, I think there were three of us) post a particular piece of ridiculous Peter Gabriel news on our sites. I don't really find much humor in actually fooling people--what, it's supposed to be funny that they fell for a lie? And then it's funny when they realize what you've done to them, made them look ridiculous or even upset or hurt them just so you could laugh? Really? I'm not getting it.

But this, this was so outrageous no one could possibly believe it. It wasn't meant to trick anyone, just to be outrageous and silly.

So, okay, sounds like fun, I thought, and posted.

And then the critical, angry emails began pouring into PG's assistant's mailbox. Because people visited their favorite sources of PG news and found our April Fools joke. And believed it.

We immediately took it down. We apologized, publicly. And we all felt awful, because first off, we never meant to actually fool anyone, and second, PG's assistant had always been very friendly and we felt we had a good relationship with her (to the extent we had a relationship, which wasn't much, but still) and we were horrified to think we'd damaged that.

That was the last time I ever tried April Fooling. I enjoy the silly jokes--I smiled at Happy Owls, I like what happens today if you google "Helvetica." I giggled at the news Google was hiring autocompleters. But I don't have any patience with actual attempts to trick people. And I don't have any confidence that I'll be able to come up with some sort of silliness that won't be mistaken for the truth.

So, I don't do it.

Comments

[marycatelli]

The only online ones that seem to work are the ones on the level of the Onion. Like a grave post I read today dealing with the religious and pastoral implications of the zombie apocalypse.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

LOL

And yet, even the Onion (which I love) gets occasionally mistaken for real news. And my daughter and I were just this morning boggling at the whole Spaghetti Trees incident.

The report was produced as an April Fools' Day joke in 1957, showing a family in the canton of Ticino in southern Switzerland as they gathered a bumper spaghetti harvest after a mild winter and "virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil".

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_trees)

The spaghetti weevil! I am giggling.

And then there's the "fake" urban legends on Snopes...

[vylar-kaftan.livejournal.com]

Go log into Codex. :)

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

It took me a minute or two to figure out what you meant. Those are fantastic, they should leave them up!

[rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com]

I get pleasure out of being tricked, and I think other people do too?