If seen some wonderful online pranks, things that made me happy at their existence. The annual roll-out of ridiculous merchandise on Think Geek is a good example. I go there to see and laugh, but I am not tricked. I have dear friends who love the online pranking. In general I don’t. It raises my ambient level of anxiety because every single thing I look at, I have to think “Is this real?” And then there are the pranks that punch me right in the anxiety triggers.
For example, this morning Gmail added a button called “mic drop” where if you sent an email using it, an animated gif was added to your message and all responses to that email chain would be automatically archived. The trouble is that the button was right next to the send button, and I could picture myself accidentally clicking it and losing track of important business communications. Other Gmail customers reacted as I did, and the button was deactivated shortly after I saw it.
I spent some time yesterday thinking about how some people don’t ride chemically induced waves of mood on a daily basis. At least I think they don’t. I’ve heard rumors. That is not my lived experience. My daily existence involves management of stresses, and close attention paid to when people are over stimulated. And then there are days like yesterday where everything is fine when I wake up, but things go emotionally sideways, not because of events, but because of weirdness inside my head. I wonder if I would enjoy April Fools Day more if I didn’t have to manage the psychology in my household quite so much.
For now, I’m just going to look at this photo of a flower I took this morning. I may do photo a day again this April. I enjoyed that last year.
Oooh! I *like* that flower. (And yes, I agree the gmail button was dumb.)
It’s beautiful! (The flower.)
And, I don’t really like April Fool’s either, mostly because I tend to be easily tricked no matter what, so having an entire day where the world is invited to take advantage of my gullibility isn’t my favorite.
But on the other hand– did you see the ad for the BBC documentary about flying penguins a few years ago? Any excuse for good and proper silliness ought to be taken. Thus, added to the list of tasks I would get around to if I had time or knew how would be influencing our culture to celebrate April Fool’s that way, rather than the obnoxious way.
I’m all in favor of delightful silliness. This year the BBC has an ad for how they’re bringing back video tapes as a retro-aesthetic.
The best spoof I have ever seen was on Channel 4 (UK) I think. It was all about Earth dying and there being a colony set up on Mars to which the elite were migrating. It was a brilliant spoof, certainly on a par with Richard Dimbleby’s famed Spaghetti trees in Switzerland. I don’t really like April Fool’s day myself although in the UK most regard it as only counting before 12 noon.
I hope your April Fool’s Day wasn’t too stressful! Generally I love it, because I don’t know anyone personally who plays jokes on people outside of internet stuff and the Internet stuff makes me giggle and feel happy all day long. 🙂
Funny thing – I pretty much consider ANYTHING posted on the Internet on April 1st to be an April Fool’s Day joke, which makes it easy not to wonder if anything is or isn’t real. However, this year, the folks involved in a tech innovation for Type 1 diabetes posted a news release on April 1st. Given the date I figured it was a joke – only it was real. *lol* I guess someone in marketing doesn’t notice the happenings on the internet on April 1st.
Regardless, loving the flower pics. I hope you have an awesome April! 🙂
FYI, it seems like every page I visit, a few extra spaces get added to the front of the “Name” and “Mail” boxes for the comments.
My dad was born April 2, we always say he was born a day late 🙂
Everyone rides chemically induced moods. The question is whether you choose to supply the chemicals, or live with the ones you make in your own head. I think the latter are probably more subtle, but I can’t prove it.