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an old man rants about April Fool's day - Jim Huggins

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April 1st, 2009
10:25 am
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an old man rants about April Fool's day
I really hate April Fool's Day. 

It's cruel.  It is a day on which:
  1. The people that you normally trust, implicitly, have free license to lie to you.
  2. When your friends construct a believable lie, and you believe them (because you trust them, right?), they laugh at you.
  3. When you are humiliated by their laughter, you're told that "it's just a joke" and made to feel even worse.  It's a classic case of blaming the victim.
It is a day on which we are trained to abandon our natural trust for one another, and to be inherently suspicious.

I'm doing my usual work-avoiding web-surfing right now ... and it's annoying.  Sure, the obvious ridiculous parodies from well known sources (like Google or CarTalk) are funny.  But then I see an "unusual" news story from a reputable source (like the Detroit Lions assigning parking spaces to their players), and I have to sit there and try and figure out whether it's just a bizarre new story or an April Fool's joke.  (Because when your football team is 0-16, there's no story that's not believable.)

Why do we encourage people to be cruel to one another?

Current Mood: crankycranky

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From:tukaro
Date:April 1st, 2009 04:51 pm (UTC)
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It's harmless fun, when done well. Some people will take it too far and do something that causes a small amount of panic or something similar, but for the most part it's just bewildered amusement.

A good April Fool's joke is absurd just enough that it makes you really question it but still leaves enough doubt that it could be real. If it's something that doesn't affect your daily life, anyway (like the parking spaces thing), then it's just good fun.

There are certain institutions that I would expect to not partake in April Fool's or at least be completely obvious about it (either with a completely absurd story or plastering "April Fool's" on the page somewhere), so there is a portion where trust meets seriousness in which I'll agree that April Fool's is in bad taste.

But, otherwise, it's a good time for some laughs. Now, I'm off to Slashdot to unlock some more Achievements...
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From:tukaro
Date:April 1st, 2009 04:51 pm (UTC)
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...And I just realized that your post could be an April Fool's Day joke itself. If so, jolly good show.
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From:jkhuggins
Date:April 1st, 2009 04:53 pm (UTC)
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See, you've just proved my point. No, my post was entirely serious. But on a day like today, who can tell anything?
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