April Fools Day

     Today is one of my favorite holidays, its right up there with international talk like a pirate day. Every year look forward to April Fools Day. I especially enjoy how in recent years the internet has played a large role in the celebrations. Every year you can be sure that the big websites will pull some big prank. Unfortunately, many people forget about April Fools Day and miss out on the fun. So to make sure that you don't miss out I will tell you some of the funniest jokes I saw this year, and remember some of my favorites from the last couple of years.

     The biggest player in April Fools Day on the internet is undoubtedly Google. Every year they advertise new joke products, and usually multiple jokes for each of there popular sites like Gmail and YouTube.

     This year Gmail announced a new feature for those users that have trouble with all of the tiny buttons on a mobile qwerty keyboard, its their new Morse code keyboard with only two buttons.

     YouTube also released an exciting new product that lets you watch videos without the use of the internet, its the YouTube complete DVD collection. I really liked this one and the best part of the YouTube complete collection is how you can sign up an unsuspecting relative for no extra charge.

     Google maps announced that they had ported their map viewing program to one of the most overlooked platforms, the NES. You can now view Google maps in stunning retro 8-bit quality.

     Aside from Google there are some other sites that usually get involved. However, this year it seemed like many of the other jokes weren't as good as they had been in the past.

     XKCD usually as a pretty good joke, this year it was something to do with a different comic based on your web-browser, but I couldn't get it to work that well. Last year their joke was much better, they released all of their comics in 3D. The year before that they converted there entire site into a UNIX console. These features became so popular that they are still available today with a simple URL hack.

     Although April Fools Day is now dominated by the internet, traditional forms of media like newspapers, radio and television often try to have some fun also. One of my favorite TV pranks from a couple years ago was an ad run by the BBC about the discovery of flying penguins. I also liked a joke I saw run in several local newspaper about the city planning to build a bike tunnel under false creek to supplement its recently added bike lanes. Unfortunately I do not use these forms of media as much anymore and as a result don't notice them as much as the internet jokes.

     I have seen many jokes over the years and I have identified certain qualities that I like to see in a good April Fools Joke. The most important quality is that it should look convincing. The Gmail Morse code joke did this especially well this year, the actors in the video sound as though they are talking about a real product and the style of the video is similar to recent tech videos like those announcing real new Google or Apple products.

     I believe the second important quality it that the joke needs to follow a specific progression. When the viewer start seeing the joke they should see nothing that makes them believe it is a joke. This part of the joke establishes the shared context and grounds the joke in the real world. Once this as been done the joke should start to introduce small things that catch the users attention. Then suddenly the main punchline of the joke hits and catches the viewer completely off guard. However, it should not catch them so off guard yet that they immediately know it is a joke. This is the most difficult part, at this point the viewer should be at a perfect balance between believing the lie and being able to commit to the belief that it is false. Once the joke has reach this point the anticipation is gone so any final parts need to be completely ridiculous. A common feature at the end of April Fools Day videos is to satirize the shared context introduced at the beginning, in the case of the Google videos they do this by making the characters, that were established to be typical at the beginning, say something either out of character or fitting with the stereotypical character in an extreme way.

     April fools day is pretty much over now, I hope you didn't miss it and enjoyed the entertaining online humor. Hopefully, next years April Fools Day will be just as great, especially since we will be able to view twice as many at once with this new chrome add-on.