2018 April Fools' Day

Added • Updated about a year ago

Added by Don • Updated about a year ago by Don

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Category: Event Status: Submission Year: 2018 Origin: Region:

Type: Holiday,

Tags: prank, april fools', websites, social media,

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Background • Developments • Search Interest • External References •

Background

On April 1st, 2018, various websites and online services released gag videos, products and features in honor of April Fools’ Day.

Developments

Google

The official Google YouTube channel released a video titled "Introducing Bad Joke Detector," highlighting a satirical feature for the application Files Go that would scan jokes saved to a smart phone and remove them to free up space (shown below).

Google Maps

Google Maps enabled a "Where's Waldo" game allowed users to search for Walso while using the Google Maps desktop or mobile application.

Google Israel

Google Israel released a video promoting the satirical "Google Cloud Hummus API" (shown below).

Google Japan

The Google Japan YouTube channel released a fake promotional video for a “physical handwriting version of the GBoard virtual keyboard" (shown below).

Burger King

The fast-food chain Burger King tweeted a video for the fictional "chocolate Whopper," a burger covered in chocolate sauce and served in a chocolate cake bun (shown below).

the NEW chocolate Whopper. coming soon to your local Burger King. maybe. pic.twitter.com/9N1snyYhRX
— Burger King (@BurgerKing) March 30, 2018

On April 1st, Reddit updated the hover text for the Reddit logo to display the message "🐍 ssssoon." That day, several Reddit admins posted ASCII art of a snake, a badger and a mushroom.^[1] Meanwhile, the /r/sneksnek^[4] subreddit was launched, which many Redditors speculated was related to the April Fools' event, causing various subreddits to shut down as part of a "snek blackout."^[5]

On April 2nd, an update was made to an /r/aprilfools^[2] "Megathread" about the Reddit event, noting that the official Reddit April Fools' prank update was scheduled to launch with the /r/circleoftrust^[6] later that day. Shortly after, the /r/circleoftrust subreddit was opened to the public, allowing users to invite others into their "circle of trust" by providing a unique pass phrase. Many speculated that the game was designed to be some sort of non-zero sum game similar to the prisoner's dilemma.

Amazon

The Amazon Publishing Twitter feed tweeted a video announcing a new service to physically deliver "Your favorite authors to your front door" (shown below).

Launching April 1st, Amazon Publishing will deliver your favorite authors to your front door. Watch as author 1PCornwell does whatever it takes to arrive on time. Who will you request? pic.twitter.com/MU5480PVqE
— Amazon Publishing (AmazonPub) April 1, 2018

Netflix

Netflix published a satirical press release announcing that actor Seth Rogen signed a "lifetime deal" granting the company "full ownership of his personal autonomy."^[3]

Discord

The Discord YouTube channel uploaded a promotional video for the fake messaging feature to message a random person with the tag "@someone" (shown below).

Snapchat

Snapchat unveiled a filter that places a Facebook-style decoration around a photo along with text displayed with a Cyrillic script font, which many interpreted as a joke mocking reports about the role Facebook played in the Russian Interference in the 2017 Presidential Election.