I have no idea why April Fools’ Day is a thing, but here we are.
So we might as well take a look at what people got up to yesterday.
As usual, big brands did their best to put together clever pranks, and as usual, most of them proved that they should stick to what they’re good at and leave the comedy to the experts.
There were some gems, though, and they deserve their props.
We scoured The Guardian, Business Insider, TIME and The Verge to bring you the best and worst April Fools’ Day pranks of 2019.
Let’s start on a positive note with a few of the best:
LEGO advertised “Find My Brick” – a parody of Apple’s Find My iPhone app. Problem is anyone who builds LEGO, especially when there are a thousand tiny pieces involved, could really use something like this, so now there’s pressure to make it a reality:
The Google Tulip, which is pretentious enough that it’s something you would expect Google to do, but stupid enought to cause doubt:
McDonald’s did something so disgusting, people might actually buy it:
Meet #ShakeSauce — a sweet new way to dip. pic.twitter.com/0c5h8xJZg5
— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) April 1, 2019
Tinder managed to scare the hell out of short men everywhere, with “Tinder Height Verification”.
Introducing the thing you never asked for, but definitely always wanted—Tinder Height Verification. Coming soon.
Read more about it here: https://t.co/8MER0L1U6W pic.twitter.com/hZ507zSoic— Tinder (@Tinder) March 29, 2019
“Let’s bring honesty back to dating” is the really hilarious part.
One more, this time from South Africa, where Pick n Pay announced an app that allows you to taste hot cross buns online. While you might think that nobody would fall for that, we do live in the country that invented the charcoal challenge, so anything is possible.
Moving on to the fails – which were, for the most part, epic.
Here at home, the Springboks are now the Zebras. Whoever came up with this one has clearly been high-tackled one too many times:
APRIL FOOLS: Springboks get name change https://t.co/oQhIYnktry
— eNCA (@eNCA) April 1, 2019
Sorry guys, South Africa really didn’t get the memo – here’s another one.
This time OneDayOnly attempted to convince you that you could vote online, or worse, it tried to “sell” votes:
Be better. This isn’t funny.
The Sun in the UK tried to convince people that there’d be a poop emoji 50p:
You can check out more hits and misses here, here and here.
I’m just glad it’s April 2, and we can put this all behind us.
[sources:guardian&businessinsider&time&verge]
[imagesource: Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn] A woman in Thailand, dubbed 'Am Cyanide' by Thai...
[imagesource:renemagritte.org] A René Magritte painting portraying an eerily lighted s...
[imagesource: Alison Botha] Gqeberha rape survivor Alison Botha, a beacon of resilience...
[imagesource:mcqp/facebook] Clutch your pearls for South Africa’s favourite LGBTQIA+ ce...
[imagesource:capetown.gov] The City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee has approved the...