We get it.  You’re joking.  Nothing anyone says is serious and people seem to think that creating disappointment is the height of comedy.

Welcome to April Fools Day – a most sinister holiday that doesn’t even come with candies or cookouts or turkey dinners.

I guess this blog is where I choose to expose myself as the boring and humorless person that I am, but I just don’t enjoy April Fools Day on the internet.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good prank or practical joke, but it seems like on April 1st everyone is trying to be The Onion and failing badly.  Or worse – my favorite TV station drops its normal schedule and plays a bad shows on purpose (really). Worse again, tons of social websites will try to add funny themes or pretend they’ve released new features – oh yeah, by the way they only spent the time and effort to think up the “joke,” not the time it takes to actually implement what could have been a good idea.

This is kind of related to a bigger trend:  Making up good news and trying to pretend it actually happened.  That’s not really even a prank, that’s just getting someone’s hopes up with a blatant lie.  Is the Publisher’s Clearinghouse junkmail suddenly a comedic goldmine because it arrived on a certain day?

Anyway, you’re really not fooling anyone when you launch your pranks and fake stories on the one day of the year that everyone is on guard and expecting that kind of stuff. Want to be original and actually catch some people off guard?  Try dropping your prank at the end of April!  (I was going to suggest the middle of April, but the proximity to paying taxes might ruin some peoples’ sense of humor.  I know it does for me and apparently I didn’t even start off with much to spare.)

If its not funny on March 23rd, its not going to be funny on April 1st.  Think about that next time you try to pass off some quick content or the lack thereof!

On a lighter note, have you actually seen any April Fools Pranks that were really good?  I’m sure there have to at least be a few out there!