April Fools’ Day is for amateurs

April 1st, 2008 | Writing

Despite the fact that the RE/Search book Pranks! was highly influential in my adolescence and I consider a well-executed joke as effective a form of art as any other, I hate April Fools’ Day. As a holiday it’s the equivalent of weak gags like fake dog crap and plastic barf, functioning mostly as an excuse for unfunny people to act like jerks and excuse their behavior by pointing to the calendar, and it throws anything posted with a date of April 1 into question, regardless of intent.

Worse, it’s beginning to expand to a 2-day deal thanks to the global nature of the internet and the multiple simultaneous timezones of online contributors — not to mention all the wits who execute their lame jokes on March 31st so as to “get the jump” on people. Much like real drunks know to stay out of the pubs on St. Patrick’s Day and off the roads on New Year’s Eve, April Fool’s Day is most often effectively a humor-free zone. In fact, any well-done gag performed on April 1 is just likely to be drowned out in a sea of amateur humorists who, much like Alanis Morissette, completely fail to grasp the meaning of the word ‘ironic.’ Who really belly-laughed at Hillary Clinton’s suggestion that she and Obama bowl for delegates? Oh Hilary, you jokester, Maria Bamford and Sarah Silverman had better watch out. We all know Hilary is the kind of person whose mere presence in a room stops anyone from saying anything remotely funny. She’d be polling far better if she wasn’t.

So this will be it for today, I’ll return when all the half-assed hilarity has died down. Until then, distrust everything. Actually, distrust everything always.