The 11 best April Fools’ gags of 2015
April Fools is a wonderful and terrible day for the internet. Let’s start with the terrible part: yes, there’s a chance that you’ll be tricked by fake news and bad pranks, and that’s not really fun for anyone. But then there’s the nice part: today is the one day that companies stop taking themselves so seriously. Sure, some just use it as an opportunity to beg you for retweets of a silly image. But others put a surprising amount of thought and effort into making small pranks and videos that their customers and other viewers online will have fun with. And that’s pretty cool.
MOTOROLA’S SELFIE STICK
For April Fools’ Day, Motorola turns the much-derided selfie stick into high art. Its video is a wonderfully funny parody of the craftsmanship films that tech companies, Kickstarter campaigns, and generally hip companies like to make about their new products. And honestly, it’ll kind of make you want a hand-made selfie stick.
GOOGLE’S SMARTBOX
What are the chances something like this ends up on Kickstarter by the end of the month? A digital mailbox is a silly concept, but we wouldn’t put it past anyone. One San Francisco startup even offered a service that digitized your mail by having its employees come get your letters and then scan them and put them online. It shut down after about a year.
THINKGEEK’S STEAM MACHINE
Steam Machines haven’t exactly taken the gaming world by storm, but they’d probably sell a lot better if they looked like this and were bundled with a copy of BioShock. ThinkGeek is always one of the more fun sites to visit on April Fools’ Day because of its dedication to making up weird gadgets and apparel, but this one wins for identifying a pun and just going for it.
TESLA’S AUTONOMOUS PARKING TICKET AVOIDANCE
Tesla gets points for idea over execution. Its video isn’t anywhere as sharp as, say, Motorola’s, but the idea that autonomous cars could one day avoid parking tickets for you is interesting and sounds like it could even be possible. Why couldn’t your self-driving car just find another spot when its parking time was up? For now, you’re still stuck with parking garages (or, you know, public transit).
GOOGLE MAPS’ PAC-MAN
COM.GOOGLE
Is there a better possible use of Google’s custom top-level domain? Probably not. Just head there and try it out.
FUNNY OR DIE’S DIPS
MICROSOFT’S MS-DOS MOBILE
REDDIT’S “THE BUTTON”
Maybe it’s real. Maybe it’s fake. Who cares. Reddit put a button on its site that supposedly resets a 60-second countdown every time someone click it. What, if anything, will happen if the timer makes it all the way down? Who cares. This is arguably the best button since Lost Season 2.
NETFLIX’S BINGE WATCH WARNINGS
YOUTUBE’S “SANDSTORM” OBSESSION
Points for absurdity. If you search for a musician or a song today, YouTube will ask if you meant to search for “‘Sandstorm’ by Darude.” It also lets you pump snippets of “Sandstorm” into any video that you’re watching, making it dramatically more exciting.