April Fool’s Day is here, which means we’ve spent a day being confused and delighted by brands as they market themselves in a way only late stage capitalism can make possible: Fake ads! Rather than go the “best and worst” of April Fool’s Day route, we decided to give you only the best since it seems like everyone got into the goofy action this year. There were some seriously high-quality pranks today.
We got full-on productions from Netflix to a massive amount of fake commercials and products from Google (Ms. Pac-Man!) to a whole lot of innovation no one would ever need. It was fun, it was weird, and Pornhub stressed everyone out.
Oh yeah, and Ikea infuriated some parents.
Probably the most satisfying prank today was Netflix Live starring Will Arnett, who live commentated over such thrilling things as bread turning into toast, and a microwave heating up some food. It was surprisingly funny and watchable, but April Fool’s Day brings out something weird in all of us, doesn’t it? Good content!
*Update*
Netflix Live has been canceled.
Childhoods were ruined by Paul Feig today, if only for a brief second:
It's OFFICIAL! I'm rebooting Back to the Future with an amazing all-female cast! #MarieMcFly #BTTF18! Thanks, Bob Z., for believing in me.
— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) April 1, 2017
People actually applied to work at a nonexistent startup that created a product that does nothing:
Kotex offered to stop the bleeding:
Ouch! Got a blister? We’ve got you covered with our NEW U by Kotex® Bandages. Get a free sample at https://t.co/xew1kdX1qA pic.twitter.com/Ivhxs5baaI
— U by Kotex (@ubykotex) April 1, 2017
Jim Beam finally fulfilled their destiny:
We’ve been making bourbon for 220 years, but some folks still call us Jim Bean. Hint taken. Introducing Jim Beans: aged one day in a tin can pic.twitter.com/y88bHyYjR6
— Jim Beam (@JimBeam) March 31, 2017
Groupon joined Shaq and Kyrie Irving to celebrate our flat earth.
ThinkGeek hit on multiple fun pranks, from the Hot Pocket Sleeping bag to a Where’s Barb book for theStranger Things fan in your life. We’re giving them the April Fool’s Day 2017 winner trophy for their high-quality pranks:
I’m partial to the swimming desk. Standing desks are passé.
Quilted Northern took bathroom humor to a level never seen before with uSit, its bathroom tracker in the vein of Fitbit.
Lyft went back to the future by creating their own version of Nintendo’s power glove, except the power is all in your thumb. You know, so you can stick it out and hail a ride like those old people used to do when there were things called taxis.
Here’s the thing: This is actually a usable gadget. Lyft’s “prank” is real, in a weird bit of anti-marketing and anti-pranking. What was the prank, that we thought this was fake? How many layers deep is this joke. Check out the Lyft Mono here.
TodayTix is flying under the radar with this funny little post:
In the spirit of connecting new audiences to theater, TodayTix presents “Smooth Distractions Volume 1: Sounds of the Theater,” a once-in-a-lifetime CD collection of 15 real recordings sung by people other than your favorite performers!
Google went especially hard this year, making a ridiculous amount of fake products for their 2017 pranks. They did their best work with the dark and existential Google Gnome:
And then continued their subtle world domination with Google Wind:
Highest-end sports car manufacturer McClaren wanted to push the boundaries on how aerodynamic are car could be by covering the 570GT with a Feather Wrap. Because what’s more aerodynamic than thousands of feathers on a car? Very sleek. Very sexy.
And Pornhub… Pornhub just made everyone who visited extremely concerned for their social media accounts. Unless someone was into it. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Whenever a user clicked on a Pornhub video, this little message popped up:
https://twitter.com/hyp3rfr3ak/status/848136116263768064
That’s not funny, that’s just scary.