Every year, the first of April encourages every company under the sun to stretch its funny bone, and create absurd content in the name of April Fools’ Day. While it can be exhausting to see every company attempt to write humor, some efforts are so clever that they deserve attention.
Here’s the best of what the web has to offer this April 1.
Google
The search giant always goes all-out on April with different gags across its many different web services. Google has taken advantage of the boom for custom web domains with com.google, the perfect search engine if you’re only able to read your monitor off of a mirror. You can also share an instant reaction to everything on the web with the built-in #ChromeSelfie function on its mobile browser. But, most fun of all has to be its annual gaming-related twist on Google Maps. In the past Google has turned maps into retro RPG layouts, Pokemon-laiden forests and now custom playable Pac-Man boards. Chomp ghosts in Eugene Pioneer Cemetery, and share your high score with the world.
ThinkGeek
This nerd-friendly shop is most well-known for its assortment of pop culture toys, apparel and crazy gadgets. But every year ThinkGeek goes one step further, dreaming up fake products that occasionally become real items. For 2015, they’ve introduced a line of Power Wheels made for post-apocalyptic toddlers, a tool for taking 360-degree selfies and even a steam-powered Steam videogame console. If I had to place bets on any of its pranks becoming available at retail, it’s probably this Guardians of the Galaxy’s Groot Beer, with a Rocket Fuel energy shot.
Netflix
After years of feeding America’s crippling addiction to high-quality television programming, Netflix finally is taking responsibility with new PSAs about the dangers of binge watching. It automatically pop up after watching five or more consecutive episodes of its original programming than seems healthy.
Amazon
Quick — it’s 1999! You need a VHS of the smash comedy hit Dumb and Dumber, that hot new Harry Potter novel the kids keep talking up, and you need them with all the blazing fast speed of a 56K modem. Hightail it to Amazon.com, which has reverted itself back to the height of the tech bubble for some retro April Fools Day fun. Preorder a VHS of The Matrix, and get back in line for The Phantom Menace!
CERN
We all knew it was coming after the European Science Organization discovered the Higgs Boson particle back in 2013. After making the most important discovery in the modern history of quantum physics, the geniuses as CERN have proven what you’ve secretly known for years. The force is totally real, guys! Go and get your midi-chlorian levels checked, and start trying to lift objects from across the room. Don’t worry, nobody is looking. Try it, you know you want to.
Follow Chris Berg on Twitter @Mushroomer25
Check out the best online April Fool’s pranks of 2015
April 1, 2015
In the past Google has turned maps into retro RPG layouts, Pokemon-laiden forests and now custom playable Pac-Man boards. People can chomp ghosts in Eugene Pioneer Cemetery, and share their high score with the world. (Screen shot courtesy of Google Maps)
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