April Fools' Day Pranks

[Elder Sister]

I don't like pranks, either. At best, someone is scared/embarrassed/mortified/angry or made to look stupid. They're just stupid and mean-spirited.

[Inigima]

April Fools' Day is the fucking worst. A bunch of unfunny fucks who think they're King Komedy.

[lady narcissa]

I do not like pranks that might cause someone confusion or embarassment or cause them to loose sleep. Ones that no one is bound to believe but might make them smile or chuckle, however, I can get behind. Like this appearing on the status board of a train station in England today:

https://twitter.com/VTRugby/status/583149103921676288

[Raja]

I'm slightly baffled at the 'mean-spirited' schtick that is being dropped here.

Chaldanya, in the prank that I mentioned, which was played on me, my initial reaction was annoyance, sure, but it was pretty quickly replaced by a feeling of 'that's a really good one and why didn't I think of this before', and it's the same when I play pranks on people I know. Again, I wouldn't do it on someone who 1) Does not like pranks 2) I don't know very well.

I don't do it to random strangers, but people I know for a fact will have a good laugh about it. It's perfectly fine to not like being pranked, but using umbrella terms such as 'mean-spirited' seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Edit: I'd use to quote button, but the board has been fairly weird for the last couple of months. I can't even see my notifications.

[Bluetiger]

I hate idiotic pranks that cause financial problems, being late to school/work, causing pain, or pranks that destroy someones work.

Few guys in my class that reporting my friend's Facebook, YouTube and Google account is a good joke... on those sites process of checking report is looooong.... ( the worst thing about that everybody can report everybody on Facebook is that when report turns out to be stupid joke, or to be false, the person who did it doesn't recieve any punishment... ).

[Fragile Bird]

If the people around you do nasty, mean spirited things, I can understand your feelings about April Fools' Day. I guess I have been fortunate enough to have seen many more funny things on April Fools' Day than nasty, unfunny jokes.

For the most part April Fools' Day at work has been spent discussing commercial April Fools' Day jokes, like the one linked by lady narcissi. American Eagle announcing they had started a company called American Beagle so that dog owners could buy outfits for their dogs that matched their American Eagle outfits. It even became funnier when the response was so strong they actually started up American Beagle.

[Prince of the North]

I do not like pranks that might cause someone confusion or embarassment or cause them to loose sleep. Ones that no one is bound to believe but might make them smile or chuckle, however, I can get behind. Like this appearing on the status board of a train station in England today:

https://twitter.com/VTRugby/status/583149103921676288

Oh, I agree! That's pretty cool! I even wish their system would have allowed them to include "9 3/4" under "Plat" :D

And, as far as pranks go, I like the non-mean spirited kind. And, of course, to see those who prank all the time or who take things too far get pranked themselves.

[Maltaran]

The one from Tesco was pretty good - bouncy aisles to help you reach the top shelf

[Raja]

Anyone seen the prank at Cambridge Uni? I found it rather funny.

[Fiddler]

I have an older brother who was born on April 1st. There have been a few birthday jokes done to him.

Frosted brick for a cake.

Frosted sponge for a cake (have you ever tried to cut a sponge lol)

The best though was the fake lottery ticket that made him think he won $500,000. He jumped up, raced around the kitchen shouting "holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck". I then just quietly asked him how he cashed it in and he flipped it over to read the instructions. His expression was priceless.

As to the general idea of pranks, I'm ok with them if they are harmlessly done for a laugh, as long as it's someone you know and you know how they will respond.

[deleted01]

I don't like pranks, either. At best, someone is scared/embarrassed/mortified/angry or made to look stupid. They're just stupid and mean-spirited.

I wholly agree with this view. When I get scared, I cry, which my SO found out the hard way, after jumping out on me one time. I hate it. So people should know better than to do that shit to me. But if you all are cool with it, carry on. Just know that not everyone shares your view on it.

Bouncy aisles would be extremely useful for a short person like myself. I am disappointed that it's a prank.

[Bluetiger]

This is rather unfunny joke ( especially on THIS forum ) http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/126990-Spoilers-for-TWoW

[Summah]

Causing someone to lose sleep can cause a lot of problems; for example, making chronic illness or pain worse, higher risk of car accidents and so on. I find that one to be quite mean spirited.

[Crazydog7]

I've never been the victim of a good sprited prank with some immagination. Which is unfortunate because I always wanted to be

[Fragile Bird]

Anyone seen the prank at Cambridge Uni? I found it rather funny.

Someone else stuck labels like that - lovely, professional-looking labels - on hand dryers in washrooms...

[Arkhangel]

The best though was the fake lottery ticket that made him think he won $500,000. He jumped up, raced around the kitchen shouting "holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck". I then just quietly asked him how he cashed it in and he flipped it over to read the instructions. His expression was priceless.

Crushing disappointment shading quickly into humiliation and betrayal? Yeah, sounds hilarious.

I'm also in the anti-prank camp. I'm sure there are some which are genuinely funny for everyone involved, but in most cases it's about the pranker making themselves look funny and cool at someone else's expense, which is never not an arsehole move.

[Theda Baratheon]

Yeah I am not a fan really. I think both the lottery one and alarm clock one sound horrible. If someone fucks up my sleeping pattern for just one day that can ruin my whole week.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

The only time I've really pranked someone in a deliberately mean way, but I do feel they totally desvered it.

Durring our colleage we would reguallry share our home work assignments, mostly as a way of checking our work before handing in. We did not copy. But we did check the answer we would generally split the assingments between us and each do one from scratch to share with the group.

We had one person who would never do the work, obtain copies of other peoples work and basically copy form multiple people. She would never contribute and never share anything of her own. This kind of pissed us off.

So one day we had had enough and we excluded her from seeing our work, but we suspected she still managed to copy us.

then one day there was an assinment where only a few people had the same problem. I had the same as this person.

It was theoratical - why did the blackboard monitor break?

I made a fake assinment that I passed arround to everyone who had that assinment other than this person. I did this infront of her. She asked for it and I refused saying she never shares her stuff. we then all left the room for a break. everyone took their bags with them apart from me. She went down my bag, stole the fake assinment and photocopied it before returning it.

Now we all suspected that she went down our bags. We expectd her to do this when we made such a show of handing them out and leaving her the opertunity.

We just wanted her to teach her a lesson and get her to think for herself. - I did not expect her to blindly copy everything I wrote word for word (although she did combine it with the work of someone else so give 2 answers for everything) and hand it in.

Now I wanted her to waster her time and realise my assignment was total bullshit before she got to the end. So to start with I answered things mostly correct. Gave wrong figures or just the wrong by nearly right answer. but as the assignment progressed I got more and more blatant.

In the end I concluded that the Primary School blackboard bracket broke due to a Therm o-nuclear explosion, from the Warp core matter antimatter containment breach which also caused a fracture in the time space continum which would destroy the entire universe unless stopped the convergence of three tackion emmition beams that will occur at three points in the future.

I thought that was obvious. She blindly copied me word for word and handed it in.

To this day I do not feel the slightest bit of guilt. And yes she stole future assignments form us. No it was not April fools day, but still.

[Dr. Pepper]

I especially hate lottery pranks. They are never ever funny. There is a family friend, John, who experienced some serious health and financial trouble last year. At Christmas, John received a couple of lottery tickets as a gift from a 'friend'. One of the scratch-offs showed a wining prize of $2000, not huge, but huge for John as it was an amount that would have enabled him to getting very close to being back on his feet. He was so grateful and talked about the one bill he was going to pay off and how this particular bill had been a nightmare because they weren't excepting partial payments or any sort of extended payment plan. The 'friend' who gave these tickets just sat there, didn't say a word. When John went to the store to cash them in, he was told that the tickets were fake. The prankster laughed and laughed and laughed as though it was the greatest prank he ever pulled. John acted like it was all in good fun and would say things like "yeah, he got me good har har". But it didn't take an intelligent person to see that this prank was mean-spirited and that John was actually devastated by it. The worst part, I thought, was that John felt he had to act as though the prank was all in good fun or else be called a wet blanket or debbie downer. So not only was he humiliated, but he was made to feel as though he deserved to feel humiliated because pranks are somehow supposed to be fun for all.

It's nice to know there are more people in the anti-prank camp.

[Theda Baratheon]

Dr. Pepper - yeah, that's absolutely horrible. I don't find jokes about money funny at all, especially when someone is struggling. I'm really angry about the asshole that did that and didn't have a god damn decency to fess up straight away and then laughed at it after thinking he was fucking hilarious. Ugh - what a bastard. That would probably make me cry if someone did that to me.