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It seemed like a life, but there was a time when the pranks of April Fool's Day tech companies were new, creative and really fun.
For example, more than a decade ago, Google compiled a fictional story about how it uses pigeons to organize its search results, a technology it called PigeonRank. It was fun, it was innocent and it was obviously a joke.
Nowadays, however, it seems that all the tech companies around the world are obsessed with the deployment of April Fool's Day pranks that are more about deception than about unusual entertainment.
The results can sometimes be well beyond embarrassment, as evidenced by Google's Gmail Mic Drop prank 2016. Google has incorporated a special send button in which a gif of a henchman of "Despicable Me" has been added, dropping a microphone at the bottom of the emails.
In addition, the recipients were unable to respond to such emails, hence the appearance of the microphone drop. It sounded pretty innocent, but users quickly started pressing the wrong "Send" button by accident, causing chaos.
At that point, a frustrated Gmail user posted the following information on a Google forum:
Thanks to Mic Drop, I just lost my job. I am a writer and I had a deadline to respect. I sent my articles to my boss and I never heard from her again. I sent the email inadvertently using the "Mic Drop" button. Corrections had to be made to my articles and I never received his answers. My boss was offended by the Mic Drop animation and assumed I was not answering him because I thought his contribution was tiny (hence Mic Drop). I just woke up with a very angry voicemail and that's how I discovered this "hilarious" joke. "
In light of all this, Microsoft – who was not afraid to take part in the April Fish Day shenanigans – recently sent an internal memo to employees advising them not to engage in any jokes. this year. The note was obtained by The Verge and reads as follows:
Hello everyone,
This is the time of year when tech companies are trying to show off their creativity with the April Fool's Waterfalls. Sometimes the results are fun and sometimes not. Be that as it may, the data tells us that these stunts have a limited positive impact and may actually result in unwanted news cycles.
Given the barriers the technology industry faces today, I ask all Microsoft teams not to do stunts on April Fool's Day. I appreciate that people have devoted time and resources to these activities, but I think we have more to lose than to gain by trying to be funny on this day.
Please share with your teams and internal partners to ensure that people are aware of the April Fool's Day External Activities cessation request.
Microsoft definitely adopts an intelligent approach here. One of the great benefits of technology-focused April Fool's Day jokes is that they were few but memorable. Today, on the other hand, there is apparently an infinite number of forgotten jokes among a multitude of companies wishing to generate a kind of fleeting buzz.
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