2008 Woodie Awards
Tyler Tech: Internet pranks abound on April Fool's Day
Tyler Waldman
Life | 4/7/08
It's been a slow news week in the geeky world of gadgetry. The only interesting news bits that popped up were the fake ones on April Fool's Day. For some, it's a day to be cherished. For others, it's a day to stay away from the Internet. So for this entry, I'll recap some of the best April Fool's moments from around the Web.
Blizzard, developers of "World of Warcraft," announced some wonderful synergy with the "Guitar Hero" franchise, owned by its new partners at Activision. A new Bard class would allow players to kill enemies by rocking out using the popular music game's control scheme.
Gaming site IGN posted a hilariously elaborate trailer for a film based on the "Legend of Zelda" franchise of video games. It was so well planned I was starting to actually wonder if it was really a gag.
Google makes a point of pulling many pranks on April 1. This year, they announced plans for everything from starting a settlement on Mars to allowing users to send their e-mail back in time. Google's book search added a scratch-and-sniff button, and their popular social networking site Orkut changed its name to Yogurt.
Retailer ThinkGeek.com also has its yearly rituals. This year the site advertised caffeinated cereal, a Betamax-to-HDDVD converter, and a USB-powered pregnancy test. Yikes. A couple prank products were actually turned into real products due to popular demand. The "Personal Soundtrack" T-shirt is wearable background music, controlled via the wearer's remote. All those times when you really need a chase scene, it's right there. For $39.99, it can soon be yours.
Comic artist Todd McFarlane, of "Spawn" fame, announced plans to expand everybody's favorite anti-hero into children's books with what would probably be every kid's favorite, "Learn and Grow with Spawn." Card makers Wizards of the Coast announced plans to end an age-old debate with its new card game, "Pirates vs. Ninjas."
One of the most common pranks involved the classic (and a favorite of mine) Rickroll. For those out there unfamiliar with the term, Rickrolling is when you present a link to something relevant that actually redirects the victim to a music video of Rick Astley singing his 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up."
YouTube redirected its entire featured video links for the day to the video. BitTorrent search site IsoHunt did it to its visitors. Blog site LiveJournal added a user named rickastley to their advisory board, whose page presented the infamous video.
Finally, Wikipedia, the freely edited online encyclopedia, vandalized itself for a change. The onslaught included listing six latrines as historic places, proposing to delete the article about the United States, and reporting site founder Jimmy Wales as a vandal several times.
The moral of the story is that for one magical day in April (or several, sometimes), the Internets are not to be trusted. To think otherwise, well, that would be foolish.
Blizzard, developers of "World of Warcraft," announced some wonderful synergy with the "Guitar Hero" franchise, owned by its new partners at Activision. A new Bard class would allow players to kill enemies by rocking out using the popular music game's control scheme.
Gaming site IGN posted a hilariously elaborate trailer for a film based on the "Legend of Zelda" franchise of video games. It was so well planned I was starting to actually wonder if it was really a gag.
Google makes a point of pulling many pranks on April 1. This year, they announced plans for everything from starting a settlement on Mars to allowing users to send their e-mail back in time. Google's book search added a scratch-and-sniff button, and their popular social networking site Orkut changed its name to Yogurt.
Retailer ThinkGeek.com also has its yearly rituals. This year the site advertised caffeinated cereal, a Betamax-to-HDDVD converter, and a USB-powered pregnancy test. Yikes. A couple prank products were actually turned into real products due to popular demand. The "Personal Soundtrack" T-shirt is wearable background music, controlled via the wearer's remote. All those times when you really need a chase scene, it's right there. For $39.99, it can soon be yours.
Comic artist Todd McFarlane, of "Spawn" fame, announced plans to expand everybody's favorite anti-hero into children's books with what would probably be every kid's favorite, "Learn and Grow with Spawn." Card makers Wizards of the Coast announced plans to end an age-old debate with its new card game, "Pirates vs. Ninjas."
One of the most common pranks involved the classic (and a favorite of mine) Rickroll. For those out there unfamiliar with the term, Rickrolling is when you present a link to something relevant that actually redirects the victim to a music video of Rick Astley singing his 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up."
YouTube redirected its entire featured video links for the day to the video. BitTorrent search site IsoHunt did it to its visitors. Blog site LiveJournal added a user named rickastley to their advisory board, whose page presented the infamous video.
Finally, Wikipedia, the freely edited online encyclopedia, vandalized itself for a change. The onslaught included listing six latrines as historic places, proposing to delete the article about the United States, and reporting site founder Jimmy Wales as a vandal several times.
The moral of the story is that for one magical day in April (or several, sometimes), the Internets are not to be trusted. To think otherwise, well, that would be foolish.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Matt
posted 4/07/08 @ 1:28 PM EST
These are halarious! I love your column keep up the good work on interesting gaming culture!
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