To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing
tech highlights from 2015
that still resonate 10 years later. This update was for the week ending April 4, 2015.
Watch the recap video.
Ten years ago this week big tech companies like Google created elaborate jokes and product Easter eggs for April Fools' Day.
These weren’t just quick jokes. There were elaborately produced videos. There were detailed articles. There were new buttons and functions in products, just for a day.
Watch the recap video.
Ten years ago this week big tech companies like Google created elaborate jokes and product Easter eggs for April Fools' Day.
These weren’t just quick jokes. There were elaborately produced videos. There were detailed articles. There were new buttons and functions in products, just for a day.
And some were pretty amusing.
Pac-Man in Google Maps on April 1, 2015
com.google on April 1, 2015
Joke, or real? X post on April 1, 2024.
These are the times we are in, where it’s hard to tell the difference between a stupid joke and stupid reality.
This year, there were games from Discord and Reddit, Twitch awarded a golden Grand Banana badge for sharing Clips from streams in April Fools categories (Twitch REALLY wants you to share Clips), Yahoo announced a keyboard with an agricultural interface (touch grass!) and Bluesky expanded posts from 280 to 299 characters.
They did make me smile, at least a bit. But I'm not sorry that Google and other big tech has stopped the practices.
Jester image: Public domain via Wikipedia
2015 Tech April Fools' Day Pranks
YouTube Goes All in on Sandstorm by Darude
Reddit discovered YouTube's 2015 April Fools' prank
To put you in the right frame,
Sandstorm by Darude is a piece of electronic dance music that was used as background
music in a lot of gaming videos. It
turned into a meme
as the "name of every song in existence".
So YouTube posted "What song is this?" (original post) linking to the Sandstorm video.
But it didn't stop there. If you did a search on YouTube, at the top it
would say "Did you mean: Darude - Sandstorm by Darude?".
And YouTube
added a music button to every video player that let you play a clip of the song over the video. Actually not quite
every video,
as one person noted
it (thankfully) wasn't added to videos about 9/11 or other
tragedies.
I'm not sure people not familiar with the meme-status of the song were
amused to find the button on their own videos.
Google Maps Pac-Man
Pac-Man in Google Maps on April 1, 2015
Select locations in Google maps
let you play Pac-Man.
Wocka wocka wocka!
Reversed com.google
com.google on April 1, 2015
You could see a backwards version of Google Search by
going to com.google, rather than google.com.
This wasn't just a prank, it was a bit of a promo for Google Domains.
Google Domains
had launched in January and this is their launch of the .google top level domain (used by
Google for their blog).
More 2015 April Fools Jokes
- Google Cloud Tech: Google Actual Cloud platform
- Google Japan: Google Panda, riffing on the name for the Google Search update
- Google Japan: Hands-free input Pee-ro version
- Google Gmail: Smartbox by Inbox, a fusion of physical mail and email.
- Google Chrome: Self-browsing Chromebook
- Google Hangouts: A little animation of a jester or clown popped up if you wrote Happy April Fools.
- Google Fiber: Dial-up mode
- Tumbler Executive Suite
- Microsoft MS-DOS mobile
- Microsoft Bing Cute Cloud
- Samsung Galaxy Blade smart knife
The view from 2025
Even back in 2015, many of the April Fools' Day jokes were a bit cringy.
And while they haven't gotten better
Fast forward to 2018, and there were far fewer funny announcements. Probably not coincidentally tech companies were (and still are) under fire for their business practices.
And, of course, April Fools in 2020 was just a couple of weeks after the worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns. Wisely Google and most other tech companies read the room and skipped the jokes.
And that pretty much killed the practice.
Fast forward to 2018, and there were far fewer funny announcements. Probably not coincidentally tech companies were (and still are) under fire for their business practices.
And, of course, April Fools in 2020 was just a couple of weeks after the worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns. Wisely Google and most other tech companies read the room and skipped the jokes.
And that pretty much killed the practice.
The past few years have seen lots of
tech company layoffs, wars and natural disasters. I don't think the big jokes will be
coming back.
Last year, new(ish) platforms on the block Threads
announced scratch-and-sniff posts and
Bluesky introduced Bluesky Shorts.
Joke, or real? X post on April 1, 2024.
The official X account on X posted that they would be making DMs and drafts public. That had people wondering if it could actually be real.
These are the times we are in, where it’s hard to tell the difference between a stupid joke and stupid reality.
April Fools' Day activities from Twitch, Discord and Reddit. Watch the video.
This year, there were games from Discord and Reddit, Twitch awarded a golden Grand Banana badge for sharing Clips from streams in April Fools categories (Twitch REALLY wants you to share Clips), Yahoo announced a keyboard with an agricultural interface (touch grass!) and Bluesky expanded posts from 280 to 299 characters.
They did make me smile, at least a bit. But I'm not sorry that Google and other big tech has stopped the practices.
Jester image: Public domain via Wikipedia
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