Microsoft exec bans company from pulling any dumb April Fools’ pranks

5 years ago
Anonymous $Dftgs0JzgE

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/microsoft-exec-bans-company-from-pulling-any-dumb-april-fools-pranks/

April 1 has long been a spectacularly annoying day to be alive, with brands falling over themselves to be "funny" and usually revealing themselves to be anything but. This was almost tolerable in the days when we were talking simply fake advertisements in print media, but it has taken on a new dimension online, as companies have actually modified the services that we rely on daily in an attempt to be "funny."

This was particularly striking in Google's 2016 mic drop feature on Gmail, where clicking the "mic drop" button sent a recipient a gif of a Despicable Me minion—a vile affront to humanity in and of itself—and then muted and archived the conversation, thus hiding any responses to it. Cue widespread complaints from users who clicked the button by accident, denying themselves jobs and offending their bosses.