Hilarious silly prank from Saša Eskov. h/t Erin
April Fools 2017: This Year in Branded Pranks
April Fool’s Day brings a deluge of cleverness. For journalists covering the arts, entertainment, business, culture, or predictably tech (populated as it is by Stanford and MIT wiseacres), tracking the cuteness can be overwhelming.
At The Verge, Elizabeth Lopatto turns in a thoughtful rant on “the 500-year history of a troll holiday,” including an interview with Alex Boese of the Museum of Hoaxes, that explores why some of us are not big fans of 4/1.
Nevertheless, there’s plenty of fun to be had. The enormous display of creativity and break from the standard shilling grind can be inspiring. And a few marketing stunts shine through with transgressive humor, playful conviviality, or something genuinely important to say. (That, or they’re just joyously dumb.)
Here were a few that stood out in 2017.
MetBnB
The Metropolitan Museum’s fictitious partnership with the “sharing economy” startup was a lighthearted means of drawing attention to serious commercialization and fundraising challenges in the art world. Continue reading “April Fools 2017: This Year in Branded Pranks”
Can You Spot the Fake Self-Help Books?
“I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.”
– George Carlin
Writing shallow self-help volumes is the last refuge of the soi-disant expert who hasn’t managed to crank out a livelihood doing anything more useful.
The genre rose with the Human Potential Movement and is still around to give us an endless litany of reasons to be miserable. If you want to improve your circumstances and adjust to these times, try developing some skepticism.
Self-help has always been a fat target for pranksters and satirists. One wily redditor carries on the tradition by creating his own glaring fakes and sneaking them into bookstores alongside the “legitimate” titles. Have a look! Is there really much of a difference?
So far, the top comment reads, “Joke’s on you. You have people interested in these books that want to buy them.”
