By Abby Ohlheiser / The Washington Post
The thing that is usually good about April Fool’s Day is that it is just one day. But 2017 has taken even that from us. Because the hoax-filled “holiday” falls on a Saturday this year, a number of this year’s jokes have rolled out early. Some pranks launched on Friday, while others went live even earlier in the week.
As we have in years past, The Washington Post is keeping tabs on all the pranks we can find (or, more often, jokes that are pitched to us by brands). We’ve begun our tracking of this hoax wasteland a day early to account for all the stuff that crept into March.
Below is our list of all the April Fools’ pranks on the internet this year, broken up into a few categories.
Whether you’ve come here to fact check something you read online that seems a bit off, or because you just like to watch the world burn, we hope this list will be helpful over the next couple of days.
And may God have mercy on our souls.
Tech and Web:
The weather map is just emojis at Dark Sky.
DeviantArt is mostly art of biting pears now.
Fontbundles.net restyled its entire website in Comic Sans in a rare display of April Fools subtlety.
Reddit’s April Fool’s thing is “Place,” which is less of a joke and more of a massive test of Reddit’s ability to cooperate
Kik isn’t really copying Snapchat and introducing “storyz”
Yo ALSO isn’t introducing a “stories” feature
Roku introduced a fake new feature that suggests snacks to pair with what you watch
“Hu” isn’t a new Hulu service that shortens TV shows to 8 seconds
Lyft’s “mono” wearable for hailing a car is a joke
Tinder’s “live date” on Facebook Live is also a joke
Doordash isn’t introducing a kids’ app called “M.O.M.”
Duolingo isn’t offering an emoji course
A “Netflix Live” preview video on the streaming service gives you a full 45 minutes of Will Arnett commenting on extremely boring video clips.
Hinge, a relationship app, isn’t launching a “parental controls” feature
Master and Dynamic isn’t really selling concrete headphones
“Apocalypse Mingle” won’t really match you with a romantic partner based on how well you’d survive the End Times together
The Google Maps app can turn into a functional game of Ms. Pac Man (They’ve done a similar prank in the past)
Google Netherlands isn’t going to use the country’s windmills and machine learning to control the weather
Google Gnome isn’t a creepy, outdoors-only home assistant
Google won’t send “Haptic” helpers to your home to simulate smell and touch while you play VR
Google isn’t introducing a bubble wrap keyboard in Japan
Politics!
D.C. isn’t getting a Joe Biden-themed pop up bar
A fitness tracker company isn’t turning Trump’s border wall into a climbing wall
George Takei, who has a history of elaborate April Fools’ pranks, is *not* running for Congress. This one tricked a lot of people — including some entertainment news sites (come onnn) — until he revealed it was a joke several hours later.
Miscellaneous Brands
Thinkgeek (takes a deep breath) isn’t selling a Hot Pocket sleeping bag, a swear jar, a tentacuddle wrap, a Where’s Waldo parody featuring Barb from Stranger Things, a “swim desk”, a full-body snake temporary tattoo (a la “Westworld”, the movie “Shazaam” starring Sinbad (it doesn’t exist), a bike horn of Gondor, or a “YAAS Cat-apult”
Lexus doesn’t have a “Lane Valet” that will move other cars out of the way for you.
Eau de Chlôrine, a perfume that makes you smell like a swimming pool, isn’t real.
Plated isn’t launching a perfume line that makes you smell like food.
Coffee-mate didn’t make a coffee-flavored creamer.
Auntie Annie’s isn’t launching a rebrand that puts a Snapchat filter on their logo.
Women can’t rent a fully-furnished storage unit as a “She Shed” to escape their families.
Progressive isn’t selling insurance for people who are moving to Mars.
Whopper toothpaste 🙁
You can’t ship yourself to a friend in a “man freight”
Jim Beam isn’t going to start selling canned beans
“Chugg” isn’t a real energy drink for college kids
Kars4Kids isn’t really a service that gives cars to children so they can drive them
A doll company isn’t selling Voodoo dolls
The viral “Nanodrop” ad with Paris Hilton in it is a Sodastream prank
Carrabba’s, the Italian food chain, isn’t selling its pasta sauce as a beauty mask
Sorry, FreshDirect isn’t selling “pitless avocados”
“Speed of light” USB cable doesn’t actually exist
Tripping hasn’t struck a deal with the White House to rent out its rooms while Trump is out of town on the weekends
Groupon hasn’t joined the flat earth movement
Bush’s beans isn’t selling jelly beans in a can
You can’t use an app to destroy all the clutter in your apartment
KFC isn’t launching sushi in New Zealand
Mike’s Harder isn’t selling a “Keg in a Can” (this is primarily a visual gag)
A tool company isn’t launching a baby accessories line
Honda horn emoji are fake, but maybe not the worst idea?
A car history tracker can’t also check your potential date’s history
Toilet paper blinds are fake
Snickers isn’t selling Knickers
Delta won’t fly you to Mars
Virgin Trains isn’t going to start tattooing tickets on their customers’ bodies
Animal jokes
Sugarfina isn’t selling dog treats now
The “Harambed” isn’t real
Turkey Hill didn’t introduce Cowsonly.com, a dating site only for cows
Tough Mudder isn’t starting Puppy Mudder, an athletic event for dogs
You’ll never actually be able to buy a watch made out of your pet’s fur
Amazon’s Alexa can’t understand your pets now
Trulia isn’t launching a real estate service for pets
Cheapflights isn’t selling “Catflights,” or flights that come with a cat companion
Puzzles for pets are fake
A digital retailer isn’t selling a DIY goat soap-making kit (that includes a goat)
Freshwater dolphins haven’t returned to the Finger Lakes
Petcube isn’t selling “bum” covers for your pets
The Wildlife Conservation Society isn’t raising money to buy tiny little raincoats for sloths
iFixit didn’t release a tool kit for hamsters
These rats can’t detect “man flu,” but can actually detect land mines, apparently.
A shirt made out of the bodies of cockroaches is fake, and will not give you cockroach-like enhancements
You can’t buy cockroach milk either
Fake wearables, “smart” items, and AI jokes:
Wayfair isn’t selling a smart sofa.
Cargurus isn’t introducing a bot that lets autonomous cars choose their driver.
Quilted Northern isn’t launching a wearable to record all your bathroom activity.
You can’t buy a holograph-projecting drone to attend meetings for you.
Alamo isn’t launching a line of smart, “self-vacationing” rental cars
KFC Canada isn’t making a “smart” bucket
T-Mobile isn’t selling a “full-body wearable” called “T-Mobile ONEsie”
Petco didn’t make a pooper scooper that is powered by a drone
A smart hibernation pod isn’t real (and it’s also not a prank that appears to be done by Samsung)
An adult toy company isn’t going to start doing drone deliveries
Fake “news” and history
The National Museum of American History launched a fake Smells of American History project, but also created an actual research section on historical perfumes because it can’t stop being a museum, even on April Fools Day.
Traveling in a straight line through Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana won’t conjure a homicidal elf, and no one ever believed that it would.
The World Wildlife Fund has not discovered a polar bear living in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland
David Attenborough isn’t going in a different direction for his next documentary
Kellyanne Conway isn’t the commencement speaker at the University of Albany this year
Messing with children
“Blorskee” “Tangeteen” and “Speekuzslmn” (pronounced “speak-ew”) are not real words, much to the relief of the students who took this joke spelling test in class.
Ikea Singapore angered a bunch of parents by “announcing” that they were replacing their kids’ play area with a bunch of pods, so kids could isolate themselves with their tablets.
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