April Fools’ Day 2026: the best and cringiest pranks
#April Fools' Day #brands #pranks #marketing #social media #AI chatbot #deception #public relations
📌 Key Takeaways
- The article criticizes brands for participating in April Fools' Day, labeling it as a waste of resources and mental energy.
- It suggests companies should either abstain from pranks or create real products instead of deceptive jokes.
- The author argues that clear, non-deceptive jokes defeat the purpose but are preferable to misleading customers.
- Examples of pranks from April Fools' 2026 are listed, including a butt dialing problem and a Stream Deck lever.
📖 Full Retelling
Welcome to the worst day on the internet! As Chaim Gartenberg pointed out years ago, brands and a holiday dedicated to hoaxes are rarely a winning combo. If you’re a company with any kind of social media, internet, or AI chatbot presence in 2026, you really, truly only have four options on April Fools’ Day:
Don’t do an April Fools’ joke. Put the time and energy into doing something productive that will materially benefit the world (or, less idealistically, your business) instead. Or just don’t do anything. Abstaining entirely would still be a net positive over the drain of resources and mental energy.
Do an April Fools’ “joke,” but actually follow through on your stunt. This is arguably not a prank since you’ve actually created a video game skin or a real product that people can buy — but it doesn’t really hurt anyone.
Do an April Fools’ joke, but be extremely clear from the start that this is a dumb joke and you have no intention of doing the thing that you are “humorously” pretending to do. Does this defeat the purpose of doing an April Fools’ joke because you’re not “fooling” anyone anymore? Absolutely. (Please see my first two points.)
Lie to your customers, successfully tricking them into believing you are making some product, rebranding, or service you are not. By doing so, you will almost certainly annoy everyone once your deceit is made plain for the extremely small gain of pointless PR. The aphorism goes that there is no such thing as bad publicity; the seemingly endless line of companies willing to make fools out of themselves has proven this false time and time again.
If you see anything that particularly sticks out for good, bad, or just unusual reasons, send it to us .
April Fools’ 2026: Connor Storrie’s big butt dialing problem.
April Fools’ 2026: Stream Deck Plus Lever.
April Fools’ 2026: Who’s that pokémon?
April Fools’ 2026
🏷️ Themes
Corporate Marketing, Holiday Critique
Entity Intersection Graph
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Original Source
Welcome to the worst day on the internet! As Chaim Gartenberg pointed out years ago, brands and a holiday dedicated to hoaxes are rarely a winning combo. If you’re a company with any kind of social media, internet, or AI chatbot presence in 2026, you really, truly only have four options on April Fools’ Day:
Don’t do an April Fools’ joke. Put the time and energy into doing something productive that will materially benefit the world (or, less idealistically, your business) instead. Or just don’t do anything. Abstaining entirely would still be a net positive over the drain of resources and mental energy.
Do an April Fools’ “joke,” but actually follow through on your stunt. This is arguably not a prank since you’ve actually created a video game skin or a real product that people can buy — but it doesn’t really hurt anyone.
Do an April Fools’ joke, but be extremely clear from the start that this is a dumb joke and you have no intention of doing the thing that you are “humorously” pretending to do. Does this defeat the purpose of doing an April Fools’ joke because you’re not “fooling” anyone anymore? Absolutely. (Please see my first two points.)
Lie to your customers, successfully tricking them into believing you are making some product, rebranding, or service you are not. By doing so, you will almost certainly annoy everyone once your deceit is made plain for the extremely small gain of pointless PR. The aphorism goes that there is no such thing as bad publicity; the seemingly endless line of companies willing to make fools out of themselves has proven this false time and time again.
If you see anything that particularly sticks out for good, bad, or just unusual reasons, send it to us .
April Fools’ 2026: Connor Storrie’s big butt dialing problem.
April Fools’ 2026: Stream Deck Plus Lever.
April Fools’ 2026: Who’s that pokémon?
April Fools’ 2026
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