April Fools
April 4, 2025
1957, BBC reported spaghetti-growing trees; 1992, NPR declared Nixon was running for president again; 1996, Taco Bell declared its purchase and renaming of the Liberty Bell into the Taco Liberty Bell. Fortunately (or unfortunately), these were all announced on April 1st, commonly known as April Fools' Day.
April Fools is a global holiday when people play practical jokes and pranks on each other. Pranks can range from small ones like telling your friends their shoelaces are untied or changing a door sign from “push” to “pull,” to larger scale ones where CEO’s announce their swapping positions with another CEO or schools are extending the school year. Of course, big companies and industries don’t miss out on the fun, as seen with the spaghetti trees and Taco Liberty Bell.
This holiday’s history can be traced back centuries, to the point where no one actually knows its true origins. Some remark on the resemblance of April Fools to the Hilaria festival from ancient Rome, where people would dress up in disguise and mock fellow citizens. Others speculate whether its origins correlate with the vernal equinox—the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere—because the capricious spring weather fools everyone.
In more recent years, with the development of technology and media, a plethora of hilarious and absurd jokes have arisen. The diaper brand Rascals announced a new type of diaper that plays a jingle, while Hyundai announced the Mobilet: a self-driving, on-demand Uber toilet. Yahoo created a grass-covered keyboard that allows users to “touch grass” without having to leave their device, and Duolingo proposed a 5-year language immersion cruise. Although some of these inventions do seem quite appealing, sadly, they were all pranks for April Fools.
Worth noting, April Fools has also interestingly become a day for confessions of love, because if one is rejected, they can hide it under the pretense of it being an April Fools joke. That said, April Fools may not be the best choice for confessions.
Whether you dread or relish the approach of April 1st (which I’d imagine largely depends on if you’re the one pranking, being pranked on, or both), it has become a holiday celebrated all across the globe, with new and absurd jokes being invented every year. Though some may find it surprising how such a goofy holiday lacking a solid foundation in history has managed to persist through the years, it has become a day where our inner child reappears; a day of joy and much silliness for everyone—something we all need a little more in our lives.