While I didn't write anything on this blog yesterday, I couldn't resist the temptation to deliver a proper rickroll, a meme as old as time itself, on the Facebook page. Of course, while I do have respect for the people who manage to continuously pump out interesting content on Youtube, doing that myself is not in my list of plans for the predictable future.
I do have a decent amount of appreciation for April Fools' day, and I wouldn't mind having a couple more such days per year. As someone put it quite well, the first of April is the only day of the year where people take everything they read with a grain of salt and tend to double check before accepting it as truth - a practice that should be common any day of the year. Either way I certainly enjoy hearing about all the glorious jokes people, various institutions and companies pull off. In this post, I'll include some more memorable ones I've come across, as well as some I've pulled off myself, over the years.
In 2017, it was announced that Helsinki and Tallinn will be applying to jointly host the 2028 Summer Olympics. I initially fell quite hard for that one, since I wanted it to be true quite bad.
In 2016, it was announced that Föri, the little river ferry in Turku, will start beer sales. Here's a picture of the Föri; a trip across the river takes about two minutes, so even if you've never seen or heard of Föri before, perhaps you can see why this was quite an obvious one.
Also in 2016, when I had just known Sverre for a couple of months and he had just invited me to visit him in Norway for the first time, having booked me flights and planned out quite a lot of activities as I was to find out later, I told him that I can't be arsed to come to Norway. The poor guy was actually quite shaken for a few seconds before I reassured him that I was quite certainly just joking. The trip ended up becoming one of my most cherished memories.
This year, the developers of my favourite mobile game, Battle of Polytopia, announced that they're building a Polytopia theme park in Katrineholm, Sweden. This is another one I'd love to see happen, especially since Katrineholm isn't that far, but while the game is quite popular (and is so for many very good reasons), it is obvious they're not THAT big.
Also this year, Duolingo doubled down on their reputation for becoming from very sad to downright scary when you neglect your daily language lessons (which I, a Duolingo user, cannot fully confirm as true, but some of their messages have occasionally been slightly in that territory, which is apparently enough to get the meme started). Now they promise to bug you in real life.
In 2015, a well known maritime historian, blogger and a good friend of mine, Kalle Id, was the first to get hold of some breaking news on future liveries of Tallink ships, complete with a picture and all. I'm sure he as well as a handful of others would love it to be true, but frankly, I would have been very surprised if it hadn't been a joke.
Way back in 2012, my favourite band Nightwish pulled a rather memorable one; shortly before, they had finally released a cover track that they had recorded some 5 years earlier and tried to get the permission to release it that entire time. Fans had been holding their breaths too, so it was quite a relief to finally get it out. But what's this?! Turns out it was all a big misunderstanding and Nightwish had no permission afterall, but the single was already out! So, in order for the band to avoid legal trouble, fans who had purchased the single were kindly asked to make alterations to their CDs. Unfortunately, the joke is no longer available on their official website, but I did find it immortalized in this tumblr post.
In 2014, I announced on my old blog that I'm calling it quits with anything ship-related and moving to Australia and becoming a fashion blogger. Honestly, I thought it was ridiculous enough for no one to fall for it, but you'd be surprised how many people came asking questions. While I'm nowhere near as invested in ship stuff as I was back then, I would definitely not say I've called it quits either, I don't think I ever will. I'd be surprised if I ever became a fashion blogger, but I don't want to totally rule out a post or two on something in that direction in this blog. Who knows.
In 2015, I had probably my most elaborately planned April Fools' post ever, as I had the idea for it literally over 11 months earlier, just weeks too late to use it for 2014. Nonetheless, I actually wrote it down and took a few opportunities to gather photo material over the year, and posted this big revelation about the deep dark secrets of the shipping industry, drawing inspiration from conspiracy theorists. Every single word of it was made up, and the only vague ring of truth would be that shipping is indeed quite harmful to the environment. Of course, there's plenty of effort going on to improve that, but still.
And this year, with Fredrikstad Roller Derby, we announced that since we've grown to be a nice bunch of dedicated people, little old Fredrikstad is too small and we'll be merging with the Oslo club. While the Oslo club are good friends, it would certainly be throwing away a lot of hard work we've done on our club, and also logistically rather shitty, so we will continue as we are.
Oh yeah, and now I came to remember one prank way back from middle school, not even sure which year. My class and the parallel class of the same year, each consisting of nearly 30 people, switched classrooms for one lesson, pretending to be each other. Both teachers were quite puzzled, but went ahead with the lessons.
Now, if you read this far, what are your best picks of April Fools' jokes and pranks that either you've pulled, been the target of, or witnessed? Share them in the comments below or on Facebook!
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In 2017, it was announced that Helsinki and Tallinn will be applying to jointly host the 2028 Summer Olympics. I initially fell quite hard for that one, since I wanted it to be true quite bad.
In 2016, it was announced that Föri, the little river ferry in Turku, will start beer sales. Here's a picture of the Föri; a trip across the river takes about two minutes, so even if you've never seen or heard of Föri before, perhaps you can see why this was quite an obvious one.
Also in 2016, when I had just known Sverre for a couple of months and he had just invited me to visit him in Norway for the first time, having booked me flights and planned out quite a lot of activities as I was to find out later, I told him that I can't be arsed to come to Norway. The poor guy was actually quite shaken for a few seconds before I reassured him that I was quite certainly just joking. The trip ended up becoming one of my most cherished memories.
This year, the developers of my favourite mobile game, Battle of Polytopia, announced that they're building a Polytopia theme park in Katrineholm, Sweden. This is another one I'd love to see happen, especially since Katrineholm isn't that far, but while the game is quite popular (and is so for many very good reasons), it is obvious they're not THAT big.
Also this year, Duolingo doubled down on their reputation for becoming from very sad to downright scary when you neglect your daily language lessons (which I, a Duolingo user, cannot fully confirm as true, but some of their messages have occasionally been slightly in that territory, which is apparently enough to get the meme started). Now they promise to bug you in real life.
In 2015, a well known maritime historian, blogger and a good friend of mine, Kalle Id, was the first to get hold of some breaking news on future liveries of Tallink ships, complete with a picture and all. I'm sure he as well as a handful of others would love it to be true, but frankly, I would have been very surprised if it hadn't been a joke.
Way back in 2012, my favourite band Nightwish pulled a rather memorable one; shortly before, they had finally released a cover track that they had recorded some 5 years earlier and tried to get the permission to release it that entire time. Fans had been holding their breaths too, so it was quite a relief to finally get it out. But what's this?! Turns out it was all a big misunderstanding and Nightwish had no permission afterall, but the single was already out! So, in order for the band to avoid legal trouble, fans who had purchased the single were kindly asked to make alterations to their CDs. Unfortunately, the joke is no longer available on their official website, but I did find it immortalized in this tumblr post.
In 2014, I announced on my old blog that I'm calling it quits with anything ship-related and moving to Australia and becoming a fashion blogger. Honestly, I thought it was ridiculous enough for no one to fall for it, but you'd be surprised how many people came asking questions. While I'm nowhere near as invested in ship stuff as I was back then, I would definitely not say I've called it quits either, I don't think I ever will. I'd be surprised if I ever became a fashion blogger, but I don't want to totally rule out a post or two on something in that direction in this blog. Who knows.
In 2015, I had probably my most elaborately planned April Fools' post ever, as I had the idea for it literally over 11 months earlier, just weeks too late to use it for 2014. Nonetheless, I actually wrote it down and took a few opportunities to gather photo material over the year, and posted this big revelation about the deep dark secrets of the shipping industry, drawing inspiration from conspiracy theorists. Every single word of it was made up, and the only vague ring of truth would be that shipping is indeed quite harmful to the environment. Of course, there's plenty of effort going on to improve that, but still.
And this year, with Fredrikstad Roller Derby, we announced that since we've grown to be a nice bunch of dedicated people, little old Fredrikstad is too small and we'll be merging with the Oslo club. While the Oslo club are good friends, it would certainly be throwing away a lot of hard work we've done on our club, and also logistically rather shitty, so we will continue as we are.
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| Also not happening. But feel free to admire my gloriously bad photoshopping. |
Now, if you read this far, what are your best picks of April Fools' jokes and pranks that either you've pulled, been the target of, or witnessed? Share them in the comments below or on Facebook!
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