A grain or two of truth among the chaff
Am I the only one who finds the concept of April Fools Day sinister? Or at least irritating.
Aside from the fact that it gives licence for people to prey on other people's trust (or, if you want, credulity, which is largely the same thing), it starts becoming off for me when the news starts making up news stories for a laugh. I haven't yet found which is the spoof BBC news story, though there is something about penguins flying in Antarctica which might just be it...
But what happens when something bad does happen on April 1st? If we assume that at least one news story for that day is made up, how do we know which it is? I know, I know--if it's spaghetti trees or flying flightless birds, we can probably twig, but if for some reasons somebody did find a flying penguin and it happened to be on April 1st, wouldn't it be bad if the news was assumed to be a hoax? Are we to also assume that hilarious stories such as this or this are real, or might they be sick hoaxes? If the BBC maintains some sort of moral rectitude on the subject and publishes only (supposedly) patently impossible stories, what of less scrupulous sources? I bet Fox News have a riot.
These, for example, are some stories which aren't fake, according to the BBC. But how many people, I wonder, assumed they were bollocks?
I, for example, was briefly fooled by this advert for a computer-powering keyboard that came in my inbox this morning. But it's actually a concept that's quite a good idea if it actually existed, and when online shops start purporting to sell things that don't actually exist, isn't that going a little bit too far? Or am I being a total wuss about all this?
Aside from the fact that it gives licence for people to prey on other people's trust (or, if you want, credulity, which is largely the same thing), it starts becoming off for me when the news starts making up news stories for a laugh. I haven't yet found which is the spoof BBC news story, though there is something about penguins flying in Antarctica which might just be it...
But what happens when something bad does happen on April 1st? If we assume that at least one news story for that day is made up, how do we know which it is? I know, I know--if it's spaghetti trees or flying flightless birds, we can probably twig, but if for some reasons somebody did find a flying penguin and it happened to be on April 1st, wouldn't it be bad if the news was assumed to be a hoax? Are we to also assume that hilarious stories such as this or this are real, or might they be sick hoaxes? If the BBC maintains some sort of moral rectitude on the subject and publishes only (supposedly) patently impossible stories, what of less scrupulous sources? I bet Fox News have a riot.
These, for example, are some stories which aren't fake, according to the BBC. But how many people, I wonder, assumed they were bollocks?
I, for example, was briefly fooled by this advert for a computer-powering keyboard that came in my inbox this morning. But it's actually a concept that's quite a good idea if it actually existed, and when online shops start purporting to sell things that don't actually exist, isn't that going a little bit too far? Or am I being a total wuss about all this?