I love April Fools’ Day because you never know what is going to happen, anything can be a prank. This April Fools’ Day, many companies joined in on the fun. Some companies’ pranks turned out funny while others… well turned out to be disasters.

Huludatr– Hulu revealed a new service called Huludatr, a dating service through Hulu.  Its reveal video mimics other popular dating services by showing happy couples that have finally found each other. The whole joke is that Hulu’s new dating service matches singles by only what they watch on Hulu, making them perfectly compatible. Their shared love for specific shows means they can watch together and everyone will be happy. I think the company might actually be onto something there, too bad it is all a prank!

Not all April Fools’ pranks go well however…

Google’s MicDrop– Google usually announces its pranks in videos, but this year along with its normal prank product video the company added a prank feature without telling its users. The prank feature was a normal looking button in the Gmail app labeled “MicDrop” that was unfortunately placed right next to the normal send button. When pressed, the email would send normally with a special added message at the end featuring the popular animated Minion character dropping a mic with a look of defiance. Seems harmless enough, but this special message once sent will make all replying emails never show up.  The joke is supposed to be that that when you “drop the mic”, you have had the final word. Well, it backfired.  The joke button caused problems and actually cost a couple of people their jobs. Turns out, it was pressed on accident when sending important emails and all the responding emails were never received resulting in miscommunication and angry bosses. Google received a wave of backlash from users and has since apologized and removed the prank button.

And finally, some pranks are just a little bizarre.

YouTube’s SnoopaVision– YouTube added a new icon to all their videos, viewers who press the new icon are brought to a reveal video about YouTube’s latest feature “SnoopaVision.” With this new feature, you not only can watch your favorite videos, but an added 360 degrees display will allow you to watch your favorites with none other than Snoop Dogg! The video shows how the new feature allows you to virtually turn and see Snoop Dogg’s reaction to the video that you are both watching. For big fans of Snoop, this is probably a feature that they are upset is nothing but a prank.

Let me know how your April Fools’ pranks went and which one of these was your favorite!

April Fools, Bad Prank, featured, Google's MicDrop

By Meredith Red

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