As we have in years past, The Intersect is keeping a running tab on all the pranks we can find (or, more often, jokes that are pitched to us by brands). We’ve begun our tracking of this hoax wasteland a day early to account for all the stuff that crept into March.
Below is our list, so far, of all the April Fools’ pranks on the Internet this year, broken up into a few categories.
Whether you’ve come here to fact check something you read online that seems a bit off, or because you just like to watch the world burn, we hope this list will be helpful over the next couple of days.
And may God have mercy on our souls.
Tech and Web:
- Redbox does not rent out little 18-square-foot houses.
- The weather map is just emojis at Dark Sky.
- DeviantArt is mostly art of biting pears now.
- Fontbundles.net restyled its entire website in Comic Sans in a rare display of April Fools subtlety.
- Reddit’s April Fool’s thing is “Place,” which is less of a joke and more of a massive test of Reddit’s ability to cooperate
- Kik isn’t really copying Snapchat and introducing “storyz“
- Yo ALSO isn’t introducing a “stories” feature
- Snapchat, meanwhile, has an April Fools’ filter that makes your snaps look like an Instagram post.
- Roku introduced a fake new feature that suggests snacks to pair with what you watch
- “Hu” isn’t a new Hulu service that shortens TV shows to 8 seconds
- Lyft’s “mono” wearable for hailing a car is a joke
- Tinder’s “live date” on Facebook Live is also a joke
- Doordash isn’t introducing a kids’ app called “M.O.M.“
- Duolingo isn’t offering an emoji course
- A “Netflix Live” preview video on the streaming service gives you a full 45 minutes of Will Arnett commenting on extremely boring video clips.
- Hinge, a relationship app, isn’t launching a “parental controls” feature
- Master and Dynamic isn’t really selling concrete headphones
- “Apocalypse Mingle” won’t really match you with a romantic partner based on how well you’d survive the End Times together
- This home automation company didn’t rebrand itself with a name I can’t print in the Washington Post
- Stack Overflow isn’t launching “dance dance authentication”
- The Google Maps app can turn into a functional game of Ms. Pac Man (They’ve done a similar prank in the past)
- Google Netherlands isn’t going to use the country’s windmills and machine learning to control the weather
- Google Gnome isn’t a creepy, outdoors-only home assistant
- Google won’t send “Haptic” helpers to your home to simulate smell and touch while you play VR
- Google isn’t introducing a bubble wrap keyboard in Japan
- “With I’m Feeling Woof and I’m Feeling Meow on the Google app, canines and felines alike can surf pet-friendly info with just a press of their paw.” No they can’t.
Politics!
- DC isn’t getting a Joe Biden-themed pop up bar
- This fitness tracker company isn’t turning Trump’s border wall into a climbing wall
- George Takei, who has a history of elaborate April Fools’ pranks, is *not* running for Congress. This one tricked a lot of people — including some entertainment news sites (come onnn) — until he revealed it was a joke several hours later.
- Mike Huckabee isn’t deleting his Twitter account
- Kellyanne Conway isn’t the commencement speaker at the University of Albany this year
- Donald Trump isn’t hiring Piers Morgan
- Donald Trump isn’t opening a giant hotel in Dublin, Ireland
- r/The_Donald is pretending to be a Jeb Bush fan board
- Oh come on, Russia.
Miscellaneous Brands:
- Western Mexico University’s mascot Rawhide is not the spawn of a Demogorgon.
- Tipsy Elves’ fake new fashion line is just naked people.
- Mount Vernon, in Klingon.
- Thinkgeek [takes a deep breath] isn’t selling a Hot Pocket sleeping bag, a swear jar, a tentacuddle wrap, a Where’s Waldo parody featuring Barb from Stranger Things, a “swim desk”, a full-body snake temporary tattoo (a la “Westworld”, the movie “Shazaam” starring Sinbad (it doesn’t exist), a bike horn of Gondor, or a “YAAS Cat-apult“
- “Don’t let #AprilFoolsDay stop you from making your own Hpnotiq Incrediblé lmao” LOL
- Lexus doesn’t have a “Lane Valet” that will move other cars out of the way for you.
- Eau de Chlôrine, a perfume that makes you smell like a swimming pool, isn’t real.
- Plated isn’t launching a perfume line that makes you smell like food.
- Coffee-mate didn’t make a coffee-flavored creamer.
- Auntie Annie’s isn’t launching a rebrand that puts a Snapchat filter on their logo.
- You can’t buy these invisible glasses.
- This isn’t a real ad for adult diapers.
- Women can’t rent a fully-furnished storage unit as a “She Shed” to escape their families.
- Progressive isn’t selling insurance for people who are moving to Mars.
- Whopper toothpaste :(
- You can’t ship yourself to a friend in a “man freight”
- Jim Beam isn’t going to start selling canned beans
- “Chugg” isn’t a real energy drink for college kids
- Kars4Kids isn’t really a service that gives cars to children so they can drive them
- A doll company isn’t selling Voodoo dolls
- The viral “Nanodrop” ad with Paris Hilton in it is a Sodastream prank
- Carrabba’s, the Italian food chain, isn’t selling its pasta sauce as a beauty mask
- Sorry, FreshDirect isn’t selling “pitless avocados“
- This steakhouse isn’t offering on-site personal trainers so you can eat dessert guilt-free
- This “speed of light” USB cable doesn’t actually exist
- Tripping hasn’t struck a deal with the White House to rent out its rooms while Trump is out of town on the weekends
- Groupon hasn’t joined the flat earth movement
- Bush’s beans isn’t selling jelly beans in a can
- You can’t use this app to destroy all the clutter in your apartment
- KFC isn’t launching sushi in New Zealand
- Mike’s Harder isn’t selling a “Keg in a Can” (this is primarily a visual gag)
- A tool company isn’t launching a baby accessories line
- These Honda horn emoji are fake, but maybe not the worst idea?
- This car history tracker can’t also check your potential date’s history
- Toilet paper blinds are fake
- Snickers isn’t selling Knickers
- Delta won’t fly you to Mars
- Richard Branson….why
- Really just stop, man.
- Virgin Trains isn’t going to start tattooing tickets on their customers’ bodies
- This Ikea-style DIY watch isn’t real.
- You won’t be able to get a “Big Mac sauce McFlurry” at McDonalds
- Hpnotiq isn’t going to start selling a pre-packaged version of the Incredible Hulk
- You can’t buy this GPS scanner for dangerous wildlife in Australia
- Dash energy drinks (a play on a cell phone company’s Dash Charge) aren’t real
- A bookkeeping site isn’t launching a service for kids
- It’s still Marmite, not “Meh-Mite.”
- This new Vulfpeck song is silence.
- “We hear that ur sneaking our [Chili’s] food into theaters which we love. Check this out.” Or don’t.
Animal jokes
- Sugarfina isn’t selling dog treats now
- You can’t buy a race helmet for cats.
- You can’t wash your pet via NovaCopy.
- The St. Marys, Ohio, police department has not “grown by four paws and a purr.”
- The “Harambed” isn’t real
- Turkey Hill didn’t introduce Cowsonly.com, a dating site only for cows
- Tough Mudder isn’t starting Puppy Mudder, an athletic event for dogs
- You’ll never actually be able to buy this watch made out of your pet’s fur
- Amazon’s Alexa can’t understand your pets now
- Trulia isn’t launching a real estate service for pets
- Cheapflights isn’t selling “Catflights,” or flights that come with a cat companion
- These puzzles for pets are fake
- This digital retailer isn’t selling a DIY goat soap making kit (that includes a goat)
- Freshwater dolphins haven’t returned to the finger lakes
- Petcube isn’t selling “bum” covers for your pets
- The Wildlife Conservation Society isn’t raising money to buy tiny little raincoats for sloths
- iFixit didn’t release a tool kit for hamsters
- These rats can’t detect “man flu,” but can actually detect land mines, apparently.
- A shirt made out of the bodies of cockroaches is fake, and will not give you cockroach-like enhancements
- You can’t buy cockroach milk either
- And Edible Arrangements isn’t selling a bouquet of chicken wings.
- Carrier pigeons aren’t coming back
- National Geographic didn’t announce that it will stop publishing “nude” images of animals
- You can’t bring your pet horse to Florida Atlantic University. I mean, probably.
Fake wearables, “smart” items, and AI jokes:
- Wayfair isn’t selling a smart sofa.
- Cargurus isn’t introducing a bot that lets autonomous cars choose their driver.
- Quilted Northern isn’t launching a wearable to record all your bathroom activity.
- You can’t buy this holograph-projecting drone to attend meetings for you.
- Alamo isn’t launching a line of smart, “self-vacationing” rental cars
- KFC Canada isn’t making a “smart” bucket
- T-Mobile isn’t selling a “full-body wearable” called “T-Mobile ONEsie”
- Petco didn’t make a pooper scooper that is powered by a drone
- This smart hibernation pod isn’t real (and it’s also not a prank that appears to be done by Samsung)
- This company didn’t hire a robot to figure out if AI is the future or nah
- This adult toy company isn’t going to start doing drone deliveries (link is NSFW I guess)
Fake “news” and history
- Texas has not advanced a plan to insulate the border wall.
- Kangaroos were not set free in Wyoming.
- The National Museum of American History launched a fake Smells of American History project, but also created an actual research section on historical perfumes because it can’t stop being a museum, even on April Fools Day.
- Traveling in a straight line through Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana won’t conjure a homicidal elf, and no one ever believed that it would.
- The World Wildlife Fund has not discovered a polar bear living in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland
- David Attenborough isn’t going in a different direction for his next documentary
- Florida man wasn’t swallowed by a sinkhole
- Disney hasn’t said that Simba will be gay in a live-action remake of the “Lion King.”
- Monterey Aquarium didn’t accidentally drain Monterey Bay. (They spent so many tweets on that joke.)
Messing with children:
- “Blorskee” “Tangeteen” and “Speekuzslmn” (pronounced “speak-ew”) are not real words, much to the relief of the students who took this joke spelling test in class.
- Ikea Singapore angered a bunch of parents by “announcing” that they were replacing their kids’ play area with a bunch of pods, so kids could isolate themselves with their tablets.
- And a special glare for whoever made a fake BBC article about children being banned from the Internet, then lost their nerve and publicly retracted it.
[This post, originally published at 10:34 AM on March 31, has been updated multiple times and will continue to update through April 1st]