<ong>The Pig Latin Department – Carleton announced a new academic department: the department of Igpay Atinlay. This prank seemed to be aimed at parents, alumni, and prospective students; it was politically correct, announced on the school’s Facebook page, and wasn’t actually that funny. Despite being well carried out, this prank fell flat, especially in comparison to the epic New-Administration-Building-on-the-Bald-Spot prank last year, which was actually funny, aimed at current students and actually duped a fair number of freshmen. On the other hand, the parent’s listerv thought it was hilarious.
Dumble (Door) – Someone posted signs reading “DUMBLE” on doors throughout campus. Pure beauty in simplicity. I loved this prank. The best part about it was that even though the payoff wasn’t that big, the prankster still took the time to actually do it. Way to go, Carleton.
YouTube’s 1911 button – Every video on YouTube contained a button on the corner of the video reading “1911”; when pressed the video switches to grainy sepia tone, and the sound is swapped for an old-timey piano soundtrack. I was a big fan of this one as well – Rebecca Black is so funny in 1911! However, as the Daily Show’s Daniel Radosh pointed out via Twitter, some videos, such as videos of the Japanese earthquake or protests in Egypt, among others, really shouldn’t have been included in this prank.
Gmail Motion – Google announced yet another software innovation, essentially merging Wii and e-mail, which somehow results in “improved productivity”. Another classic internet prank – even this ridiculous product seemed logical when packaged with Google’s slick branding. Plus, less than 3 days after the prank dropped, some crazies at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies actually wrote a program that does everything Gmail Motion promised to do. Sweet.
Comic Sans For Everyone! – Google Chrome now has a downloadable extension that allows your browser to display every font as Comic Sans. While lesser known than the Google Motion prank, I think this is equally funny, if not more so. Just think about reading the New York Times in Comic Sans.
Hulu circa 1996 – on April 1st, Hulu appeared to be a relic from 1996 – it was all Times New Roman hyperlinks, bad scrolling graphics, and featured the X-files as the show to watch. Pretty ok, but it took me a few extra steps to fast forward to 2011 and watch 30 Rock, so that was definitely not a plus.