How did April Fool’s Day actually come about? There are myths about this. There is a persistent legend that this could be related to the calendar change in 1582. At that time, 20 years after the Council of Trent, the Julian calendar was abolished and replaced by the Gregorian calendar. Pope Gregory XIII wanted it this way: the new year should start on January 1st. But those who missed the changeover date continued to think of April 1st as the first day of the new year. And so he became the target of ridicule – April Fool’s Day was born.
But other theories also persist. April Fools’ jokes are still doing the rounds today, mostly funny hoaxes that end with “April, April.” The media also ventured in, such as the BBC on April 1, 1957, when it broadcast a three-minute film on its flagship program Panorama showing a family in southern Switzerland supposedly harvesting spaghetti from a spaghetti tree. As spaghetti was a relatively unknown product in the UK at the time, many viewers turned to the BBC asking for advice on how to grow their own spaghetti trees.
When April Fools’ jokes are misunderstood
Lots of people are leaving these days News viral on social media. This poses the risk that jokes can be taken at face value and even make headlines around the world, which in turn harms the media, which is increasingly being wrongly suspected of spreading fake news. Or, conversely, that their April Fools’ jokes are confused with reality.
April Fool’s joke or real: Who will see the “Invisible Man” in Madame Tussaud’s in London?Image: Jonathan Brady/empics/picture alliance
The Internet platform “Futurism.com 2017” published an article with the headline “Pluto has been officially classified as a planet” and added the change in status of the International Astronomical Union. Although it was an April Fool’s joke, this “news” was copied by other websites without any fact checking. When dictionary publisher Collins declared “fake news” the word of the year for 2017, it prompted various newspapers around the world to abandon the tradition of publishing April Fools’ jokes.
Editorial teams say goodbye to the April Fools’ Day tradition
Magnus Karlsson, editor-in-chief of Swedish daily Smalandsposten, said on the paper’s website that he did not want the paper’s brand “to be damaged with a potentially viral and false story.” “We work with real news, even on April 1st,” he wrote. In the meantime, many well-known “joke cookies”, including Google, have forgone the April Fool’s tradition. Since the pandemic year of 2020, a lot of misinformation has been circulating with the discovery of the corona virus.
Nevertheless, we won’t resist listing a few pranks that made headlines on April 1st:
The fake island “San Serriffe”Image: British Library
1977: Do you know the way to San Serriffe?
The Guardian reported April 1 on the 10th Independence Day of the tropical island of San Serriffe, a semicolon-shaped paradise near the Seychelles. The seven-page report included a map of the archipelago, listing places, ports and areas whose names were all puns made from fonts and typefaces.
1993: For the sake of reproduction
The Westdeutsche Rundfunk reports a decree from the city of Cologne, according to which joggers are only allowed to run through the city’s parks at a maximum speed of 10 kilometers per hour. A higher pace would not be beneficial for the squirrels during the mating season.
Real or original? Photo: Shan Yuqi/Xinhua/picture alliance
2009: Excitement over fake pandas
The Taipei Times said: “Relations between Taiwan and China suffered a major setback yesterday when it emerged that the Taipei Zoo’s pandas are not what they seem.”
2016: No nudity please
National Geographic, known for its nature documentaries, announced via Twitter in 2016 that it would no longer publish photos of naked animals.
Adaptation from English: Sabine Oelze