Plenty of corporations over the years have tried playing April Fools’ “jokes” on the public in recent years, and whether ill-advised or not, they continue to get attention from the media. This year’s batch, for example, included the “Google Gnome” (a spoof on Google Home) and an announcement from Virgin Airlines stating that they would be employing dogs on their planes as a “canine crew.” However, the king of internet April Fools’ jokes just might be the social media website Reddit, which has managed to specialize in getting users to unite towards a common goal, whatever that goal may be.
The first main instance of an April Fools’ joke on Reddit was known as “The Button,” launched on April 1, 2015. This was a subreddit (a segment of Reddit devoted to a certain topic), known as “r/thebutton,” in which only a countdown timer and a simple button were displayed on the user’s screen. Every time the button was pressed, the countdown clock would return to sixty seconds remaining. Each account on the site could only press the button once, which is why it was particularly impressive that the timer never actually went to zero. This “social experiment” continued until June 5, 2015, likely due to website administrators realizing the unlikelihood of the countdown reaching zero at any point in the near future. Ever since, the subreddit has had a continuing legacy on the website as one of its potential “seven wonders.” r/thebutton would essentially be the predecessor of this year’s Reddit April Fools’ joke.
On April 1, 2017, users of Reddit awoke to see that there was a new subreddit called r/place that had gained significant traction (or, if you’re like me, you didn’t realize its existence until it was practically over). This subreddit featured a large pixel mosaic (1000 x 1000) on which users could change the pixels’ colors in order to create larger images. The catch, however, was that similarly to “The Button,” users would be locked out of placing another pixel for five minutes after placing just one, meaning that users had to think outside the box. Reddit users quickly began working with other users of the subreddits that they frequented to create and maintain images on the pixel mosaic. All of this collaboration and cooperation had an amazing final result. Some highlights of the pixel mosaic included various national flags of countries such as France, Brazil, and India; banners and logos of various colleges and universities; a “green lattice” covering the entire top-right corner; and my personal favorite, a scoreboard reading “ATL 28–NE 3,” which referred to the Atlanta Falcons blowing a 25-point lead in the Super Bowl. Overall, this was a fascinating social experiment, and as one Reddit user so eloquently put it, “It was another fun diversion on the slow march to the grave.”