The reason why I am saying that is because it has happened before. You have believed these trusted organisations and fell flat on your face, moments later. Some of us were amused, some annoyed but most of us were just in awe of how clever these organisations were in playing with our heads. 

Let us have a look at some of the most clever pranks that various companies around the world have pulled on us:

1. When PornHub turned into CornHub

On 1st April 2016, PornHub cracked the corniest joke ever! They temporarily revamped their entire website and filled it with hot, steamy vegetable videos. One could find corno-graphic videos such as, “sexy Japanese corn”, “Slob on the Cob” and -believe it or not— “Hot shucking like you’ve never seen”.

2. National Geographic announced that they will stop publishing nude animal pictures

Last year, Nat Geo tweeted this:

They made a public announcement saying that they will no longer degrade animals by showing photos of them without clothes.

But soon, they called it out and surprised all the fools with some really cute pictures of well-dressed cats and dogs, created by photographer Harry Whittier Frees in the early 1900s. Take a look! 

3. YouTube announced that they were shutting down

On 31st March 2013, YouTube released a video titled “YouTube’s ready to select a winner.” The video came as a shocker to a lot of people when YouTube employees announced that they will have to select the best-ever YouTube video before they go offline and will only be making a comeback in 2023!

Here’s the video:

The video exclaimed that 30,000 technicians had been working tirelessly to go through all the YouTube submissions that have been uploaded on the site in the past 8 years. Everyone was in a state of shock but fortunately, for YouTube fans, this turned out to be a big April Fool’s joke.

Well played, YouTube, well played!

4. Google pulled a great prank after introducing a self-driving bicycle

On 31st March 2016, Google gave people hope that was soon to be snatched away. They introduced a self-driving bicycle along with an advertisement that looked more real than real itself. 

Here is the video:

There came in a wave of all sorts of comments ranging from, 

“Is this real or google lies?” 

to 

“It has to be a joke. This thing is taking all the joy of doing things. One thing is the bike/car picking you up, so you can share it, but a very different one is to strip the fun out of doing things dehumanizing the world. Next step is to have a self fucking wife or husband, so you don’t have to care for your partners needs and have “so much free time to watch TV or read”.

7 billion people and 7 billion reactions but how did they pull off that video?

The answer lies in another video which Google released on 2nd April, 2016 i.e. two days later.

5. H&M came up with a special Mark Zuckerberg clothing line 

Just like you have no other choice than using Facebook every day along with the stories section which is in your face whether you want it or not, H&M came up with their Mark Zuckerberg clothing line which consisted of seven basic gray t-shirts, and one pair of basic jeans, on 1st April 2016.

We wouldn’t be surprised to have a section of stories added to this clothing line in 2017, would we?

6. Google rolled out a gadget that let people experience actual reality

Another baller by Google. Last year, along with the self-driving bicycle, Google made an announcement of rolling out an innovative gadget that allows users to view the world in 4 dimensions with 20/20 resolution and 360 degrees of sound. It looked something like this:

The company made a statement saying, “Google Cardboard Plastic combines everything you love about virtual reality headsets with everything you love about reality.”

Here’s the video:

To be honest, Google got us there for a couple of seconds. It did. 

7. YouTube introduced “SnoopaVision”

Last year, YouTube made a lot of dreams come true. YouTube introduced SnoopaVision which let users watch 360-degrees video along with none other than Snoop Dogg. All you had to do was click on the little Snoop Dogg icon underneath a YouTube video, and watch whatever with Snoop sitting somewhere around you. Not creepy at all, if you ask us.

In a promotional video of the same, Dogg was spotted saying,””Dre has Beats, Jay has Tidal, Kanye has himself and now the world has SnoopaVision.”

Here’s one of the Snoopavision videos:

8.  Ola launched Ola Rooms where people could spend a night in their cabs

On April fool’s day in 2015, Ola launched Ola chopper taxi service, “a revolutionary service in the sky from Ola.” And that too, it was supposed to cost only Rs.499 per hour. They even released this video.

After receiving a lot of accolades on this prank, everyone was expecting something bigger and better. And so, in April 2016, they came up with something called Ola rooms that were basically rooms that travelled to you. These were cabs in which you could “spend a comfortable night” in.

We are just wondering what they would do this year! Ola Time Machine, anyone? No? No. Okay.

9. Paytm offered a 100% cashback on an iPhone

On 1st April 2016, Paytm did the unbelievable. It came as a jolting surprise to most of it’s users and even though it happened on the 1st April and sounded too good to be true, people wanted to believe it.

They tweeted this:

Well, they got a lot of us there. Whoever clicked on the link was redirected to this:

Lol, Paytm, LOL! We are expecting some real time 100% cashbacks this year after demonetisation got you all the cash.  

10. Swiggy challenged the entire world by announcing international deliveries

Well, wouldn’t it be nice to sit at home and order food from any part of the world, leave alone country?

Swiggy played with that fantasy a bit too much. On 1st April, 2016, Swiggy went all out with their expansion plans that covered the entire planet.  Wondering how they answered the question of preserving the food while it travelled 1000s of miles towards you? Liquid nitrogen and a 3-minute video. Here, have a look.

Woah! This was something. April Fool’s Day is indeed a field day for these companies. They make shit up, get some creatives designed, push them softly over social media and smirk a li’l. *slow clap*

But, all of this is fun nonetheless. Tell us what fun campaigns have you come across on April Fool’s Day while we are still at it!