I am sure you could ask any child and they would tell you Christmas is their favorite holiday. As you grow up you might like Halloween and Easter. When you are older still you might get into some of the drinking holidays we have adopted from other cultures (Cinco de Mayo and Saint Patrick Day) but for me, the best holiday is April Fools Day.
The internets are ablaze with jokes, you get to prank your friends and co-workers… it is fantastic!
My biggest contribution to SUCCESS Magazine was the April Fools jokes we did for the web and social media.
My first foray was in 2011 when we had Mark Zuckerburg on our cover and we purchased Zuckcess.com and claimed Mark bought out the magazine. We made the website a landing page that mimicked our site that would give you a free 3-month digital subscription. I know not stellar, kind of a snooze. BUT the original landing page was hilarious!
They made me take off the cats and fake articles (the best part) and we went with the articles that were on the site that day.
But then in 2012 to coincide with Mayan prophesy and our publication of Living Your Best Year Ever, I came up with Living Your Last Year Ever!
I was told the human sacrifice might turn off our viewers (I still think I have a better idea of what people really want) but I conceded and made version 2:
My final gift to the milling throngs awaiting to be pranked was meh… magazine.
The whole team pitched headlines for articles.
My personal favorite is “How to Grow a Beard The Easy Way”!
But whatever was I to do without a large audience of people to wow? Well, back to basics.
We found some cameras and put them in the women’s and men’s restrooms at 5:30 in the morning:
Totally non-functioning cameras of course.
The funniest thing is NO ONE NOTICED.
One time we checked and someone had diverted the camera in the men’s restroom to point to the ceiling.
Then I created an animated gif if anyone asked, “Hey what’s up with the cameras in the restroom?”
My answer would be, “Oh yeah, check it out. We are going to get those guys using so much toilet paper!” and then show them this:
(Wait for it, the image might take a while to load)
