It's not funny anymore

April Fools Day reminds me a lot of The Simpsons. It hasn't been funny in five or six years, but it keeps trying anyway.

Is there a person left on the internet who doesn't know that they cannot believe anything they read today? If PT Barnum was right, then of course, there will be those who can be fooled. But there's no fun in fooling a fool. The fun is fooling the smart people, and the smart people have wised up. Real pranksters have learned to move their hoaxes and spoofs to another day, because, as I have said-- everyone and their mother knows not to believe anything they read today.

Someone forwarded me a link to something called Squidpunk last night. If someone else had parodied Jeff and Ann Vandermeer, it might have had some actual bite or humor to it. But when you try and parody yourself, you get jokes like including Jewel in the table of contents. Jesus, Jewel hasn't been topical since what, 1997? And the blurbs don't get any funnier.

Lest anyone accuse me of not having a sense of humor, I will say that I love a good office hack, or MIT hack, and hell, the Fortean Bureau issue where we published the grocery lists of writers means that I am not immune to the charm of the holiday. But it wasn't a hoax-- we actually DID what we claimed to do. We didn't make up any of them. Every single one of them was from an actual author. That's what was funny! I doubt very seriously Squidpunk including "Jewel" will ever actually be released.

I think the main lesson to be learned this year, other than the fact that April Fools Day is lame and stupid and should be put to rest, is that parodying yourself is not easy and should rarely be attempted.

I don't know why I react so badly to things I don't find funny, but today just pisses me off.