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Today is April 1, April Foolsā Day, the annual holiday that celebrates pranking, hoaxes, and all manner of horseplay and tomfoolery. But why? Where did this faux holiday come from? Why do we do this to each other, and when will we finally just stop?
These are surprisingly tricky questions, and April Fools' Day has been around for a surprisingly long time. As far back as 1708, the British newspaper Apollo asked, āWhence proceeds the custom of making April Fools?ā and provided unconvincing answers. So we know the April Fools' tradition goes back centuries, but the exact origins of the holiday are still a mystery. There are theories, but they all reek faintly of bullshit.
The most popular (but still probably bullshit) April Fools' origin story blames France. It goes like this: Back in 1563, The Council of Trent declared that Christ is entirely present in both the consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist. But more importantly, it decreed Catholic nations should use the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar.
Franceās King Charles IX ordered his nation to get on board with the switch by 1582, but when the actual day rolled around, some citizens were non-compliant. (French people can be stubborn.) April 1 is beginning of the new year according to the Julian calendar, and some people either didnāt know about the new calendar or didnāt like it, because they went on celebrating the new year on April 1.
To get everyone back in line, people started mocking calendar-truthers by playing tricks on them. Because the first day of April used to coincide with the end of Lent, and fish was a popular Lenten gift, giving a fool a fake fish was seen as a hilarious joke (or so the story goes). This evolved into the French April 1 prank of affixing a paper fish to someoneās back, which is still practiced to this day, mainly by school kids; itās why French people call April 1 poisson dāavril, or "April fish."
I like the alternative āApril fishā origin story better, though: The real prank was secretly sliding a fish in someoneās pocket and hoping they didnāt notice until it started to stink. Thatās timeless comedy and requires no explanation.
So case closed, right? āApril Foolsā Day began in France when the calendar changed.ā Nah. Probably not (April Fools!), because the first written reference to the day dates back some two decades earlier, to 1561. Flemish writer Eduard De Deneās Refereyn vp verzendekens dach / Twelck den eersten April te zyne plach is a comical poem about a nobleman sending his gullible servant on a series of ridiculous fake errands on April 1. Along with a message that remains timely today (āYouāre a fool to believe what someone says on April 1ā), the poem makes it clear that the seasonal pranks were already a widespread, well-known phenomenon decades before the calendar changed in France. Unlike many holidays with changing customs and rites, April Foolsā seems to be celebrated in much the same way now as it was in the 1500s.
Some historians have dug all the way back to Ancient Rome to uncover evidence of the first April fool. Back then, they called days of rejoicing āhilaria.ā People had private hilaria, like their wedding days, or public ones, like the Hilaria Matris DeĆ»m, celebrated on March 25 as part of a 10-day festival to honor Cybele, the mother of the gods. After several festival days devoted to fasting, castration, mourning, and scourging, the hilaria gave everyone the chance to enjoy some much-needed fun, playing games and having orgies (I assume).
The biggest highlight of Hilaria Matris DeĆ»m was masquerading. You could get away with imitating anyone you wanted on this day, including government officials. So maybe this was the original April Foolsā Day? The evidence seems a little shaky to me. The time of year is roughly correct, but the connection to pranks and hoaxes seems tenuousādressing up as someone to mock them is not the same as tricking them into eating a donut filled with mayonnaise.
Since no one knows where or when April Foolsā Day originated, so Iām going to say it came fromāoh, Denmark. From there, it spread to the rest of Europe, probably.
No matter the origin, by the late 1600s, April Fools' Day was so firmly established that newsletters saw no reason to explain it to readers. For example, the April 2, 1698 edition of Dawksās News-Letter contains an item that reads: āYesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed.ā (Sending fools to see lions washed is hilarious.)
Whether itās sticking a paper fish on someoneās back or sending tourists to the lion washings, the first few 100 years of April Foolsā Day pranks were personal. It wasnāt an official holiday; it was just a bunch of folks joshing their friends or strangers on the street. But as society shifted from individual experiences to more mediated ones, the nature of April pranks shifted too. Beginning in the early 1900s, newspapers started publishing fake stories on April 1. Then radio started doing it, telling listeners that wasps were about to attack them, or the world was going to end. In the 1950s, television got in the act; even the staid BBC pranked viewers with a fake story about the Swiss spaghetti harvest.
The April Foolsā prankās current most popular formāfake announcements on the internetāis fitting for the state of our culture. Traditionally pranks were at least enjoyable for the one doing the pranking, but modern April Foolsā isnāt fun for anyone. The audience knows itās going to happen, so no one is really tricked, and the technology and media companies that are āprankingā people are doing it because they want clicks and engagement to further solidify their brand image. That's the opposite of fun. The only thing that was ever good about April Fools' Day is that it was a home-grown, unofficial folk holiday of the people. The jerky people, but still. Now April Fools' Day is entirely corporation-approved.
There arenāt really any studies on this, but strictly from a personal āIāve been on the Internet for a long timeā perspective, the popularity of online April Foolsā jokes have been declining for several years and hopefully it drops off to nothing soon. No one needs a holiday that has victims.
In the disinformation age, every day is April 1 anyway; weāre constantly being taken for fools. Weāre bombarded by people using technology to try to trick us, whether itās criminal robots sending texts to steal the money in our bank accounts, influencers monetizing our envy through filters and careful camera angles, AI-generated deep-fakes of the pope in a puffer jacket, or the more subtle but all-encompassing hoaxes of modern politics and commerce as a whole. Hearing some jerkass saying "Ha ha, tricked you," just isn't funny anymoreāif it ever was.
Full story here:
These are surprisingly tricky questions, and April Fools' Day has been around for a surprisingly long time. As far back as 1708, the British newspaper Apollo asked, āWhence proceeds the custom of making April Fools?ā and provided unconvincing answers. So we know the April Fools' tradition goes back centuries, but the exact origins of the holiday are still a mystery. There are theories, but they all reek faintly of bullshit.
April Foolsā Day origin story #1: The great French calendar switch of 1582
The most popular (but still probably bullshit) April Fools' origin story blames France. It goes like this: Back in 1563, The Council of Trent declared that Christ is entirely present in both the consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist. But more importantly, it decreed Catholic nations should use the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar.
Franceās King Charles IX ordered his nation to get on board with the switch by 1582, but when the actual day rolled around, some citizens were non-compliant. (French people can be stubborn.) April 1 is beginning of the new year according to the Julian calendar, and some people either didnāt know about the new calendar or didnāt like it, because they went on celebrating the new year on April 1.
To get everyone back in line, people started mocking calendar-truthers by playing tricks on them. Because the first day of April used to coincide with the end of Lent, and fish was a popular Lenten gift, giving a fool a fake fish was seen as a hilarious joke (or so the story goes). This evolved into the French April 1 prank of affixing a paper fish to someoneās back, which is still practiced to this day, mainly by school kids; itās why French people call April 1 poisson dāavril, or "April fish."
I like the alternative āApril fishā origin story better, though: The real prank was secretly sliding a fish in someoneās pocket and hoping they didnāt notice until it started to stink. Thatās timeless comedy and requires no explanation.
So case closed, right? āApril Foolsā Day began in France when the calendar changed.ā Nah. Probably not (April Fools!), because the first written reference to the day dates back some two decades earlier, to 1561. Flemish writer Eduard De Deneās Refereyn vp verzendekens dach / Twelck den eersten April te zyne plach is a comical poem about a nobleman sending his gullible servant on a series of ridiculous fake errands on April 1. Along with a message that remains timely today (āYouāre a fool to believe what someone says on April 1ā), the poem makes it clear that the seasonal pranks were already a widespread, well-known phenomenon decades before the calendar changed in France. Unlike many holidays with changing customs and rites, April Foolsā seems to be celebrated in much the same way now as it was in the 1500s.
April Foolsā Day origin #2: The ancient Romans did it
Some historians have dug all the way back to Ancient Rome to uncover evidence of the first April fool. Back then, they called days of rejoicing āhilaria.ā People had private hilaria, like their wedding days, or public ones, like the Hilaria Matris DeĆ»m, celebrated on March 25 as part of a 10-day festival to honor Cybele, the mother of the gods. After several festival days devoted to fasting, castration, mourning, and scourging, the hilaria gave everyone the chance to enjoy some much-needed fun, playing games and having orgies (I assume).
The biggest highlight of Hilaria Matris DeĆ»m was masquerading. You could get away with imitating anyone you wanted on this day, including government officials. So maybe this was the original April Foolsā Day? The evidence seems a little shaky to me. The time of year is roughly correct, but the connection to pranks and hoaxes seems tenuousādressing up as someone to mock them is not the same as tricking them into eating a donut filled with mayonnaise.
Since no one knows where or when April Foolsā Day originated, so Iām going to say it came fromāoh, Denmark. From there, it spread to the rest of Europe, probably.
No matter the origin, by the late 1600s, April Fools' Day was so firmly established that newsletters saw no reason to explain it to readers. For example, the April 2, 1698 edition of Dawksās News-Letter contains an item that reads: āYesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed.ā (Sending fools to see lions washed is hilarious.)
April Foolsā Day goes from personal to public
Whether itās sticking a paper fish on someoneās back or sending tourists to the lion washings, the first few 100 years of April Foolsā Day pranks were personal. It wasnāt an official holiday; it was just a bunch of folks joshing their friends or strangers on the street. But as society shifted from individual experiences to more mediated ones, the nature of April pranks shifted too. Beginning in the early 1900s, newspapers started publishing fake stories on April 1. Then radio started doing it, telling listeners that wasps were about to attack them, or the world was going to end. In the 1950s, television got in the act; even the staid BBC pranked viewers with a fake story about the Swiss spaghetti harvest.
The April Foolsā prankās current most popular formāfake announcements on the internetāis fitting for the state of our culture. Traditionally pranks were at least enjoyable for the one doing the pranking, but modern April Foolsā isnāt fun for anyone. The audience knows itās going to happen, so no one is really tricked, and the technology and media companies that are āprankingā people are doing it because they want clicks and engagement to further solidify their brand image. That's the opposite of fun. The only thing that was ever good about April Fools' Day is that it was a home-grown, unofficial folk holiday of the people. The jerky people, but still. Now April Fools' Day is entirely corporation-approved.
Why April Fools' Day needs to die
There arenāt really any studies on this, but strictly from a personal āIāve been on the Internet for a long timeā perspective, the popularity of online April Foolsā jokes have been declining for several years and hopefully it drops off to nothing soon. No one needs a holiday that has victims.
In the disinformation age, every day is April 1 anyway; weāre constantly being taken for fools. Weāre bombarded by people using technology to try to trick us, whether itās criminal robots sending texts to steal the money in our bank accounts, influencers monetizing our envy through filters and careful camera angles, AI-generated deep-fakes of the pope in a puffer jacket, or the more subtle but all-encompassing hoaxes of modern politics and commerce as a whole. Hearing some jerkass saying "Ha ha, tricked you," just isn't funny anymoreāif it ever was.
Full story here:
![[DK]](/data/avatars/s/57/57999.jpg?1720990206){kind=avatar}
