April Fools’ Day 2018: the best (and lamest) pranks

April Fools’ Day is upon us, bringing with it a deluge of terrible jokes, ill-advised pranks, and the occasional inspired product concept. The “holiday” has been around for centuries, and companies from all over the internet have been imposing their jokes on us for the last couple of days.

While most are pretty groan-worthy, some are actually a bit entertaining, so we’ve rounded up some of the best (and some of the lamest) to check out. We’ll update this list throughout the day as new jokes (“jokes?”) emerge.

23andMe teamed up with Lexus to... use your DNA to figure out which Lexus is right for you, tailoring a vehicle just for you. You can start by licking the steering wheel. Right. Funny.

The 501st Legion is an international Star Wars costuming group [disclaimer: I’m a member], one that focuses on screen-accurate costumes for the franchise’s bad guys. It introduced costuming standards for a topless Kylo Ren costume, which has become a meme called Swolo. The requirements include that “shredded arms and chest match the costumer’s natural skin tone,” with an optional, higher certification level if the shredding is natural.

Add a book to your shopping cart on Amazon, and it’ll arrive at your doorstep shortly thereafter. But what about authors? Amazon Publishing is “launching” a new feature to request an author for a special appearance at your house. (Its sister company, Audible, went for a sillier bent with an audio performance of the menus of its staff’s favorite restaurants in Newark, New Jersey, where their headquarters are located.)

British VOD service BritBox announced “Interp-Brit,” a feature for US viewers that allows them to toggle the dialogue between British and American accents. The results are actually pretty amusing.

Australia’s Courses.com.au is the country’s largest online educational course directory, and it’s launched a course called “Diploma of Human Survival (AI) (SKYN37)” to prepare humans for the coming dark times that Elon Musk has been warning us about. There are some clever bits in here: you can subscribe to the course for either 6.5 bitcoin or 12 “untainted” potatoes, and there are individual course units like SCAV101 - Scavenging Food, AVDE101 - Avoiding Detection, INRU101 - Identifying Intruders and SHELT1010 - Shelter. It also says that it’ll help you get a job as a “Bunker Security Specialist,” a “Gasoline Boy,” or a “Bot Detection Specialist.”

Novelty toy company Funko “announced” a nano-tech spray that collectors can use to protect their Funko Pop toys and boxes from ripping, crushing, and lightsabers.

Every year, Google releases a handful of fake products and games. This year, its engineers have turned Google Maps into a large Where’s Waldo? adventure, but they’ve done a bunch of others as well. There’s a Google Cloud Hummus API, while Google Japan put together a “physical handwriting version of the GBoard virtual keyboard,” and Google Australia has been rebranded as Googz.

Appropriately, the Files Go team also made a Bad Joke detector, which uses “the first fully decentralized deep neural network” to identify terrible jokes.

We’re big fans of science fiction and Weird author Jeff VanderMeer and his Area X trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance). He “announced” this morning that his publisher was releasing a re-written kid’s edition of the trilogy, complete with illustrations and new covers. We’d read them.

Lego’s fake product of the day is clever, and it’s something that actually needs to be invented: a vacuum cleaner that not only picks up bricks, but stores them by color and shape (and separates out dirt on the floor). Anyone who’s stepped on one of these in the middle of the night or who has a Lego-obsessed child knows what I’m talking about.

Netflix announced that it is acquiring comedian Seth Rogen, saying that he signed a deal to “transfer full ownership of his personal autonomy to Netflix, Inc.” It’s essentially an ad for Rogen’s comedy special, which drops on April 6th.

Netflix has been racing to pick original content and to sign filmmakers and actors to exclusive deals — like Adam Sandler, Ryan Murphy, and Shonda Rhimes — but the idea of a Silicon Valley company owning a person is a bit creepy.

Pokémon Go studio Niantic announced that it’s launching a new graphics engine for its AR game: one that takes it down to 8-bit graphics for that retro look.

Roku “announced” a new product to help bingers who don’t want the added hassle of wiping their hands or even handling the remote for their Smart TV: Streaming Socks. These gesture-based garments allow you to swipe through your options, select something to play, and they come in with a built-in heater. There’s even a locator for when one inevitably goes missing.

DC is currently filming an adaptation of the Captain Marvel comics, Shazam!, helmed by Lights Out director David F. Sandberg. Fans have been wondering when we’ll see a trailer, and Sandberg put together a cute fakeout trailer on Twitter.

Carbonation device maker SodaStream has released an infomercial featuring Shahs of Sunset reality star Reza Farahan and Game of Thrones’ Thor Bjornsson, for a device called the SodaSoak, which is designed to carbonate your bathtub. The company launched a fake website for the “product” and even convinced retailer Bed Bath & Beyond to put up a retail listing (where it’s sold out, of course).

Snapchat had a bit of fun at Facebook’s expense today, creating a filter that makes it look like Russian bots are liking your posts

Sprint’s contribution to the day is the “Sprint Magic Ball,” which... is a soccer ball that acts as a network small cell? Sure.

Stephen King has been a vocal critic of Maine’s Republican governor Paul LePage (as well as President Donald Trump, who King says has blocked him on Twitter). Earlier today, he “launched” a campaign page to run for office.

Sadly, King didn’t put together a fake campaign video, instead opting to Rickroll visitors, saying that “political office is one horror story that even Stephen King doesn’t want to do.” He’s not the first to pull this sort of stunt: Star Trek actor George Takei made a similar announcement last year.

T-Mobile announced that it was bringing back the Danger Hightop — originally a slider phone that was available between 2002 and 2010 — as the Sidekick, a bright pink high-top shoe. It’s the world’s first “foot phone,” which comes with a selfie camera on the toe and a screen on the bottom (hopefully scratch-proof). Cute, but Get Smart has you beat, T-Mobile.

ThinkGeek famously reveals a bunch of joke products on April 1st, some of which are clever and might actually be turned into real products — like the Tauntaun sleeping bag from a couple years ago. This year’s products include the Klingon Alphabet Fridge Magnets (which I would totally buy), to ones that are a bit more lame, like the Rick and Morty Screaming Sun Alarm Clock or the 4d6andMe Stat Discovery Kit.

Yelp users (including our own Chris Welch) reported that when they opened the app, the screen changed so that it looked like it had been cracked, and showed a notification that reminded them that they could search for a phone repair shop with the app. Duh?