350) The Cost of Being Fooled

One year when I was in elementary school, my mom sat me down and told me that I was going to be transferred from the school I loved to a boarding school on the east coast. I can still remember exactly where we were. We were visiting my grandfather up in Sonoma for the weekend. She sat me down at the kitchen table, looked me straight in the eye, and delivered the news. I started to cry and stammer in protest - I distinctly remember saying, "But...I'm really happy at Pinewood..." as if trying to make a case against the idea.

Of course, it was an April Fool's joke. While I must have been vaguely aware of what day it was, the news was so terrifying (and well performed) that I couldn't not react as if it was true. It would be too costly if I assumed it was a joke and it turned out to be true.

Fast forward to April 1, 2011. Three separate Facebook acquaintances got engaged today. They changed their relationship statuses, sat back and awaited the reactions. Initial ones were purely congratulatory, and included a lot of exclamation points. Again, to not react accordingly to big news, even on April Fool's day and especially given our not-unheard-of-to-be-engaged age, is costly. Eventually, one commenter will gently question whether it's an April Fool's joke. Once the seed's been planted, once one person makes it okay to cast doubt, everyone follows suit.

It's as if it's better to react appropriately and be fooled, than to question and be wrong. Though everyone should know that anything done today would be cast in a shadow of doubt. And then there are those who use that fact to their advantage, so that their crazy news is even crazier because it's true on April Fool's day.


(Google's oft looked forward to annual April Fool's prank. While the movements themselves are silly, I feel like the concept itself isn't that far off. How great if they released the real Gmail Motion tomorrow or next week? Oh, and PS - cue card reading, much?)