April Fools' Day is really one of the most illogical holidays if you really think about it, but that doesn't stop it from being immensely entertaining for some people. What other day can you get tons of famous comic strip cartoonists to swap jobs temporarily?
Here are some of our favorite pranks you can pull on friends that (usually) aren't too difficult to pull off..
(Note: A version of this story was originally published in 2013.)
Mess with their computer:
Simple PC pranks tend to be some of my favorites because they're relatively easy to do, especially for a nerd like me. Making a fake, completely unusable desktop was one I got a lot of mileage out of when I was younger. Just take a screenshot of the desktop, make that screenshot the desktop background, then remove all the real icons from the desktop. The background will make it look like the icons are still there -- but clicking on them won't do anything.
Mashable has a list of eight more great PC pranks that are simple to do, provided you can get access to your victim's computer. It helps if they're not the most technologically savvy person around.
Annoy the heck out of them:
I'm one of those people who hesitates to do a prank that can actually hurt or embarrass the prankee, but I have no problem with annoying them a little. For that, there are plenty of handy tools, including ThinkGeek's Annoy-a-tron. Turn it on, hide it somewhere and laugh as the incessant beeping drives somebody insane.
For similar pranks, Cracked.com has a feature on the six annoying prank gadgets that only a sociopath (or I) would use, which includes classics like the TV Poltergeist, which randomly changes the channels and volume on your victim's TV.
Well, OK, I wouldn't use the last item on the list, which supposedly causes real, physical nausea. That's just cruel.
Confuse the heck out of them:
Gawker posted a cool list of readers' April Fool's Day stories, and I liked this one in particular:
"... my roommate, her boyfriend and I made handwritten signs from "public safety" saying the card reader was broken and redirecting to another entrance. We put this sign up at every entrance and sat back to watch people mill around, confused that ALL the doors were broken. Many waited around for someone to let them in, others just kept walking back and forth hopelessly. Almost no one swiped their cards. ..."
Prank them at work:
Some of the best parts of classic episodes of The Office are when Jim pranks Dwight in awesome and clever ways.
You don't have to go to such ridiculous lengths to prank your co-workers, though. Mashable has a pretty good list of office pranks caught on video, but you don't have to look hard for more good options. Yes, a lot of them involve filling up their office or cubicle with junk. But when that junk is tons of photos of Justin Bieber, it's OK, right?
Mess with their phone:
Forcing someone to unglue their iPhone from their hip might be a challenge, but if you can do it a lot of pranking opportunities present themselves. For example, it's easy to hijack the iOS shortcut option in order to put words into other people's mouths - err, texts. Just tell iOS to make a simple word or phrase, like "home," be read as shorthand for something completely different, like "strip club" (to use Gizmodo's example). Suddenly your friend isn't telling his wife he's coming home, he's telling her he's coming to the strip club. Easy and potentially devastating.
If you want to be more subtle and perhaps far more annoying, just change little things like "our" to "are," or "its" to always be "it's," or "your" to "you're." That's sure to drive your favorite grammar nerd insane.
The option should be under Settings > General > Keyboard > Shortcuts.
If you have way too much time on your hands:
Pranks that take a whole heck of a lot more time, like the infamous invisible driver prank that went viral last year, are time consuming and hard to pull off, but they can be oh-so worth it.
If you're Jimmy Kimmel:
Apparently you can prank everybody on the planet at once, so you don't need my help.
For more, find inspiration from others on places like Reddit:
Reddit had a great thread where people swapped April Fool's Day stories. I'm a fan of this one from Heisenburg3r:
Last year I messed with my mate's computer and changed the Windows startup sound. I made it an hour long file, 20minutes of silence so he wouldn't suspect anything and 40minutes of groaning (not continuous, it'd be a soft groan for 2 seconds, then silence then a few minutes later there would be a louder groan and vice versa). It was extremely hilarious when I heard him shouting "what the f***".
