Welcome to the worst day on the internet! As Chaim Gartenberg pointed out years ago, brands and a holiday dedicated to hoaxes are rarely a winning combo. If you’re a company with any kind of social media, internet, or AI chatbot presence in 2026, you really, truly only have four options on April Fools’ Day:
- Don’t do an April Fools’ joke. Put the time and energy into doing something productive that will materially benefit the world (or, less idealistically, your business) instead. Or just don’t do anything. Abstaining entirely would still be a net positive over the drain of resources and mental energy.
- Do an April Fools’ “joke,” but actually follow through on your stunt. This is arguably not a prank since you’ve actually created a video game skin or a real product that people can buy — but it doesn’t really hurt anyone.
- Do an April Fools’ joke, but be extremely clear from the start that this is a dumb joke and you have no intention of doing the thing that you are “humorously” pretending to do. Does this defeat the purpose of doing an April Fools’ joke because you’re not “fooling” anyone anymore? Absolutely. (Please see my first two points.)
- Lie to your customers, successfully tricking them into believing you are making some product, rebranding, or service you are not. By doing so, you will almost certainly annoy everyone once your deceit is made plain for the extremely small gain of pointless PR. The aphorism goes that there is no such thing as bad publicity; the seemingly endless line of companies willing to make fools out of themselves has proven this false time and time again.
So far, we’ve seen some socks that even you can’t lose, Snapchat “Reals” took a shot at Instagram’s Xerox machine approach to product development, and the monitor accessory cats want the most.
If you see anything that particularly sticks out for good, bad, or just unusual reasons, send it to us.
- April Fools’ 2026: Dyson AirWrap for your pets.
- April Fools’ 2026: A smart home controller that knows what you want before you do.
- April Fools’ 2026: Bass Magazine written by ChatGPT, sponsored by Suno.
- April Fools’ 2026: Yahoo’s Scroll Stopper stops doomscrolling.
- April Fools’ 2026: Fortnite now has big head mode.
- April Fools’ 2026: Capcom’s next big game might have a fun Mega Man crossover.
- Snapchat’s ‘Reals’ joke mocks Instagram’s many ripoffs
- April Fools’ 2026: a flippin’ good joke.
- April Fools’ 2026: Trackable socks.
- April Fools’ 2026: a cat holder for your monitor.
- April Fools’ 2026: Connor Storrie’s big butt dialing problem.
- April Fools’ 2026: Stream Deck Plus Lever.
- April Fools’ 2026: Who’s that pokémon?
- April Fools’ 2026: A backpack for the Macintosh and a stylish holster for the Newton.
- April Fools’ 2026: Pocketpair’s joke that never ends.
- April Fools’ 2026: Mini to Micro.
