This year has already been full of tough tasks: attempting to ensure justice is served in corrupt Chicago, getting a Brexit deal passed by childish British parliamentarians and sorting through the endless fake news of our Facebook feeds.
But there’s an easier change we can make right now that will be just as satisfying: Abolish April Fools’ Day.
During a moment engulfed by Jussie Smollett, Felicity Huffman and Russian bots, the “holiday” that laps it up with stupid hoaxes and lies is not so much fun anymore. And was it ever, really? April Fools’ is a socially acceptable 24-hour descent into anarchy that enables the mischief of self-satisfied jackasses. It’s “The Purge” without murder.
In 2019, however, it’s worse than ever before.
The entire world is constantly trying to sort out what actually happened on any given day. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and the Twitter dudes, the word “news” has acquired air quotes.
Fifteen years ago, life was as simple as trying to decide if a great white shark
to gobble up a man dangling from a helicopter — or if it was skillful Photoshop. Now, major, consequential stories that tear the nation to shreds are being proven false every 10 minutes.
A group of Catholic school kids didn’t start a fight with a Native American protester. It only took damaging the reputation of a teenager to figure that out. Jussie Smollett wasn’t, according to Chicago police, the victim of a late-night hate crime in sub-zero temperatures. Lori Loughlin’s daughter didn’t get into the University of Southern California fair and square. (A quick scan of Olivia Jade’s Instagram could’ve told you that.) Keeping up with the news is a laborious chore that would tire the top tier of Mensa. Developing stories should be called shape-shifting stories.
So why must we continue to see a full day of tolerated BS as some sort of Fa-la-la-la-la escape? It’s no longer hilarious that TikTok has announced DJ Khaled as its chief motivational officer, or that McDonald’s unveiled a milkshake-flavored sauce. For his first-ever tweet, Tom Brady jokingly wrote “I’m retiring. In my spare time, I’ll be tweeting #LFG.” I’m annoyed that that isn’t true.
You know what would be a welcome change from the constantly disintegrating norm? April Straight-Talk Day. Twenty-four blissful hours of plainly stating facts. Hey, if corporations can unilaterally proclaim that it’s National Pancake Day or National Margarita Day, why not us?
