Valleywag
For some of the Web's more respected names, it's a really special day. They get to treat their readers and fans with the contempt they hide most of the year. Below, five pranks today that show just how much the Internet hates you. And I do mean you.
- 1. InfoWorld claims Microsoft bought Yahoo.
The respected tech trade's article is so straight-faced and credible that other journos weigh in seriously on the deal. 
- 2. CollegeHumor.com serves up a single parody MySpace page. Way to take a vacation today, lusers.
- 3. CNET publishes the Urlrurl hoax we refused to run, plus a hoax about Intellipedia wars. What else should we not believe on CNET today?
- 4. Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton announces the sale of neo-feminist site Jezebel to Conde Nast, and Jezebel introduces new rich-brat editors from the midtown Manhattan world its readers loathe. Can't you just feel Big Nick's love for his female readers?
- 5. Larry Brin and Sergey Page call for 30-second YouTube auditions from people who want to settle the planet Mars as part of a Google/Virgin project. Instead of producing slick hoax videos, why don't you guys go build some real rockets?
Comments
6. Yahoo makes fun of poor people on its home page.
"Todays Top Searches: 9. Food Stamps"
Making fun of people that need assistance? Screw you Yahoo.
That's OK, they all gonna get laid off and end up poor theyselves, like that Twilight Zone episode. They'll be trying to scape together enough cash for another cinderblock for the car their son moved into when he got married.
@WagCurious: I think the humor vein they were mining there was their own indeterminate futures. So it's more self-deprecating irony than mean-spirited ridicule, but way to go spamming your righteous indignation across multiple posts.
branson asked for volunteers to go on the mars mission to come on stage during his keynote at ctia today. initially only two people walkled towards the stage, but when ppl realized they'd get a photo op with branson and to shake his hand, a mob quickly formed on stage, all looking for a ride on "Virgle"...
Is there even oxygen on mars?
The April Fools fake news angle is stale. Now, incorporating 80's pop culture icons, that's fresh.
I have to say, some of the stuff was overdone, and even I got tired of all the rickrolling after a while, but it was fun nonetheless.
It's to the point now that coworkers and I troll the news sites picking apart every story (that doesn't have 'april fools' somewhere in the URL, that is) to look for plausibility. We also try to guess, purely based on the headline, which stories are fake.
I mean, really. It's better than working all day, right?
7. Jullia Alison (sic I know) to write for Valleywag. Right? RIGHT?
Matt, you're saying that tech workers in Silicon Valley might actually need food assistance at some point (and thus its OK to make fun of people that really do need food stamps)? I don't think you are quite in tune with the plight of the young, white, male web programmer. Starving is the last problem on the list there. Good parking is a more real problem. Maybe Yahoo should make fun of that.
@WagCurious: If by 'not quite in tune with' you actually mean 'have spent the last 1.5 decades working with', then I am in total agreement with you!
Additionally, there is indeed a fine set of phots tagged on flickr; so I guess those Yahooligans are way ahead of you there.
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