Twitter is unreadable today. Everybody is making clumsy April’s Fool jokes which invariably consist of people saying the opposite of what they believe. As a result, my feed sounds like a meeting of pouty COVID-obsessed SJW snowflakes. This makes me feel like I’m at work even when I specifically left campus to have a peaceful lunch break away from all that.
I hate this inane, childish tradition.
I’m with you. Playing pranks on people is mean and I have never liked this day. Of course, I never liked St. Patrick’s Day because people were always pinching me when I forgot (or didn’t know) to wear green. I never actually knew St. Patrick was a, well, saint. Or why. Good grief.
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” I’m not teaching her about this tradition”
You want her to learn about it on the streets?
But that’s part of the nation state model – weird and dumb minor traditions between the big important ones. You can’t have one without the other…..
I think April Fool’s has maybe become another victim of status whoring… when I was still in the states it was pretty mild and almost entirely verbal.
Me: What happened? Your pants have a big rip in back and everyone can see your underwear.
Friend: (tries to look at their behind for a few seconds)
Me: April Fools!
“I never actually knew St. Patrick was a, well, saint. Or why”
A friend once told me it was PR for Irish immigrants (who were considered the lowest of the low when big numbers arrived in the US fleeing the potato famine). I don’t know if that’s true but the holiday did do a lot to create more positive feelings toward the Irish).
The pinching thing wasn’t that common or consistent (I think it was a regional thing that gradually expanded) though the pinching wasn’t meant to be really painful (but again in status whoring times it’s probably turned into something nasty).
If St. Patrick’s Day was PR for the Irish (which is actually pretty cool to me–love the Irish) were Pollock jokes PR for the Poles? I always loved Pollock jokes! I think I wanted to be one when I grew up. Strange–nobody seems to tell them anymore…
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OK, I told Klara about the April’s Fool tradition. She said, “Mommy, what a terrible tradition! In our family we don’t have mean traditions like that. We have nice traditions where you get treats.” I felt very proud of myself.
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One of the few good April Fool’s jokes I’ve seen today:
A conservative literary critic and college professor
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