Over the years, social media site Reddit has done multiple pranks and event for April Fools' Day.

Merger of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!

For Reddit's first April Fools' Day in 2006, Reddit creator Alexis Ohanian posted a statement on the now archived r/reddit.com that claimed that the companies Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! would be merging and would acquire Reddit for $1 trillion,[1] which even today is over ten times larger than any acquisition in history.

Doubleplusgood

On April Fools' Day 2007, Ohanian made a post on Reddit's blog Upvoted saying that as Reddit was tired with seeing comments about things that they didn't want to be discussed, they installed some "memory holes" created by Reddit.[2] A link to list post was made on a post on r/reddit.com.

Buying karma

April Fools' Day post for 2008 made on Reddit's blog.[3] Reddit's attempt at a joke about their competitors taking money from advertisers to boost content. Reddit users would in theory be able to purchase post karma for $3 and comment karma for $2 from reddit, or sell their karma to other users with a 5% commission from reddit. Karma could then be used to buy upvotes and downvotes to artificially boost content. This was never implemented. Reddit CEO, u/spez, claims that behind the scenes, this was part of a real discussion at reddit.[4]

Digg redesign

For April Fools' Day 2009, Reddit's CSS[5][6] was modified to match its competitor, digg.com.[7]

Sitewide Admins

On April Fools' Day 2010, Reddit's first massive April Fool's social experiment was to make everyone on site an admin. For 24 hours, users could ban one another, modify upvotes, delete comments, and votes. Any modifications to Reddit only occurred through the user's perspective. While many caught on, others began threatening fellow users with their admin privileges and went on mini power trips, demonstrating that great power is not always accompanied by great responsibility.

Reddit Mold

On April Fools' Day 2011, Reddit replaced its Reddit Gold subscription with Reddit Mold, a joke version of the premium service that could be given to users to make the website experience worse. For example, users who were given Mold would only be able to see fewer posts per page as well as not being able to post anything containing the letter E. These effects were amplified upon receiving more Mold, such as losing the ability to post another letter for each Mold received.[8]

Timereddits

On April Fools' Day 2012, a timeline bar[9] was added to the front page that allowed users to view what the front page would look like in the past or future.[10] In all 46 timereddits were created and are still active.[11]

Orangered vs. Periwinkle

On April Fools' Day 2013, Reddit claimed that it had acquired the video game Team Fortress 2, and initiated a site-wide event where users were randomly assigned into two teams, Orangered and Periwinkle, based on both the colors of the Team Fortress 2 teams as well as the colors of the upvote and downvote buttons. As in Team Fortress 2, users were randomly given items and cosmetics to use, most importantly weapons to use against users on the opposing team.[12] Valve also participated in the event, updating Team Fortress 2 with Reddit related cosmetics.[13] When the event ended, team Orangered was declared the victor.

Headdit

For April Fools' Day 2014, Reddit did "headdit", a joke way to navigate and use the website using the webcam.

The Button

For April Fools' Day 2015, a social experiment subreddit called r/thebutton appeared. It displayed a button and a 60-second countdown timer. User accounts created before that day were eligible to participate. A user could only click the button once, or opt not to click it. If a user clicked the button the timer was globally reset to 60 seconds,[14] and the user's "flair" (an icon next to the user's name) changed color. Colors were assigned based on a gradient from purple to red with purple signifying up to 60 seconds and red as low as 0 seconds. The countdown reached zero several times due to technical problems but eventually expired without further problems on June 5, 2015, after which the subreddit was archived.[15]

Robin

For April Fools' Day 2016, another experiment was launched involving the "Robin" chat widget. After clicking a titular button, an IRC-like chat window was opened with one other user, and allowed a certain time to pick among three options: "Grow", "Stay" and "Leave".[16] "Grow" would join the chat with another group, "Stay" would close the group chat and create a subreddit with that group as moderators and "Leave" would close the group chat.

Place I

For April Fools' Day 2017, featured a social experiment based on r/place. The subreddit contained a collaborative pixel art canvas, where a user could place a pixel every five minutes (the timer was temporarily ten and twenty minutes for a few hours on April 1).[17] Many people worked together to create large graphics, such as flags or symbols. Often subreddits would come together as a group to add a graphic from that community to place. Place was closed on April 3, 2017, at 1:00 PM GMT having been active for a full three days.[18]

Circle of Trust

For April Fools' Day 2018, an experiment launched on the subreddit r/circleoftrust.[19] Upon clicking a button, each user was given one "circle" that they could entrust to others with the circle's password key to unlock and join the circle. While each user received one personal circle, they could join or betray any other user circles. Clicking the "join" button on another's circle would cause the owner's circle to grow bigger, while the "betray" button would cause the owner's circle to no longer function (having "betrayed" the owner's trust). On the r/circleoftrust subreddit, all users have a "flair" next to their username that displays the number of users who've joined their personal circle, followed by the number of other circles the user has joined. Those who had betrayed another user's circle have a null sign ("∅") next to their numbered flair. The experiment ended on April 6, 2018.

Sequence

For April Fools' Day 2019, a social experiment subreddit called r/sequence was released. The experiment consisted of a community-driven sequencer that users interacted with by submitting GIFs or text slides to be compiled into a movie.[20] The order of the GIFs and text slides were chosen by users through upvoting one GIF or text slide per scene. The most upvoted GIF or text slide was locked into the next available scene for every three minutes. At the end, once the entire sequence was filled, it was posted as a full story in an external page. The experiment ended at April 3, 2019, 11:08 PM GMT.[21]

Imposter

For April Fools' Day 2020, r/imposter was released. Users were to identify a machine-generated response from a group of responses to the question "What makes you human?" (and, later, "What makes you an imposter?") and had an option to respond to the question after doing so. The experiment ended on April 3, 2020.

Second

For April Fools' Day 2021, Reddit released r/second, in which users have to guess the second most popular option out of a group of three options.[22][23] The event ended after 2000 one-minute rounds, with the final round lasting one hour.

Place II

For April Fools' Day 2022, Reddit once again featured r/place, similar to the event featured in 2017. The subreddit featured a 1000 x 1000 pixel collaborative canvas which users could edit the color of a single pixel every five minutes. However moderators could edit any color at anytime. The event began on April 1, 2022, at 1:00 PM GMT, and would be live for 87 hours.[24] On the second day of r/place, the canvas was expanded from 1000 x 1000 to 2000 x 1000, allowing for more artwork.[25] On the third day of r/place, the canvas was once again expanded from 2000 x 1000 to 2000 x 2000. Before the event ended, users were only allowed to place white pixels, reverting the canvas back to its original state.

Schrodingers

For April Fools' Day 2023, r/schrodingers was released, in which users had to guess answers to riddles/ARG based on Reddit's past April Fools events. 10 clues with picture is posted in r/schrodingers subreddit. The correct answer that was posted in the comment section will be notify by autobot. After solving all the clues, a link directed to "the heart of reddit" is posted by autobot as reward for completing the ARG. Most of the effect was done by April Knights and The Snake Room on Discord.

References

  1. ↑ "In a surprise move, Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft merge in order to acquire reddit.com for an estimated $1 trillion". Reddit. Retrieved April 3, 2023.
  2. ↑ "reddit now doubleplusgood - Upvoted". Upvoted. Archived from the original on 2018-04-02. Retrieved April 3, 2023.
  3. ↑ "put those dollars into something safe". blog.reddit.com. Archived from the original on 2008-04-05.
  4. ↑ "put those dollars into something safe, like reddit karma!". reddit.com.
  5. ↑ "what's new on reddit: Long overdue update". www.reddit.com. Retrieved 2023-05-02.
  6. ↑ "Subreddit Theme Pack - April Fools Day 2 - reddigg". r/diggtheme. 2009-03-20. Retrieved 2023-05-02.
  7. ↑ "Digg - All News, Videos, & Images". digg.com. 2009-04-01. Archived from the original on 2009-04-01. Retrieved 2023-05-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  8. ↑ "reddit mold is now live!". Upvoted. Reddit. Archived from the original on February 7, 2021. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
  9. ↑ "reddit: the front page of the internet". 2012-04-02. Archived from the original on 2012-04-02. Retrieved 2023-05-03.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  10. ↑ "Upvoted | The Official Reddit Blog". www.redditinc.com. Archived from the original on 2015-07-03. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
  11. ↑ u/Mr_A (2012-04-15). "COMPLETE LIST OF TIME REDDITS". r/timereddits. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
  12. ↑ "reddit buys Team Fortress 2". Upvoted. Reddit. Archived from the original on December 2, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
  13. ↑ "Business Time". Team Fortress. Valve Corporation. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
  14. ↑ Lee, Timothy (April 14, 2015). "The button: the fascinating social experiment driving Reddit crazy". Vox. Vox Media. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  15. ↑ powerlanguage (June 8, 2015). "The button has ended". Reddit. Archived from the original on June 8, 2015. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
  16. ↑ "Reddit's 'Robin' is a brilliant social experiment that pits millions of internet users against each other" Business Insider April 1, 2016
  17. ↑ "Reddit's new 'Place' is forcing millions of users to work together to make something great". Business Insider. Retrieved April 1, 2017.
  18. ↑ "Place has ended". Reddit. 3 April 2017. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  19. ↑ "Looking back at r/CircleofTrust". Upvoted. Reddit. 22 May 2018. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
  20. ↑ Asarch, Steven (April 2, 2019). "Reddit Sequence is the latest April Fool's Day experiment from the social media forum". Newsweek. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  21. ↑ "Sequence is over". Reddit. April 3, 2019.
  22. ↑ "Second: announcements". April 1, 2021.
  23. ↑ "The Best (or Worst) of April Fools 2021". Cheddar. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
  24. ↑ Adorno, José (March 28, 2022). "Reddit is bringing back r/Place for April Fools' Day – here's how to participate". 9to5Mac. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  25. ↑ "Welcome to Day 2 of Place". 2 April 2022. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
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