The Prank Question

Some goofy emoji pillows! What a simple sale!

Or is it?

It is the day before April Fools Day, after all. As online April Fools pranks get more and more elaborate, many companies begin seeding them earlier than the morning of April 1st. There are teasers and ads and sometimes the actual prank itself is started before March even ends.

So now you must ask yourself: is this it? Is this our April Fools prank? Some emoji pillows?

They ride that line between jokey and sincere. They’re silly. One of them is literally a pile of poop. That’s pretty weird. And yet, they’re also just pillows. What’s the prank in pillows? Furthermore, what’s Meh-related about some emoji pillows? Our logo is barely even an emoji. It’s more of an emoticon, really, as it is it can be rendered (on its side) with the compression of ‘shift’ followed by two simple key strokes.

And yet, that lack of clear motives or end game would perhaps only make it a better prank. If you think ‘this can’t be it,’ and you show up tonight at midnight, and there is no prank, is that a prank? And, follow-up, does that make this sale a prank–where we tease that there might not be a prank? Or is the day of April Fools the prank? The prank being: you missed the quasi-prank yesterday?

On the other hand, if you show up and we seem to be executing some sort of prank–wherein we break our usual single-sale model to offer item after item–isn’t this write-up that is trying to convince you that there is no prank a bigger part of the prank than the prank? (And is it really a prank to offer many things for sale in a row if we’ve done it before, and actually fairly often?)

Honestly, we’ve gotten ourselves a little confused here. We need someone who can break things down logically. Maybe we’ll consult with Mediocrebot. We’ve recently updated his software and he seems capable of a great many things! He’ll be able to figure this out… if he’s not too busy working on whatever he’s been working on these past few weeks.