Hussain M Elius

A few weeks ago the town of Topeka, Kansas changed its name to Google to impress our benevolent overlords. Google, touched by the emotion displayed by their subject, changed the company’s name to Topeka as of April 1st, 1AM. One could see the changes in google.com with the familiar Google logo changed to display the new company name, Topeka, complete with a link to their official blog where the change has been described in detail by Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Topeka Inc. Fun doesn’t stop there, though. If one digs deeper, he’d find several new products launched by Google the same day, including Google Translate for Animals released exclusively for Android phones. And if you are an Aussie, you are in luck because Google Maps now are able to Optimise for Colloquial Cultural Articulation. Go left is now “fang a left” and execute a u-turn is “chucka u-ey”. It even goes as far as to suggest driving styles. “Bag ‘em up” is smoking the tires while “drives like my grandma” is going too slow.

YouTube, not to be outdone, released a text-only mode for their videos. That’s right. A video site, but instead of videos, you have streaming semi-matrix-esque text. From their blog: “By replacing the images in the video with a series of letters and numbers, the videos are far less taxing on our system and have the added benefit of promoting literacy!”

Reddit, my favourite news aggregator, gave everyone an administrator status for the day. Once turned on, a user could edit titles, ban people, or up-vote comments to infinity. Chaos ensues. And so does hilarity. “This is what its like to be a God”, someone said. “Well I banned God”, was the reply.

DeviantART, a popular art community changed all their user avatars to something either Lady Gaga or Twilight related. THE HORROR! This was probably as cruel as ThinkGeek, an ecommerce website, faking the sales of Canned Unicorn Meat. Yes, unfortunately you still cannot eat magic, love, hope and sunshine. But some day, with the help of science, we shall! *shakes fist*

Even the bigger corporate firms are having their share of fun. I like the one by Product Support Solutions (PSS) where they launched Celebrity Voice Prompts for your IVR Systems. The classic ones are all there. Clint Eastwood: “Before pressing 0, you’ve got to ask yourself one question, ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” and Paris Hilton: “You called us. That’s hot.” Of course, nothing would complete the prank if not for Arnold Schwarzenegger asking your clients to- “Please hold. I’ll be baaack.”

The best pranks are the once where you don’t realise that you are being pranked. When CNET reported that a man was arrested at the Large Hadron Collider who claimed he was from the future, this writer eagerly clicked the link and waited for the juicy news story to load. But it was only when he reached the middle where he remembered that the day was April 1. Straight from the man of the future, “Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I’m here to stop it from ever happening.”

Depressing… ain’t it?

Published in Rising Star, The Daily Star, 08 April 2010