Google Will Forgo April Fools’ Day Jokes Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

Among everything else being canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic, it’s only natural that April Fools has just been canceled, too.

With April Fools Day on the horizon, many of us are probably planning out what kind of pranks we want to hit our family and friends with.

Well, at least we might be if we were feeling funny. But chances are, you’re not feeling the April Fools jokes this year amid the global coronavirus outbreak.

That’s how Google feels about it. The popular search engine is known for altering its main page for holidays—especially April Fools. In fact, they were one of the first technology companies to ever perform pranks via the online world, and people look forward to what they have up their sleeves each year.

It just doesn’t feel like the appropriate time to be very funny, the company explained, as they want to be sensitive during such an unprecedented time. Plus, they don’t want to halt anyone’s time in searching for helpful resources they may need ASAP during the pandemic.

“Our highest goal right now is to be helpful to people, so let’s save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one,” Twohill stated in a memo obtained by Business Insider.

The memo extends to both external and even internal plans. “We’ve already stopped any centralized April Fool’s efforts but realize there may be smaller projects within teams that we don’t know about,” Twohill wrote. “Please suss out those efforts and make sure your teams pause on any jokes they may have planned — internally or externally.”

Well, at least by next year they’ll have a wide array of April Fools schemes already planned out. So don’t worry, they’re not going away forever—they’ll probably just come back bigger and better than ever.

Will you be celebrating April Fools this year?