Caution: Read The Internet With Care Today
Monday, March 31st, 2008
It is now officially April Fool’s Day in some other country, even if that country doesn’t observe it. Increasingly, websites and social networks (and many of the “elite” tech bloggers) have decided that they (and here we anthropomorphize websites - creepy, no?) couldn’t possibly go without joining in on the fun by posting insane rumors and stupid product announcements with the hope that enough unassuming web-surfers will take them at face value, so they can have a couple of laughs when these surfers post idiotic-sounding comments.
Really, the only reason people get tripped up by these frivolities, is that on the other 364 days (365, in 2008) of the year, a disturbingly gigantic number of stories and rumors and “news” that see publication would feel right at home on some lame-o AFD post.
April Fool’s Day - for all its less-than-inspired inanity on the web in recent years - can teach us a lesson critical to our survival as a species in the digital age. The lesson is simple: Don’t believe everything you read. 90% of everything is crap. Of the remaining 10%, not all of it will be true, though some of it will be so seriously awesome you’d wish it were.
Learning this lesson is easy. Following it daily is far from it.
With any luck, this little reminder will come in handy tomorrow, and keep you from being played for the fool that each of us, inevitably, must be.
It is now officially April Fool’s Day in some other country, even if that country doesn’t observe it. Increasingly, websites and social networks (and many of the “elite” tech bloggers) have decided that they (and here we anthropomorphize websites - creepy, no?) couldn’t possibly go without joining in on the fun by posting insane rumors and stupid product announcements with the hope that enough unassuming web-surfers will take them at face value, so they can have a couple of laughs when these surfers post idiotic-sounding comments.
Really, the only reason people get tripped up by these frivolities, is that on the other 364 days (365, in 2008) of the year, a disturbingly gigantic number of stories and rumors and “news” that see publication would feel right at home on some lame-o AFD post.
April Fool’s Day - for all its less-than-inspired inanity on the web in recent years - can teach us a lesson critical to our survival as a species in the digital age. The lesson is simple: Don’t believe everything you read. 90% of everything is crap. Of the remaining 10%, not all of it will be true, though some of it will be so seriously awesome you’d wish it were.
Learning this lesson is easy. Following it daily is far from it.
With any luck, this little reminder will come in handy tomorrow, and keep you from being played for the fool that each of us, inevitably, must be.
