The Post Mortem of an April Fools Joke

So, last sunday, April 1, was April Fools' day (Duh!). I made some jokes, including the lame ass fake newspaper article and game secret below. But my most powerful joke was putting on my MSN nickname, something like "omg, tornado hit Surabaya"!. I started it around 12 AM on April 1 and planned to keep my MSN on throughout the day to see who would get tricked. By getting tricked, I mean if whoever message me to ask about my nick without mentioning "april's fools", he/she gets tricked.

and boy did I not expect the outcome. In the end, there's a total of 12 people who get tricked with 10 on April 1 and 2 who came forward the next day. On the other hand, 2 people called my bluff perfectly, in fact, one of them actually copied my joke with my blessing and tricked another 3 people on his MSN. As for demographics, all but one are indonesians (not surprisingly), the other one is a Singaporean (surprisingly) whom I haven't spoken with for quite long. The indonesians who fell for it include 2 from Malang* and surprisingly, only 2 from Surabaya - considering that their hometown is part of the joke. Some people had to check CNN/BBC first before msg-ing me, and a few of them is currently in Indo! I only take into account the people who responded to my nick as well as a couple whom I approach; I have no idea of people who chose to stay silent. It was a successful prank as I didn't expect this many people would fall for it.

However, I must explain my rationale behind my joke and offer proper apologies. Some people, like Tin express in her blog, has been quite hurt by the joke, or the fact that they harmlessly fell for it. In fact, a friend of mine was in Jakarta starting his work when he saw my nick and he immediately had to call his family in Surabaya. I apologize to those people. It's never my intention to hurt any people or feelings.

That said, let me explain my joke. I thought long and hard about my joke. It has to be quite unbelievable but not too much so that it won't be immediately obvious. It has to be funny without being lame. So I've been thinking about the recent disasters that's happening in Indonesia (flood, earthquakes, plane crashes), and I thought to myself, what else could happen? I also happened to be reading about the mud flow incident in Surabaya. So I picked Surabaya as the target place - I am aware I might offend some people. Then the disaster - Blizzard? Sandstorm? Nah ... too unbelievable or lame. I thought about US and one nature's wrath came to mind: Tornado. I laughed inside, pleased that I have found the perfect storm for the joke. Hence, the april fools' joke was born.

I hope this explanation would satisfy a few people whom I have upset either because they got tricked or I pick Surabaya as the target. I have definitely had some "interesting" and "insightful" MSN conversations on those. Well, overall, it's an April Fools' Day, we're allowed to make jokes and pranks, so it's okay if you got tricked. I have been tricked and upset too in the past, but I think we need to learn to have a laugh at ourselves sometimes and April Fools provide a great opportunity to do that. Secondly, I don't want to be viewed as insensitive to Indonesians because of my jokes, I'm aware that I might offend people because I'm deriving my joke from the recent, unfortunate string of disasters that had befallen Indonesia. I have made sure that my joke is as tasteful as possible by not mentioning any death or damages and thinking of a very unlikely disaster. Lastly, again I apologize to anyone who is greatly offended by the joke, one way or another.

But it was fun, and I will definitely come up with something next year.

* you might know who they are. Hint: they go to same school as me.

PS: Some jokes I consider but rejected, as MSN nickname or fake news:

- A Hong Kong remake of Brokeback Mountain. The movie will be called Shaolin Mountain - it's about 2 shaolin monks who fell in love while practicing kung fu together. It will star Andy Lau and Tony Leung as the monks (and maybe Anthony Wong as the Shi Fu) and directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, reuniting everyone from Infernal Affairs.
- An Indonesia cigarette tycoon takes over a big Italian Football club (I was considering either AC Milan, Inter Milan or Juventus)

... next, I will write about the gloomy H1-B visa situation

EDIT (April 10, 2007): I don't know if it's just strange coincidences or that my guilty conscience has caught up with me, but for some reason, I dreamt that my hometown was hit by an earthquake last night.