Yesterday
Yesterday, Dug IM’d me with a question: “Why are all the commenters so fervently kissing your butt?”
It was an excellent question, and it deserves an answer.
Yeserday was, of course, April Fools’ day. I love April Fools’ day. In fact, you will no doubt be totally unsurprised to learn that I think more about this holiday than all of the other holidays put together.
So, naturally, I wanted to have an April Fools’ joke for my blog. But that poses a problem. As you probably noticed yesterday, on April Fools’ day, other bike sites do stuff that I do every other day of the year.
So what does that leave for me to do? I didn’t want to post fake news — VeloNews did that. I didn’t want to do a fake product review; BikeRadar/CyclingNews did a good job with that.
So I did something a little more subtle, and can now claim that I have pulled off my favorite April Fools’ joke of all time (yes, even better than last year’s).
Specifically, I made a joke that wasn’t obviously a joke, with a huge, rolling punchline written by commenters.
Substandard
It is my fervent hope that you thought yesterday’s post was kind of lackluster. (In fact, my biggest concern when doing this joke was that nobody would be able to tell the difference between my normal writing and when I was trying to be lame on purpose.)
But then, if you read the comments of that section, the praise for the post is outrageously positive. Insanely positive and servile, in fact.
That’s because some people noticed the ads in the right column of my blog had changed, and tried clicking them.
For a guy who has very rudimentary Photoshop skills and no sense of design whatsoever, those ads were not easy. I’m leaving them up for one more day so if you missed them yesterday (likely), you can see them today.
Anyway, those ads all pointed to another page, that gave instructions to leave praise waaaaaay out of proportion to the quality of the post.
Thank You
The results went way beyond my expectations, with accolades so outrageous and overwrought that I laughed out loud more than a dozen times. If you haven’t looked at the comments for yesterday’s post, you must. They’re a thing of beauty.
In short, I got to be the straight man, with you readers delivering a terrific set of punchlines.
Thanks to everyone who played along!
Comment by justrun | 04.2.2008 | 7:57 am
Now THAT was good.
Comment by Denise | 04.2.2008 | 8:12 am
Looks like I am a day late and a dollar short as usual. I guess that will teach me to put all else aside until I have had my fatty fix for the day! ;-)
Comment by BurkeInTheOzarks | 04.2.2008 | 8:15 am
Pure genius! Well done, Fatty, well done!
Comment by bikemike | 04.2.2008 | 8:16 am
HEY! watch who you call butt kisser.
Comment by Rob | 04.2.2008 | 8:22 am
CRAP!! Too subtle for me. I run an add blocker, so I didn’t see any of it.
I do like the Primal add….but you missed the piece d’resistance….as featured on BSNYC:
http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2008/01/from-bsnyc-department-of-consumer.html
Comment by Brian | 04.2.2008 | 8:27 am
brilliant.
Damn.
I wish I had payed more attention yesterday.
I totally missed it.
Comment by Matt | 04.2.2008 | 8:32 am
I guess I missed the ads too since I use AdBlock Plus in my Firefox browser, so I didn’t see the ads until today when I turned it off.
Good Joke anyway.
Comment by axel | 04.2.2008 | 8:39 am
your april fools jokes are the greatest – oh supreme blogger of the universe…
can we stop now?
you still owe all of us insights into bikes of the following colors:
blue (I have 2 of those)
silver (I have 2 of those)
mud (i often have 2 of those, too)
Comment by FoS | 04.2.2008 | 8:40 am
Totally fell for the joke. Now I’m in the know, I have to say my favorite ad is the flash warning that CarboRocket may contain Velveeta. Nice.
Comment by Vince | 04.2.2008 | 8:41 am
Fatty,
Because of your April Fool’s post, I discovered that I have a superpower I was previously unaware of (as oppposed to the superpowers I was aware of). My previously unknown superpower is the ability to ignore all Internet advertising. I don’t even know they’re there. They’re invisible to me unless someone specifically points them out. I guess that means the world will be counting on me when Google takes over.
The only weakness of my superpower seems to be those Mac/PC adds that Apple has been running lately. Weird.
Comment by dougg | 04.2.2008 | 8:45 am
I thought the praise was a bit overboard! I saw the ads, laughed at them but didn’t bother clicking them since I never do anyways. But a great gag!
Comment by Rocky | 04.2.2008 | 9:07 am
I didn’t notice any appreciable difference in the quality of yesterday’s post versus the norm. Furthermore, I didn’t notice much difference in the amount of sucking up, either. Sad, isn’t it?
Comment by chtrich | 04.2.2008 | 9:16 am
I wondered why you were pimping Primal gear when you’ve mentioned before you hate it. And I thought the “30% more obnixious” tagline was an odd company choice. However I didn’t bother clikcing on any of the ads. When I read the comments I thought wow, I’ve missed something because that post was lame.
So once again I was fooled. Two years in a row. Brilliant work!!
Comment by Earl | 04.2.2008 | 9:22 am
Since I ONLY read your blog for your biting wit, alas, I did not think to click on an ad…….
I did think your commentators were a bit daft though…
Comment by Earl | 04.2.2008 | 9:23 am
Well, besides the biting wit, I do like to keep up with how the battle’s going.
Comment by jwbikes | 04.2.2008 | 10:02 am
A potentially award winning post from an award winning blog. Great work…..mine are pink, yellow, carbon, and black. I know, three out of four losers, but I still enjoy the great inside joke.
Comment by Mike Roadie | 04.2.2008 | 10:17 am
We are the best!!!!
Comment by Bryan (not that one) | 04.2.2008 | 10:33 am
Thanks for letting us play along! It was a lot of fun. :-) Now, I think we should discuss this redacting thing ’cause you really seemed to get into it. I’d appreciate it in the future if you’d [redacted]. Thanks for listening.
Comment by Mocougfan | 04.2.2008 | 10:57 am
Notso,
Very funny. One of your best. I was totally looking for it as well since last’s years was so good.
Hate to be fooled. Your the man.
Comment by Miles | 04.2.2008 | 11:40 am
Very nice! I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Comment by UtRacerDad | 04.2.2008 | 12:27 pm
to bad some of us run add blockers :), I think that would make the joke on you.
Comment by rexinsea | 04.2.2008 | 1:21 pm
ARRRRGH! Apparently I need to stop reading your posts via RSS. I did think the post was a tad lame but just figured it for an off day. Nice one! Love the fake ads. I particularily like the gas powered bike…wouldn’t that be a motorcycle?
Comment by Born4Lycra | 04.2.2008 | 1:40 pm
I looked at the ads had a laugh but did not click on them. So reading the posts I was stunned by the “love” taking place. At one point I even checked the date of the post and it was coming up as 31.03.08 here so I’ve been sitting waiting for your April fool’s joke. Did enjoy the link to past pranks in the office tho.
Once again I dips me lid to ya.
Comment by Zack | 04.2.2008 | 2:19 pm
Absolutely increadible!!!! I simply cannot say enough good things about this post!!!
Comment by AlicesYellowPorsche | 04.2.2008 | 2:32 pm
I missed it… *smack forehead*
http://alicesyellowporsche.blogspot.com
Comment by Jill | 04.2.2008 | 2:52 pm
You know what’s brilliant? Those obnoxious jerseys you tracked down (or designed?) Either way, brilliant.
Comment by Adam | 04.2.2008 | 4:12 pm
So wait, CarboRocket does NOT have human brains in it? Cancel my order.
Comment by Mocha | 04.2.2008 | 4:26 pm
Dang. Dang. Dang.
I so wish I would have gotten to read you yesterday and watched with interest the growing comments. I’ll know better for next year.
Belated congratulations for the awards. No one deserves them more than you. Except for other people. Everyone else, in fact. People who don’t put fake ads up.
Comment by Tyson | 04.2.2008 | 5:06 pm
First I miss the break dancing bear, then i miss those adds. I need to start paying attention!
Comment by Big Mike In Oz | 04.3.2008 | 4:37 am
To keep my OCD under control I’ve trained myself to such a narrow field of vision that I often don’t see the ad banners. Now that you mention it though I do remember reading the blog entry yesterday and feeling like you were a little off your game. And the commenters were certainly a little bit over-enthusiastic for such a mediocre outpouring. I think I can safely say “Doh!”
Comment by TIMK | 04.3.2008 | 6:02 am
I’m kind of chuckling to myself at those calling ad blockers “add” blockers. I imagine it’s a typo, but to me it means add as in “attention deficit disorder.” You know ads are really bad for us add types.
What? Where was I?
Comment by ka_jun | 04.3.2008 | 6:51 am
Remember, though, that Spam musubi powers my singletrack attack!
Comment by db | 04.3.2008 | 3:48 pm
I kinda caught on, but not quite. I was going to post about Elden creating all those quotes himself. The dummy ad thing did not occur to me. But I knew the comments were too over the top, and it was April 1. Oh well. Story of my life: I’m even a day late posting to this.
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