Google to skip April Fool’s pranks this year due to COVID-19

The search engine giant Google has decided yet again to skip April Fool’s Day for the second time in a row. With COVID-19 on the horizon, many in the industry pulled out of April Fools’ Day pranks in 2020, including Google. Like last year, the company has decided to pause April Fool’s Day celebration out of respect for all those fighting COVID-19.

Marvin Chow, Google’s VP of global marketing, wrote an internal memo stating that the company would continue “pause” its April Fools’ Day pranks in 2021 due to “much of the world” is still grappling with the “serious challenges” caused by the ongoing pandemic.

The memo further explains,

“ Throughout the past year, I have been so inspired by how helpful our products, programs and people have been during humanity’s toughest times. We’ve done it with sensitivity and empathy, reflecting the range of challenging experiences so many are experiencing globally.

As you will remember, last year we made the decision to pause our longstanding Google tradition of celebrating April Fools’ Day, out of respect for all those fighting COVID-19. With much of the world still grappling with serious challenges, we feel we should again pause the jokes for April Fools’ Day this year. Like we did last year, we should continue to find appropriate ways to bring moments of joy to our users throughout the year (e.g. Doodles, easter eggs, etc.)”

There will be no elaborate and occasionally entertaining April Fools March Fools pranks from Google this year. It is common for Google to engage jokes and hoaxes to bring April Fools’ Day, which takes place on April 1, to its products. MentalPlex was Google’s first April Fools’ April Fools’ Day hoax. It enticed users to imagine they’re searching for something while staring at an animated GIF. Following that, when the search results page loaded, several humorous error messages were displayed.

Google had also called off April Fool’s day in the last year due to the same reason. Throughout the past year, Google and many other Silicon Valley firms have responded extensively to the ongoing pandemic. The most promising initiative so far, though, is their commitment to giving more than $800 million in help to the response through ad grants, donations, credits, and more.