"April Fools"

Warning, bad words ahead. If you're sensitive to them, don't read them.

I'm using this blog as a general announcement about the "annual April Fools" joke. And I'm going to put this as simply as I can.

There isn't going to be one from me this year.

Now a lot of you are expecting this to be a setup, or expecting me to come out with something big for it, or possibly even do some setups in the coming days to make it seem more real. But sorry folks, there simply isn't a joke this year.

And, why not? Simple. It's not fun anymore.

I started in 1996 or so posting a joke on R.S.P. I created a paintgun that was just too fantastic to be real, but believable enough to be plausible. Basically I preyed upon the paintball world believing anything it's told, and they didn't disappoint. Everyone had a good laugh at themselves, and life went on.

The joke evolved over the years, including letting Smart Parts buy me out or making my own field or the NPPL starting in with random drug testing. But over the last ten years, it stopped being fun and started being a lot of work for no payoff. The payoff being a lot of people getting a good laugh and getting other people to fall for the joke too.

Last year's joke was pretty much what killed it for me. I posted in a few places that I was opening a field in Illinois. I spent a week finding the best pictures and creating a fictitious field, including descriptions and so on. I post it.

Not more than 5 minutes later there was already a post "FAKE! YOU SUCK! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!" There's no way they could have even gone to the site and looked over the pics, they just decided to kill the joke. Later the people that all jumped on the first page screaming "FAKE!" edited their posts after they figured out how pissed off I was that they did so, but the damage was already done. They already ruined the gag for the other people who may have read the first post.

And what for? It's an ego thing, a virtual dick stroking if you will. Instead of enjoying the joke, or playing along, everyone wants to be the first guy to say "YOU DIDN'T FOOL ME! U SUK! I ROCK! FUCK YOU!" Either that or they fell for it, and they're so pissed off that they feel like they have to take revenge rather than laugh at themselves. It's selfish, and honestly it sucks. It's throwing house paint on a Monet or a wrench at a stained glass window. It's destroying something that someone worked very hard on so you can have the quick thrill of feeling superior and destroying it for anyone else who might have enjoyed it.

My response? To put it bluntly, fuck you.

It's not worth making another April fools gag this year because I'm not in the mood to put in 5-10 hours of work to have someone in the first 5 minutes post "FAKE" or "APRIL FUCKING FOOLS!" or "TYGER U SUK! I KNEW IT WAS FAKE! DON'T BELIEVE IT!" That's not fun to me. It's about as much fun as using an aluminum pipe to hit myself in the head dozens of times at high velocity. If you want to make a joke, go for it. But you're not getting one out of me this year.

You can believe me, or not. I really don't give a fuck.