Help us, our sides have split: The best 2018 April Fools Day gags

Be careful out there, because it’s April Fools Day, and that means much of what you read and see on the internet may be an elaborate gag to catch you out. Sure, this isn’t much different to any other day, except on April 1, a high percentage of the online nonsense you read or see will be funny. At least, that’s the intention.

To help you figure out what’s real and what isn’t, here’s our roundup of the best April Fools Day gags we’ve laughed our way through this year.

Man Crates Porch Piracy Protection

Gift delivery service Man Crates has a plan to thwart those heartless, unscrupulous thieves that steal packages left on your doorstep. It’s called Porch Piracy Protection, and is “available” at checkout, allowing you to select your protection system of choice. This makes your valuable Man Crate less attractive to the sticky-fingered. Our favorite? It’s a tough choice between creepy clown and acoustic guitar man.

Tech21 FlexChoc Case

A good smartphone case should provide protection in the event of a drop, but how many also provide a handy snack when you need a sugar rush? Tech21 has made the FlexChoc, an exquisitely designed, and we imagine exquisitely tasting, chocolate phone case. If we don’t get sent one of these, we’ll be very disappointed.

Genetic Select by Lexus

Don’t laugh, because we have the feeling Lexus’s April Fools Day joke has the potential to be prophetic. Order a new Lexus using Genetic Select, and your DNA shapes everything about it, from the new car smell and tinted windows based on your skin type, to a windshield that matches your glasses prescription. Made in partnership with 23andMe, we can see marketers thinking this would be a really good idea. Also, it’s the first of several tongue-related April Fools Day jokes, oddly.

WArby’s Onion Ring Monocle

“The perfect fusion of two brands,” is how Warby’s describes its partnership with Arby’ — called WArby’s — and the resulting Onion Ring Monocle product. We like this one. It’s smart, amusing, and if you’re in New York, you can actually go and get an Onion Ring Monocle yourself. Plus, we really like onion rings.

T-Mobile Sidekicks

Remember the T-Mobile Sidekick smartphone? It was like a BlackBerry, but worse. T-Mobile remembers, and has used April Fools Day to come up with a product that manages to be even less appealing to use than the original Sidekick. Sidekicks are the world’s first Smart Shoe Phone, and they do everything your smartphone does, but on your feet. The video is funny, the shoes are worryingly believable, and CEO John Legere shows up and swears, so what else could we ask for? What’s more, the shoes — minus the phone part — can actually be purchased.

Roku Happy Streaming Socks

More foot-related April Fools Day jokery, this time from Roku. In an effort to keep the remote control free of greasy, snack-related fingerprints and detritus, Roku’s Happy Streaming Socks control your Roku box via gestures made with your feet. A Wizard Of Oz-style heel click plays your selected movie, for example. They even warm your feet, and have a handy Find My Sock system, because we all know how easy it is to lose a single sock.

Jabra Speaker Sneaker

Continuing the footwear-trend of April Fools Day 2018 (which is in danger of surpassing the use of cute animals, shockingly), Jabra has made a pair of Sneaker Speakers. Providing true music on-the-go, these are voice controlled, have detachable speakers, a dance assist mode, and wireless charging. This is our favorite part, and in the press release — which we suspect may not be serious, despite how seriously Jabra appears to be taking this — it says the “wireless surface charger can also be used as a comfortable blanket to sit on at the same time.” The thing is, we’d actually buy a wireless charger like that.

FreshDirect Rabbit Foraged Herbs

Cute animals are a staple of April Fools Day online gags, and FreshDirect has chosen rabbits as the star of its joke, claiming thousands of them are out foraging for fresh herbs. While there had been no explanation as to how they do this, we do know they’re motivated by treats, so we get to see rabbits munching on a carrot. Ahh, so sweet. We included this here because the trainer’s name is Ned Hopper. Come on. That’s funny.

Master & Dynamic Thermochromium

There’s always at least one April Fools Day product that we half-wish was real, and this is one of them. Expert headphone company Master & Dynamic’s Thermochromium headphones monitor your brainwaves to manipulate the color of the new Thermochromium leather, changing it according to what you’re listening to. It’s bizarre, and we can do without the brain monitoring stuff; but the color changing look is very cool.

Honor Toilet Insurance

Have you had breakfast? Good, then you’re safe to watch Honor’s April Fools Day joke, which introduces an insurance scheme against phones dropped in the toilet. It does this by graphically showing a slightly dehydrated man urinating in a bowl, before his phone takes an unfortunate bath in the liquid. Fewer laughs, and more involuntary retching from Honor this year.

Pindrop Tongueprinting

Less gross than Honor’s April Fools Day joke, biometric technology company Pindrop’s gag will still make germaphobes curl up in a little ball and wish for it never to happen. Pindrop’s new service is Tongueprinting, which uses the unique structure of your tongue to secure your phone. The trouble is, to use it, you have to lick your phone. Yuck.

ThinkGeek Jurassic World Dinosaur Detection System

ThinkGeek always has a good line-up for April Fools Day, and the Jurassic World Dinosaur Detection System is one of the best yet. We won’t give it all away, but if you’re a fan of the Jurassic Park movie, then you’ll recognise the product being pushed here, along with some of the lines used. Every office needs one.

HouzzCoinzz

Home design app Houzz mocks the cryptocurrency craze in its April Fools Day joke. HouzzCoinzz are its own cryptocurrency, which can be purchased or mined and used to buy products seen in the app. A $100 investment may allow you to furnish your entire home as the value skyrockets. However, read the small print — like other cryptocurrencies, that $100 could also become completely worthless.

eHarmony Furever Love

Many a true word spoken in jest. Judging by the amount of Instagram profiles are made for pets, a dating and companion app for pets is surely the next step, and we’re surprised it’s not a real thing already. Relationship app eHarmony’s April Fools gag is the amusingly named Furever Love, where profiles can be created for pets, ready for the company’s algorithms to find the perfect (purrfect?) match. An April Fools joke featuring pictures of cute dogs? Who expected that?

We’ll be updating our list of April Fools Day jokes for 2018, so check back for more.