The Internet has ruined April Fools’ Day.

That’s the sentiment that seems to have been prevalent on social media for most of today. And to be fair, it has. Between Operation Rainfall’s teasing of games that will never exist (Catherine 2, The Last Story II, Theatrhythm Deus Ex) to the utterly cringeworthy press release I received earlier claiming that Doodle Jump is becoming a Broadway show (seriously, guys, 1) Doodle Jump hasn’t been relevant for several years now, and 2) try harder) it’s been a thoroughly irritating day to be online. Thankfully, a significant proportion of the press seems to have grown up a bit and is refusing to play along with these shenanigans, but there’s just as many reputable publications putting out exceedingly lame “jokes” that they really should know better than to post. The Guardian producing special liberal glasses that block Richard Littlejohn columns? Hilarious. The New Statesman rebranding entirely in Comic Sans? Oh, help me, Doctor Tendo, for my sides have split.

Thinking about it, though, I’m not sure April Fools’ Day has ever been particularly… well, fun. Sure, the stuff Google comes up with is often mildly amusing, but for the most part it seems to be a day where people think that lying as much as possible is an adequate substitute for being genuinely entertaining. That’s sort of mean when you think about it, really.

I’m trying to think back to a time before the Internet (yes, young ‘uns, we did live in such dark times once) and whether or not April Fools’ Day was fun then. I have a peculiar feeling that it wasn’t. I recall a time at school when everyone suddenly and inexplicably learned the word “gullible” simultaneously for some dark purpose, and it was a hellish few weeks of people making up outlandish stories and then jeering “HAAHAHHAAH GULLIBLE” and running away if you even looked like you were about to say “really?” April Fools’ Day is just like that, really. An opportunity for unfunny twats to be particularly unfunny twats and think they’re being Comedy Gods.

I know it’s all a bit of fun and I shouldn’t be so grumpypants about it. But as with so many things on the Internet, oversaturation leads to cynicism and active dislike. And over the last few years, we’ve seen so many painfully obvious April Fools’ Day jokes that it’s just a bit old now. By far the most laughable example was the Doodle Jump press release I mentioned earlier — that actually really made me quite cross, though I restrained myself from rebuking the sender with a tersely-worded response — but that’s far from an isolated example.

To quote my former editor Mr Jason Wilson: “Journalism isn’t about jokes. No one for a journalistic site should be making up shit. No one at a PR agency should be, either. Send me that BS and you go straight into my ‘you suck at PR’ folder.”

Quite. The news is enough of a disorganised mess in which it’s a nightmare for some stories to get noticed anyway; quit cluttering these channels up with your made-up crap. It’s not big, it’s not clever and it’s not funny.

This has been your Grouch for the day. Tomorrow I will write about something nice.