YouTube's April Fools Antics

So, as you may have already heard, YouTube played a little April Fools prank on its many users just two days ago (1st April). It took the form of a video titled "YouTube's ready to select a winner" and not only did this appear on the official YouTube channel but an email was sent out to all users that claimed to have a "big announcement from YouTube". This email included the video and it was quite a convincing one.

The video basically said that YouTube was actually a competition for the best video of all time and that every video uploaded (regardless of view count [yes! I was in for a shot]) was an entry into this competition. It then went on to say that on midnight of that day YouTube would literally stop allowing uploads (or "entries" as they put it) and would be shut down for the next ten years in order to find the best YouTube video. In 2023 there was to be an official relaunch of YouTube with all videos deleted besides the winner's. This was made evermore convincing as, following this video, there was a 12 hour live broadcast (yes, I will link this down below) of two "hosts" reading out the nominations (I actually feel sorry for those people as the video went for over 12 hours!). They also had some YouTubers also discussing the competition in the original announcement video which gave it a bit more credibility. So yeah, I was pretty worried (I mean, where else can I offload all my crappy videos? Vimeo? Coolvid? I have standards) but then I re-watched it on the computer and they had added a "Happy April Fools Day 2013" thumbnail and that was also in the description so I started to think it was an April Fools joke, which it was. YouTube you got me, you bastards. I actually did some research (by this I mean frantically reading the Wikipedia page on YouTube) and what I learnt about their April Fools Day antics calmed my nerves.

Link to YouTube's "Announcement" Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H542nLTTbu0

Link to the live nominee announcement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGeMGqVKD6A

I learnt that YouTube had featured an April Fools prank every year since April 1 2008.

In 2008 the prank was that all links to videos on the YouTube home page were redirected to Rick Astley's music video: "Never Gonna Give You Up". This has since become known as Rickrolling

In 2009, when you clicked on a video on the YouTube Home Page the whole page flipped around (Like Google did for the search "How to do a barrel roll"). YouTube then claimed that this was their new layout.

In 2010, YouTube released a feature called "TEXTp" which translated the colours in the videos into random upper case letters. YouTube claimed this was to reduce bandwidth costs by $1 a second, they sure fooled somebody.

In 2011 YouTube celebrated its "100th Anniversary" and released a "1911 Button" as well as uploading some silent films of the early 20th Century

In 2012, a DVD icon was added next to the YouTube logo which lead to a video about "The YouTube Collection", a collection of every YouTube video for home delivery on DVD, Video Cassette, Laserdisc and Betamax tapes.

You already know what YouTube did this year. So yeah, I wonder how many people YouTube fooled but I found this year's to be the best so far with so much intricate detail included.

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!