2015 April Fools Day

2015Annual internet event / corporate prank traditionclassic

Also known as: April Fools' Day 2015 · April Fools 2015

2015 April Fools' Day marked the peak year for coordinated corporate internet pranks, featuring Google's playable Pac-Man on Google Maps and Samsung's satirical Galaxy BLADE edge smart knife.

2015 April Fools' Day was a peak year for corporate internet pranks, with Google, Samsung, CERN, and dozens of other companies flooding the web with fake product announcements and absurd press releases on April 1st, 2015. Google's playable Pac-Man on Google Maps stole the show, while Samsung's Galaxy BLADE edge smart knife and CERN's Star Wars-themed "discovery of the Force" became some of the most shared gags of the day1. The sheer volume of coordinated brand pranks in 2015 marked a turning point where April Fools' Day became less about tricking people and more about viral marketing dressed up as humor7.

april fools memesbrand participation memesgoogle memesviral marketing memes2015 memes

Overview

Every year on April 1st, the internet braces for a wave of fake announcements, prank products, and absurd press releases from tech companies and brands competing for viral attention. 2015 was one of the biggest years for this tradition, with Google alone launching at least eight separate gags across its product lineup5. The day turned into something like "Super Bowl Sunday for dad jokes," as CNN put it, a 24-hour content blitz where companies raced to out-prank each other for clicks and social media shares1.

The 2015 crop of pranks leaned heavily into fake products and absurd feature announcements. Samsung unveiled a "smart knife," CERN claimed to have discovered the Force from Star Wars, and Google turned its Maps app into a Pac-Man game. Media outlets ran live blogs tracking every prank as it dropped, turning the whole affair into a spectator sport7.

April Fools' Day pranks on the internet go back decades, with early examples including the BBC's 1957 spaghetti tree broadcast and Swedish TV's 1962 nylon-stocking-over-the-TV color hack4. The tradition of corporate internet pranks picked up steam in the 2000s, and by 2015, it had reached industrial scale.

Google was the undisputed champion of the 2015 cycle. The company launched Pac-Man on Google Maps, letting users navigate real streets as the classic arcade game1. Clicking a small blue-and-black square in the corner of any Google Maps page transformed the map into a playable Pac-Man level5. Google also rolled out Chrome Selfies (reaction selfies for any webpage), Smartbox by Inbox (a fake smart mailbox), Google Panda (an AI search companion shaped like a panda), and Google Fiber Dial-Up Mode, which joked about intentionally slowing down Fiber speeds to give users "precious moments to load the dishwasher"5.

Samsung published a detailed fake product page for the Galaxy BLADE edge, described as "the world's first smart knife with smartphone capabilities"2. The Galaxy BLADE edge supposedly combined the features of the Galaxy S6 with a razor-sharp diamond-edged ceramic blade, complete with a "finger-detection mechanism" powered by KNOX security that would retract the blade before cutting skin, and a "human blood sensor" that would automatically call the police if it detected blood2.

CERN's contribution was a press release announcing "the first unequivocal evidence for the Force" discovered at the Large Hadron Collider3. The release quoted fictional researchers including "CERN theorist Ben Kenobi of the University of Mos Eisley, Tatooine" and noted that "dark-matter researcher Dave Vader was unimpressed, breathing heavily in disgust throughout the press conference"3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Multi-platform (Google, Samsung, CERN, Twitter, various brand websites)
Key People
Multiple corporations and organizations
Date
2015

April Fools' Day pranks on the internet go back decades, with early examples including the BBC's 1957 spaghetti tree broadcast and Swedish TV's 1962 nylon-stocking-over-the-TV color hack. The tradition of corporate internet pranks picked up steam in the 2000s, and by 2015, it had reached industrial scale.

Google was the undisputed champion of the 2015 cycle. The company launched Pac-Man on Google Maps, letting users navigate real streets as the classic arcade game. Clicking a small blue-and-black square in the corner of any Google Maps page transformed the map into a playable Pac-Man level. Google also rolled out Chrome Selfies (reaction selfies for any webpage), Smartbox by Inbox (a fake smart mailbox), Google Panda (an AI search companion shaped like a panda), and Google Fiber Dial-Up Mode, which joked about intentionally slowing down Fiber speeds to give users "precious moments to load the dishwasher".

Samsung published a detailed fake product page for the Galaxy BLADE edge, described as "the world's first smart knife with smartphone capabilities". The Galaxy BLADE edge supposedly combined the features of the Galaxy S6 with a razor-sharp diamond-edged ceramic blade, complete with a "finger-detection mechanism" powered by KNOX security that would retract the blade before cutting skin, and a "human blood sensor" that would automatically call the police if it detected blood.

CERN's contribution was a press release announcing "the first unequivocal evidence for the Force" discovered at the Large Hadron Collider. The release quoted fictional researchers including "CERN theorist Ben Kenobi of the University of Mos Eisley, Tatooine" and noted that "dark-matter researcher Dave Vader was unimpressed, breathing heavily in disgust throughout the press conference".

How It Spread

The pranks spread across every major platform on April 1, 2015, with media outlets serving as primary amplifiers. CNN, Lifehacker, and HuffPost all ran live-updated roundup posts cataloging pranks as they appeared throughout the day.

Google's Pac-Man Maps was the most interactive and widely shared prank of the cycle, requiring nothing more than opening Google Maps in a browser to play. Lifehacker described it as "Google's time-honored tradition of fun gags that double as guided missiles aimed straight at your productivity's kneecaps".

Beyond the tech giants, other companies joined in. BMW announced a series of mouth guards for rugby players offering "the same impact protection as our drivers". Honda unveiled the HR-V Selfie Edition with 10 cameras for taking self-portraits from inside the car. Uber claimed it would pilot a boat-hailing service "on the streets of Bangkok". ThinkGeek, a perennial April Fools' participant, published listings for Game of Thrones Clue, a Steam-Powered Gaming Cabinet, a Voltron Cat Condo, and Groot Beer and Rocket Fuel drinks.

Even outside the tech world, the pranks rolled in. The Economist reported that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had challenged Vladimir Putin to a judo match to settle the future of eastern Ukraine. The Guardian ran a piece about Jeremy Clarkson dedicating his post-Top Gear life to sustainable energy. Virgin's Richard Branson announced the company would relocate to Branson, Missouri. Tesco introduced "trampoline inspired bouncy aisles" to help short customers reach top shelves.

HuffPost noted that while brands dominated the day, regular people were also pulling pranks on friends, family, and coworkers, posting results across social media.

How to Use This Meme

2015 April Fools' Day content works best as a reference point or annual callback. People typically use it in a few ways:

1

Sharing old pranks: Links to Samsung's Galaxy BLADE page or CERN's Force press release get recirculated every April as "remember this?" content

2

Comparing years: "2015 was peak April Fools" posts use specific pranks from the year as a benchmark against newer, lazier efforts

3

Corporate prank criticism: The 2015 wave is often cited when people complain about brands turning April Fools' into a marketing exercise rather than actual comedy

Cultural Impact

The 2015 April Fools' cycle was a high-water mark for corporate prank culture online. Multiple major news outlets dedicated staff to real-time tracking of the day's gags, treating it as an event worth live-blogging. Lifehacker framed its coverage as a public service for people who "don't have time for any funny business" and just needed to see all the pranks in one place.

The volume of 2015 pranks also fueled growing criticism of the tradition. The practice of companies publishing elaborate fake products started drawing backlash from people who felt genuinely misled or simply annoyed. CNN described the day as brands and "junior brand creatives" conjuring up "cringe-worthy pranks, tall tales and PR stunts". This tension between fun and fatigue became a recurring theme in later years.

CERN's Force announcement cleverly tied into the December 2015 release of *Star Wars: The Force Awakens*, with the press release ending: "many at CERN are already predicting that the Force will awaken later this year". Samsung's Galaxy BLADE edge page went deep enough into fake technical specifications (including "U4CF Ultra 4D Curved Flash" memory with "10nm-wide wormholes") that some readers initially mistook it for a real product.

Fun Facts

Samsung's Galaxy BLADE edge page included a footnote that the premium mammoth tusk ivory handle was "made from real mammoth tusk, found beneath the surface of the North Sea"

Google launched at least eight separate April Fools' pranks in 2015, more than any other single company

CERN's fake Force press release included a TIE detector (Thermodynamic Injection Energy) at the LHC that "makes a really cool sound when the beams shoot out of it"

The cancellation process for Samsung's fake blood sensor emergency call required scanning a fingerprint, swiping a security pattern, entering a 15-digit password, and singing along to a randomly selected song from your Milk Music station

Lifehacker specifically warned readers on its roundup: "have fun with the day and don't be a dick"

Derivatives & Variations

Google Maps Pac-Man revival

The Pac-Man feature was popular enough that Google brought back similar interactive Maps games in subsequent April Fools' celebrations[5]

ThinkGeek real products

Several ThinkGeek April Fools' products from various years, including some from 2015 like the Game of Thrones Clue board game, ended up becoming real products due to popular demand[5]

Annual prank roundup articles

The 2015 cycle helped establish the format of media outlets publishing live-updating April Fools' roundup posts, a practice that CNN, The Verge, and others repeated in following years[1][7]

Frequently Asked Questions

2015 April Fools Day

2015Annual internet event / corporate prank traditionclassic

Also known as: April Fools' Day 2015 · April Fools 2015

2015 April Fools' Day marked the peak year for coordinated corporate internet pranks, featuring Google's playable Pac-Man on Google Maps and Samsung's satirical Galaxy BLADE edge smart knife.

2015 April Fools' Day was a peak year for corporate internet pranks, with Google, Samsung, CERN, and dozens of other companies flooding the web with fake product announcements and absurd press releases on April 1st, 2015. Google's playable Pac-Man on Google Maps stole the show, while Samsung's Galaxy BLADE edge smart knife and CERN's Star Wars-themed "discovery of the Force" became some of the most shared gags of the day. The sheer volume of coordinated brand pranks in 2015 marked a turning point where April Fools' Day became less about tricking people and more about viral marketing dressed up as humor.

april fools memes brand participation memes google memes viral marketing memes 2015 memes

Overview

Every year on April 1st, the internet braces for a wave of fake announcements, prank products, and absurd press releases from tech companies and brands competing for viral attention. 2015 was one of the biggest years for this tradition, with Google alone launching at least eight separate gags across its product lineup. The day turned into something like "Super Bowl Sunday for dad jokes," as CNN put it, a 24-hour content blitz where companies raced to out-prank each other for clicks and social media shares.

The 2015 crop of pranks leaned heavily into fake products and absurd feature announcements. Samsung unveiled a "smart knife," CERN claimed to have discovered the Force from Star Wars, and Google turned its Maps app into a Pac-Man game. Media outlets ran live blogs tracking every prank as it dropped, turning the whole affair into a spectator sport.

April Fools' Day pranks on the internet go back decades, with early examples including the BBC's 1957 spaghetti tree broadcast and Swedish TV's 1962 nylon-stocking-over-the-TV color hack. The tradition of corporate internet pranks picked up steam in the 2000s, and by 2015, it had reached industrial scale.

Google was the undisputed champion of the 2015 cycle. The company launched Pac-Man on Google Maps, letting users navigate real streets as the classic arcade game. Clicking a small blue-and-black square in the corner of any Google Maps page transformed the map into a playable Pac-Man level. Google also rolled out Chrome Selfies (reaction selfies for any webpage), Smartbox by Inbox (a fake smart mailbox), Google Panda (an AI search companion shaped like a panda), and Google Fiber Dial-Up Mode, which joked about intentionally slowing down Fiber speeds to give users "precious moments to load the dishwasher".

Samsung published a detailed fake product page for the Galaxy BLADE edge, described as "the world's first smart knife with smartphone capabilities". The Galaxy BLADE edge supposedly combined the features of the Galaxy S6 with a razor-sharp diamond-edged ceramic blade, complete with a "finger-detection mechanism" powered by KNOX security that would retract the blade before cutting skin, and a "human blood sensor" that would automatically call the police if it detected blood.

CERN's contribution was a press release announcing "the first unequivocal evidence for the Force" discovered at the Large Hadron Collider. The release quoted fictional researchers including "CERN theorist Ben Kenobi of the University of Mos Eisley, Tatooine" and noted that "dark-matter researcher Dave Vader was unimpressed, breathing heavily in disgust throughout the press conference".

Origin & Background

Platform
Multi-platform (Google, Samsung, CERN, Twitter, various brand websites)
Key People
Multiple corporations and organizations
Date
2015

April Fools' Day pranks on the internet go back decades, with early examples including the BBC's 1957 spaghetti tree broadcast and Swedish TV's 1962 nylon-stocking-over-the-TV color hack. The tradition of corporate internet pranks picked up steam in the 2000s, and by 2015, it had reached industrial scale.

Google was the undisputed champion of the 2015 cycle. The company launched Pac-Man on Google Maps, letting users navigate real streets as the classic arcade game. Clicking a small blue-and-black square in the corner of any Google Maps page transformed the map into a playable Pac-Man level. Google also rolled out Chrome Selfies (reaction selfies for any webpage), Smartbox by Inbox (a fake smart mailbox), Google Panda (an AI search companion shaped like a panda), and Google Fiber Dial-Up Mode, which joked about intentionally slowing down Fiber speeds to give users "precious moments to load the dishwasher".

Samsung published a detailed fake product page for the Galaxy BLADE edge, described as "the world's first smart knife with smartphone capabilities". The Galaxy BLADE edge supposedly combined the features of the Galaxy S6 with a razor-sharp diamond-edged ceramic blade, complete with a "finger-detection mechanism" powered by KNOX security that would retract the blade before cutting skin, and a "human blood sensor" that would automatically call the police if it detected blood.

CERN's contribution was a press release announcing "the first unequivocal evidence for the Force" discovered at the Large Hadron Collider. The release quoted fictional researchers including "CERN theorist Ben Kenobi of the University of Mos Eisley, Tatooine" and noted that "dark-matter researcher Dave Vader was unimpressed, breathing heavily in disgust throughout the press conference".

How It Spread

The pranks spread across every major platform on April 1, 2015, with media outlets serving as primary amplifiers. CNN, Lifehacker, and HuffPost all ran live-updated roundup posts cataloging pranks as they appeared throughout the day.

Google's Pac-Man Maps was the most interactive and widely shared prank of the cycle, requiring nothing more than opening Google Maps in a browser to play. Lifehacker described it as "Google's time-honored tradition of fun gags that double as guided missiles aimed straight at your productivity's kneecaps".

Beyond the tech giants, other companies joined in. BMW announced a series of mouth guards for rugby players offering "the same impact protection as our drivers". Honda unveiled the HR-V Selfie Edition with 10 cameras for taking self-portraits from inside the car. Uber claimed it would pilot a boat-hailing service "on the streets of Bangkok". ThinkGeek, a perennial April Fools' participant, published listings for Game of Thrones Clue, a Steam-Powered Gaming Cabinet, a Voltron Cat Condo, and Groot Beer and Rocket Fuel drinks.

Even outside the tech world, the pranks rolled in. The Economist reported that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had challenged Vladimir Putin to a judo match to settle the future of eastern Ukraine. The Guardian ran a piece about Jeremy Clarkson dedicating his post-Top Gear life to sustainable energy. Virgin's Richard Branson announced the company would relocate to Branson, Missouri. Tesco introduced "trampoline inspired bouncy aisles" to help short customers reach top shelves.

HuffPost noted that while brands dominated the day, regular people were also pulling pranks on friends, family, and coworkers, posting results across social media.

How to Use This Meme

2015 April Fools' Day content works best as a reference point or annual callback. People typically use it in a few ways:

1

Sharing old pranks: Links to Samsung's Galaxy BLADE page or CERN's Force press release get recirculated every April as "remember this?" content

2

Comparing years: "2015 was peak April Fools" posts use specific pranks from the year as a benchmark against newer, lazier efforts

3

Corporate prank criticism: The 2015 wave is often cited when people complain about brands turning April Fools' into a marketing exercise rather than actual comedy

Cultural Impact

The 2015 April Fools' cycle was a high-water mark for corporate prank culture online. Multiple major news outlets dedicated staff to real-time tracking of the day's gags, treating it as an event worth live-blogging. Lifehacker framed its coverage as a public service for people who "don't have time for any funny business" and just needed to see all the pranks in one place.

The volume of 2015 pranks also fueled growing criticism of the tradition. The practice of companies publishing elaborate fake products started drawing backlash from people who felt genuinely misled or simply annoyed. CNN described the day as brands and "junior brand creatives" conjuring up "cringe-worthy pranks, tall tales and PR stunts". This tension between fun and fatigue became a recurring theme in later years.

CERN's Force announcement cleverly tied into the December 2015 release of *Star Wars: The Force Awakens*, with the press release ending: "many at CERN are already predicting that the Force will awaken later this year". Samsung's Galaxy BLADE edge page went deep enough into fake technical specifications (including "U4CF Ultra 4D Curved Flash" memory with "10nm-wide wormholes") that some readers initially mistook it for a real product.

Fun Facts

Samsung's Galaxy BLADE edge page included a footnote that the premium mammoth tusk ivory handle was "made from real mammoth tusk, found beneath the surface of the North Sea"

Google launched at least eight separate April Fools' pranks in 2015, more than any other single company

CERN's fake Force press release included a TIE detector (Thermodynamic Injection Energy) at the LHC that "makes a really cool sound when the beams shoot out of it"

The cancellation process for Samsung's fake blood sensor emergency call required scanning a fingerprint, swiping a security pattern, entering a 15-digit password, and singing along to a randomly selected song from your Milk Music station

Lifehacker specifically warned readers on its roundup: "have fun with the day and don't be a dick"

Derivatives & Variations

Google Maps Pac-Man revival

The Pac-Man feature was popular enough that Google brought back similar interactive Maps games in subsequent April Fools' celebrations[5]

ThinkGeek real products

Several ThinkGeek April Fools' products from various years, including some from 2015 like the Game of Thrones Clue board game, ended up becoming real products due to popular demand[5]

Annual prank roundup articles

The 2015 cycle helped establish the format of media outlets publishing live-updating April Fools' roundup posts, a practice that CNN, The Verge, and others repeated in following years[1][7]

Frequently Asked Questions