Every year, April 1st is a day to demonstrate your ability to use food coloring, packaging tape, air horns, and other carefully selected materials in one amazing plan to prank your friends and family.
Placing a bucket of water above a doorway is an old standby…but the rise of the internet has provided a new outlet for people to take April Fools to the next level, playing pranks on larger audiences—pranks like the one Houghton College pulled in 2015.
Any student who attends this small Christian college will agree that it gets cold in the winter. Located about an hour from Buffalo, New York, Houghton’s campus gets its fair share of snow. The solution? Create a way to keep the temperature at 74 degrees Fahrenheit year-round.
Houghton sent out a press release this past April that $84 million dollars had been raised to construct a bio-dome over its campus. But unlike the dome covering a tropical island resort in Germany (the real-life place on which the prank dome had reportedly been based), Houghton’s dome would be transparent and translucent.
The press release contained quotes from college personnel, information about the material to be used in construction (Living Polycarbonate Plastic (LPP)), and the ways the dome would lessen energy/snow-related costs for the college. It even included an artist’s rendering, which depicted the campus, complete with a swimming pool and palm trees, beneath a giant bubble.
It looked real enough to be believed; major news agencies, TV, radio and newspapers even ran it as a legitimate story.
It was also ranked as one of the best April Fools jokes of 2015 by Buffalo.com and on Blog.Case.org.
Laughter is an important part of anyone’s life, and even colleges can take the time to generate a few chuckles. It’s never too early to begin planning the next elaborate prank. What will you do this coming April Fools?
Original press-release here