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Every year, companies flood the internet with bogus posts and elaborate news for the April 1st. But the world is facing the coronavirus pandemic, which has drastically changed the ways we live. While most of us are now leading our lives online, experts warn about the importance of reliable and trustworthy information when it comes to Covid-19. But any potential April Fools' joke would be a step into the fakery zone.
Hence, Google has cancelled its pranks this year, reports Business Insider. “This year, we're going to take the year off from that tradition out of respect for all those fighting the COVID-19 pandemic," Lorraine Twohill, head of marketing at Google, wrote in an email to company managers. "Our highest goal right now is to be helpful to people, so let's save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one."
It turns out, the coronavirus crisis may have also changed the way we perceive jokes. One professor at the University of California, Coye Cheshire told CNET: “Right now it might be hard for companies and individuals to read the room virtually.” The potential to misread any joke is high as ever, and any potential prank may become a subject of severe criticism.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, warns that coronavirus jokes could be viewed as the truth. The critics of corona jokes say that even if toilet paper pranks are hilarious, they might set off panic buyers.
On the other hand, humor is known as an excellent coping mechanism.
Stanford researcher Andrea Samson and psychology Professor James Gross ran an experiment where subjects were asked to improvise jokes. They found that people who made any kind of quip benefited, reporting both increases in positive emotions and decreases in negative emotions.
"If you are able to teach people to be more playful, to look at the absurdities of life as humorous, you see some increase in wellbeing," said Samson in this Stanford News report.
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