Tell HN: Thanks for the maturity

19 points by adenozine ↗ HN
I've appreciated not being bombarded with silly April Fool's nonsense today.

In the midst of these times especially. Pandemic, violence, election theatrics, racism abound, racial terrorism rising, inequality concerns rising, global economic instability rising, et al. There's a million worries on everybody's radar, and I think it's completely tone-deaf to be worrying about jokes right now. We all need a happy moment now and then, but the news cycle should be informative and tame, I think, for the greater good.

Anyhow, it's been nice reading HN for a change, today. Thank you all.

14 comments

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I see Your point of view and understand how some people can can take things too far but also think if You can't take a joke to the point You are wanting to cancel Aprilfools maybe that is taking things too far the otherway.

Yes the pandemic is brutal but sharing stories about phoney video cards, language training toilet paper and cauliflower peeps is not ruining anyones life and in someways brings a sort of silly normal back.

Today is the anniversary of my mother's passing and in someways I look forward to having my mind taken off the grief, why should the Woke PC mob get to decide their feelings get to call the shots?

But as I said, I understand where You are comming from and respect your opinion, hopefully You can get past whatever hurt (real or imagined) you experience today from people's sense of humor.

It's not a woke thing - people just find the repetition annoying. April fools on the internet started getting corporate and repetitive well over 10 years ago.

I'm sorry about your mom and hope you end up having a good day.

> It's not a woke thing...

In general, yes, most people just hate the flood of unfunny jokes. But in this specific case, this does seem to be a Woke thing. Re-read the post if you need to. It's pretty weird, even the title.

This person's stated viewpoint is that we shouldn't make jokes on this April Fools because it's "tone deaf" and "immature" given the problems in the world. This is definitely Wokespeak from someone that believes in the Woke point of view that the world is in a really bad state and even regressing.

They really are calling for the cancellation of this April Fools on HN, based on their personal perspective on the state of the world. And everyone else is called "immature" or "tone deaf" if they disagree.

This super weird kind of scolding behavior shouldn't be condoned. Especially in these cases, because people trying to make each other laugh is one of the most beautiful things about humanity.

Did you read the post?
Did you? Feel free to re-read it and explain what I got wrong. I tried to be fair and non-inflammatory while still making the point.
Ah, I see your point about the OP, though even that seems not so much a woke thing as "how can you X when the world is so Y", which is a sentiment that long predates the current phase of the ideology war.

I agree that it doesn't really apply to HN, since most of what appears on this site isn't particularly important. If we were going to apply the standard of world importance to HN, it would be a completely different forum. Most April Fools' jokes are still boring though :) - e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26642429

> Woke PC mob

Ah yes, darn that woke PC mob getting between me and the forced corporate humor that every communications department feels compelled to put out this time of year.

As long as it doesn't interfere with your libretarian cowardice right?
I think it's ok when the joke is too obvious and it's done as a tradition. E.g. agadmator (a famous chess YT channel) shared a video of one of the most amazing chess games ever played (from 1852) and claimed "Magnus Carlsen [1] retired from chess after losing like this". I mean this is clearly a joke. We all know Magnus won't retire after losing one random match against a random person. But it's just kinda funny.

Relevant video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_jx_jySDkN0

[1] Magnus Carlsen is the current world chess champion in all formats, except Chess960.

I was terribly disappointed when I realized the date after reading the W3C was bringing back the BLINK tag!
I never done any before pandemic, so my very first april fool was today... I assume totally like an adult with plenty of maturity and virtues...