in loving memory of tumblr's april fools' pranks 💐 2014 - 2024

icymi, tumblr used to do an elaborate april fool's prank every year, but this year they suddenly stopped. here's a somewhat detailed recap of everything they did over the decade:

2013 - mishapocalypse (honourable mention): tumblr staff didn’t start doing april fools until 2014, but the mishapocalypse happened on tumblr in 2013 and i feel like this list would be incomplete without it

2014 - tumblrpro: upon opening your dash you were greeted by an “inspirational” video, that ended with the option to get “tumblrpro (for free)”. all it did was put a top hat on your icon.

2015 - tumblr executivesuite/coppy: a copying machine appeared in the corner of your dash. it would offer tips on how to use tumblr, like clippy the paperclip used to do in microsoft word. as the day went on, it slowly broke down and died right in front of your eyes. many people hated him (but not me). you could also make a (small) spreadsheet. @executivesuite2016 is the official blog.

2016 - this is decision/lizard election/tumblrdecides: a parody of the 2016 US elections. there were 4 lizards (well, one of them turned out to be a salamander in a scandal) to vote for. the dash looked different and there was a live news report with election updates, as well as an election blog for each lizard. they all had their own slogans and you would get an "i voted" button after you voted that would get slapped next to your icon. there were built-in functions to make an election poster for your favourite lizard and to create a text post that supported your lizard of choice that autogenerated a statement for all your followers to read. imo tumblr’s april fools peak. @thisisdecision2016-blog is the official blog, @mop-2016-blog @wretchedtooth @timefordeborah-blog were candidates. rick also had a blog (rick-official) but that now seems to have vanished because he ended up dropping out of the election. mop won, if you're curious. by far the most elaborate prank tumblr ever did.

2017 - horse friend: a tamagotchi-inspired game where you had to take care of a little horse in the corner of your screen. it came with a randomly generated name, and you had to feed and clean up after it. if you didnt take good care of it, it died. you could then hatch (yes, hatch) a new one. there was also an option to look at the names of all your dead horses. this is now available to buy in the tumblr shop. @horse-friends is the official blog.

2018 - tumblcoin: a parody of cryptocurrency (this was the year bitcoin took off). you could ‘invest’ in tumblcoin, with which you could in turn buy things with to spice up your dash, including last year’s horse friend, coppy from 2015, and a frame for around your icon. you could share the amount of tumblcoin you owned in an automatically generated gif post which would be tagged #tbc2018 and #tumblcoin. @tumblcoin is the official blog.

2019 - @memories: this blog still functions the way it did on april fools itself! it's like mad libs, where it takes post templates and then adds in tags you use a lot and users you frequently interact with on your main blog. like a personalized shitpost bot.

2020 - group chat prank/@storybot: it was so hard to find info on this because it was contained entirely in the now-defunct group chat function, which no one used. i had to go through the notes of this post for information because no one cared enough to actually write anything explaining it. turns out, you could write a story with your mutuals by adding storybot to your group chat. it also kept working after april fools (well, up until the group chats were deleted) just like memories. many people missed out on it entirely because they did not use the group chat function.

2021 - tumblcryptids: tumblr allowed you to adopt “non-fungible tumblcryptids”, a parody of NFTs. clicking a button that said "Summon thy Tumblrcryptid" would spawn an image of a little blob-shaped creature with a short description, which would always read "Hi! My name is [randomly generated name]. I love [thing most people like]. I hate [thing most people dislike]. Like my parent, I can't get enough of #[tag from your main blog]." you could share them in a post, which would automatically add the tag #NFTumblcryptids to your post. and yes, people on the piss on the poor website freaked out about it because they thought they were real NFTs harming the environment. @tumblcryptidadoptioncenter is the official blog.

2022 - click-a-thon: when you clicked a light switch on your dashboard, a bunch of colourful things showed up, like a sponge you could move around, an "engagament meter", clickable buttons, and a “Summon Crab!” button, which would summon a crab when you clicked it. you could. the crabs, like horse friend, are still available in the tumblr store as of 2025. here's some screenshots. there were various ways to share your crab activities, which would all get tagged #april fools 2022. the prank was presented as a marketing technique created by Brick Whartley, a fictional businessman character created by tumblr, who (afaik) originated in a post on the official blog of the 2018 april fools prank, albeit originally in a different role. around this time he also started functioning as the mascot for tumblr's shop ( @emporium )

2023 - abstract reactions (emoji reacts): buttons were added to every post that allowed you to add emoji reactions, many of them based on tumblr inside jokes (horse as a reference to horse plinko/horse friend, vanilla for the vanilla extract meme, pikaman, bug for bug race, and brick whartley, who wasn't a meme but staff really wanted him to be). if one specific emoji was used a certain amount of times it would add an effect to the post, eg many cheese emoji reacts would cover the post in cheese. this was also attributed to Brick Whartley ("his" blog @brickwhartley also documented the day)

2024 - boop-o-meter: allowed you to “boop” other users who had opted in to the booping, like facebook’s poke feature back in the day. depending on how long you held the button, you would either boop, super boop, or evil boop. on the dashboard there was a counter for both how many times you had booped others and how many times others had booped you, as well as how many boops were given side-wide. when booping someone, an image of a cat paw appeared. you would get badges (which can still be used) for booping 1, 100 and 1000 times. if you got more than 999 boops, the counter would simply say “WOW”. this was brought back for halloween 2024 (as BOOp-o-meter. get it), with a ghost, skeleton and mummy paw. no official blog, but here's an official recap for april first from staff. i believe this was the only april fools prank that was mobile user friendly.

2025 - @fandom is running some polls, i guess

HE BROKE THE RECORD

Senator Cory Booker just broke the all-time record for the longest Senate floor speech, speaking for over 24 hours without a pause (no food, no bathroom breaks, only water to drink) as a protest against Trump and Musk and what they're doing.

The previous record was set in 1957, when Strom Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes protesting the Civil Rights Act.

Senator Booker has blown past that record, currently at 25 hours and still speaking as of 8 pm local time. Respect.

imagining an alternate timeline where shakespeare wrote a play about king arthur. we would be so unwell

yeah cause thou art so well otherwise, tumblr user currently crying about Lancelot

you know what verily i deserv’d this

Comic by howbabycomic.com. Perfect for people with chronic illnesses and disabilities

fuck it homebrew boop button. reblog this post to boop the person you reblogged from.

Guys I just refreshed the site and everyone's profile pics went round

someone could probably make a "who do you think took your boobs?" edit out of this with discord making its server icons squarer

Given that patent attorneys, especially back then used to have hard science degree, it makes the one about how they know the weight limit on a bridge funnier.

For the uninitiated:

My preferred version:

Dad 100% studied physics or engineering, he's just also a troll, which is why he's a patent lawyer.

i need to press that man like a flower. get in the book boy

Born to don't wanna. Forced to gotta

GET GRUFFALO'D, BITCH

If you haven't heard of Julia Donaldson, she's primarily a picture book author, who we can thank for extremely popular Halloween classic Room on the Broom as well as the Gruffalo.

Let this be a testament to the power of picture books.

I'm living for these jokes.

Also I need "GET GRUFFALO'D, BITCH" on a T-shirt.

hurrying home to my castle when i see lightning and remember that i left the frankenstein plugged in on the slab

The thing about ADHD is that the "lack of reward chemicals in your brain" doesn't just mean that you don't want to do any tasks that don't feel particularly yummy :(, it means that your brain will look at chores and tasks that need to be done like "doing this would be painful and tedious for absolutely nothing to gain from it, Do Not Do That." The same thing that your brain tells you about everything else that would feel really bad and hurt the entire time that you're dying. The part of your brain that stops you from doing the thing is the same part that keeps you from shoving your arm into a wood chipper.

With unmedicated, unmanaged ADHD, "I have to do this assignment or I fail and my life will be ruined and I die" feels like a SAW trap, every single time.

Articles written by neurotypicals will be like “ADHD children find the external motivation of the SAW traps is very effective. Here’s how to build SAW traps to maximize their productivity.”

come play blorbos with me

we can do tghis. our touy

@bonkalore

I had a dream that I went to heaven and heaven had its own heaven-exclusive tv shows that were written and produced there in heaven and they showed me the most popular show in heaven and it was this really beautiful drama and, at the end of the episode, the credits said “Created by Mike Ehrmantraut” and they were like “oh yeah. fictional characters who die in earth media go to real heaven” and I’m like “sure but mike did some pretty fucked up stuff, wouldn’t he go to hell?” and they’re like “no, all the fucked up things he did were fictional. people only get judged for the real things they do and the only thing mike really did was bring joy to millions of viewers” and i think that’s beautiful

“Stop isolating yourself from reality” well tell reality to stop sucking

Jay Kay Rowling harps on about how she was “shaped by being a woman from the cradle” and yet all of the female characters she wrote were abysmally bad