2018 April Fool's Day in Thailand: No Outstanding Gags
It was said that Pokemon Go started as an April's Fool joke in 2013. The Google Maps' Pokemon Challenge YouTube clips was really impressive and imaginative by any measure. What a wonderful joke that became reality.
It was said that Pokemon Go started as an April's Fool joke in 2013. The Google Maps' Pokemon Challenge YouTube clip was really impressive and imaginative by any measure. What a wonderful joke that became a reality. It was said that Pokemon Go started as an April's Fool joke in 2013. The Google Maps' Pokemon Challenge YouTube clip was really impressive and imaginative by any measure. What a wonderful joke that became a reality.
While the April Fool's Day was not a traditional Thai custom, Thais have been known to readily accept all sanook (fun) traditions as excuses for parties. I sometimes felt like reeling from one Thai/Western/Chinese festivals to another. Western New Year, Children Day, Valentine Day, Chinese New Year, Qingming Festival, Thai New Year (Songkran), Moon Cake Festival, Halloween Day, Floating Lantern (Loy Kratong), Christmas Day, etc. That did not include other public holidays which are scattered year round.
Back to April's Fool, several people had valiantly tried to put out jokes every year, a difficult job as they had to compete with more bizarre real news, urban myths and other assorted shared posts that populated the Thai language websites and social networks. Some jokes were good, some bad and some outright ugly.
External Links:
For the 2018 April's Fool Day, few good quips were passively shared. With some active search, I found some gags that were quite interesting but not inspiring. To me, the best joke in the last few years was the 2016 one by the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok about job vacancy for a feline welfare specialist, completed with cute photos of the intended charges. The applicants had to have experiences with Thai cat-centric social networks, fluent in Thai, English, and Felinese as well as a recommendation letter from a cat!
The post instantly went viral and reported in mainstream media. This was not surprising at all as cat lovers in Thailand had a robust online presence with many celebrity cats. The top 'Kingdom of Tigers' Facebook page had more than 3 million followers. The Facebook pages that were mentioned in the job descriptions - well-chosen to present culture, art, and disabled cats - had more than 1.3 million combined followers. Despite few well-intended comments about the genuine animal welfare problems, responses were generally amusing and light-hearted. In fact, it was so successful that there were follow-up comments in following years.
Listed in the Being Thai page.
It was said that Pokemon Go started as an April's Fool joke in 2013. The Google Maps' Pokemon Challenge YouTube clip was really impressive and imaginative by any measure. What a wonderful joke that became a reality. It was said that Pokemon Go started as an April's Fool joke in 2013. The Google Maps' Pokemon Challenge YouTube clip was really impressive and imaginative by any measure. What a wonderful joke that became a reality.
While the April Fool's Day was not a traditional Thai custom, Thais have been known to readily accept all sanook (fun) traditions as excuses for parties. I sometimes felt like reeling from one Thai/Western/Chinese festivals to another. Western New Year, Children Day, Valentine Day, Chinese New Year, Qingming Festival, Thai New Year (Songkran), Moon Cake Festival, Halloween Day, Floating Lantern (Loy Kratong), Christmas Day, etc. That did not include other public holidays which are scattered year round.
Back to April's Fool, several people had valiantly tried to put out jokes every year, a difficult job as they had to compete with more bizarre real news, urban myths and other assorted shared posts that populated the Thai language websites and social networks. Some jokes were good, some bad and some outright ugly.
External Links:
- Today's news may be faker than usual by Roger Crutchley, Bangkok Post, 1 April 2018.
- Funny stories from April Fool's Day by Soonyata Hokongtripop, Beartai Website, 2 April 2018 (in Thai).
For the 2018 April's Fool Day, few good quips were passively shared. With some active search, I found some gags that were quite interesting but not inspiring. To me, the best joke in the last few years was the 2016 one by the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok about job vacancy for a feline welfare specialist, completed with cute photos of the intended charges. The applicants had to have experiences with Thai cat-centric social networks, fluent in Thai, English, and Felinese as well as a recommendation letter from a cat!
The post instantly went viral and reported in mainstream media. This was not surprising at all as cat lovers in Thailand had a robust online presence with many celebrity cats. The top 'Kingdom of Tigers' Facebook page had more than 3 million followers. The Facebook pages that were mentioned in the job descriptions - well-chosen to present culture, art, and disabled cats - had more than 1.3 million combined followers. Despite few well-intended comments about the genuine animal welfare problems, responses were generally amusing and light-hearted. In fact, it was so successful that there were follow-up comments in following years.
Listed in the Being Thai page.
Comments
Post a Comment