As March has come to an end, April is here, bringing warmer weather, blooming flowers, and April Fools’ Day! April Fools has been celebrated by many different people all over the world for centuries. It involves playing pranks on people and then yelling, “April Fools!” afterward. There are so many different pranks that have been played over the years on people, such as covering the toilet in plastic wrap or switching the contents of salt and sugar. Today we are here to see what some people’s favorite practical jokes and pranks to pull are.

One of the most well and loved restaurants, Dunkin’ Donuts, announced April 1st, 2024, that they would officially be changing their name from Dunkin’ to just Donuts.’ This came as a surprise to many people as Dunkin’ had not changed their name since 2019 when they dropped the “Donuts” part. In an Instagram post they announced, “now we’re just DONUTS. we will have coffee still. pls don’t ask any other questions.  just going thru it rn.”

Another brand and candy favored by many, Sour Patch Kids, announced they will be rebranding and changing their name to Sour Patch Adults. They changed their profile picture on X to a depressed sour patch kid wearing a suit and tie with a plain tweet saying, “It’s time to grow up.” They posted several more posts which seemed to look similar to “modern brand apologies,”  stating their new goals will be to “lead with maturity and tact” from now on. There are some speculations about whether this is just a simple April Fools’ Joke or if Sour Patch Kids really are growing up and changing into the adults they say they are.

In other terms of April Fools’ “pranks”, a very scary incident occurred on April 1st, 2024, at Apex High School. Apex received two very threatening phone calls around 9 A.M. as an April Fools’ Prank. However, a threat against a school is not merely a joke but a crime, causing disruption to the entire school. Students called their parents to pick them up, and the wasted time hiding in lockdown caused students to lose valuable instruction. Apex wasn’t the only school to receive these threats; Garner, Nash Central, and North East Carolina Prep Schools have also gotten threats in the past week. The lockdown lasted roughly thirty minutes, and thankfully the threats didn’t result in any injuries to staff or students. The security and law enforcement teams at Apex made sure to respond to the calls and act swiftly to help keep the situation under control and ensure that the campus was safe for students to return to their normal school day. 

While some pranks can be harmless and funny, many pranks involving threatening lives take the concept of April Fools’ Day too far. These pranks may not result  in any noticeable harm, but just the act of threatening to do something of that level is not okay. However, most of these pranks are just harmless and silly that, hopefully, will continue to be done in the future to instill many more laughs.