Happy Friendship Day!

Today is a strange type of holiday. April Fool’s Day. A day where pranks and practical jokes are forgiven and condoned. I admit that I was not the victim of a hoax this year, but I doled out a harmless trick or two.

Some people often criticize this holiday as sophomoric and mean-spirited, but after some analysis, I disagree. The April Fool’s joke is actually a sign of friendship and true camaraderie.

I believe that no one does an April Fool’s joke to be truly mean. Practical jokes are, by nature, having fun at someone’s expense, so there is a certain innate mean-spiritedness. But the sub-genre of practice jokes, the April Fool’s joke, is rooted in friendship. Of course there may be the aberrant “I’m-a-jerk” April Fool’s joke where someone uses the prank as a means to boost their own self-esteem, but this is another type of malicious prank that coincidentally occurs on April Fool’s Day. I believe that the true April Fool’s Day jokes only occur between true friends.

Think about it. Aren’t all the April Fool’s jokes you can remember between friends? Who would take the time to sign-up their mortal enemy’s email on 50 gay porn sites? Enemies fight their battles with passive-aggressive behaviors. Enemies shoot each other. Enemies sabotage one another’s careers. But enemies don’t play practical jokes on one another.

Like enemies, April Fool’s jokes don’t often occur between neutral acquaintances or strangers either. I can’t imagine clowning one of my co-workers whom I met this semester—I don’t know them well enough. The true hilarity of the April Fool’s joke is the aesthetic exploitation of someone’s inner traits. Sure, I can dump paint on someone’s head, but it is much more funny and relevant to mock the grammarian with comma splices and nominalization in fake interoffice emails.

That being said, April Fool’s is one of the few days that people can use their knowledge of their friends to mock with immunity and impunity. Of course it’s mean spirited, and of course feelings can get hurt. But what kind of friend can’t take one of your jokes? If they’re truly your friend and not simply an acquaintance, chances are that they’ll be laughing as hard as you once they realize they’ve been April Fooled. So relax and have a big laugh with your close friends. And there’s always next year for revenge.