Back in 2017 the morning alarm went off and the first thing I saw on my phone jolted me upright with a blast of mischief. It was April 1st.
This was the second April 1st the YesTribe had enjoyed, but for some reason the 2016 had passed without any humour. This time though, no chance.
There’s a trick to an April Fools joke. It has to seem realistic but potentially far fetched. This is both tricky and easy with the YesTribe, a bunch of people who are very used to experiencing the type of stuff that the rest of the world might deem…”crazy.”
A good April Fool’s post should deflect attention from the randomness by offering individual participation. “Name our pet alpacas”, or “tell us what skills you have to build an island paradise.”
Crucially, you just gotta hope that the first comment isn’t ‘April Fools!” because that just spoils it for everyone. If there’s one rule to life, it’s to not call out the April Fools, it’s far cooler realising it and then playing along, stirring the pot.
Once ten or twenty people have commented, then new viewers get caught up with the excitement and you know you’ve won!
A group like the YesTribe is based around open mindedness and optimism. This comes with a double-edged sword. It makes a far fetched April Fools joke much more plausible, but at the same time when hundreds of people are getting excited about our new ‘project’ it’s hard not to feel guilty!
So, without further ado, here are our April Fools post from the past three years.
2017
Our first April Fools joke, and one that has stuck. Not a week goes by without someone still asking about our Alpacas. Rather cutely, in future years when people have realised the post is an April Fools they’ve answered in Alpaca terms, like… “oh, you could keep the alpacas on your island!”
The key to this one came in a picture I’d taken a few years earlier on a Trike trip across Europe. The SayYesMore flag in the foreground and alpacas in the background - genius!
How excited people were going to get, I had no idea…
And then the penny started to drop…
2018
With The YesBus up and running, there was no chance in cold hell that we were going to go through the process of creating another monstrous space. The bus was cool but it came with a lot of headaches and politics that didn’t quite fit our simple approach.
Still, the chance to add a (fake) different form of public transport was too much to ignore, especially for that one day of the year when lying is perfectly acceptable.
To be fair, this is a pretty cool train conversion. Maybe one day.
2019
It was all too tempting to take things to the next level this time round. Wonderfully, as friends suggested later, maybe after everything, this didn’t seem far fetched at all.
The bait was taken early on and this post became one of the most popular in YesTribe history. As the day drew on I spent half the time laughing at how into it everyone was getting, and half feeling incredibly guilty.
It was all getting a bit too exciting, eventually the balloon would have to burst, officially…
So, a big thanks to everyone who offered their help, boats, skills and support for our non existent island. Especially the lecturer at Warwick University who proposed that her students get involved with designing an eco-friendly building as part of their course.
It’s worth noting that the Ecocapsules mentioned do exist. They’re quite pricey at the moment, but they’re very cool and one day, one day, we might just have to make this happen.
Until this time time next year!