Yuuuuuup. I especially side eye ¬_¬ the guys who are rolling their eyes at the very idea. Of course it won’t be universally offensive, or even universally offensive to women who have struggled (in whatever way) with pregnancy. But let’s face it: Women bear the lion’s share of pregnancy. Miscarriages and failed fertility treatments still impact the body and often wreak havoc on hormone levels and production. Is it such a bizarre idea that struggling with becoming (and staying) pregnant can be an incredibly emotional and painful experience – far more intense than one might imagine due to said physical and hormonal changes – and can continue for months or years?
And if you don’t find it offensive or hurtful ( I don’t, either), why is the idea of someone else being hurt worthy of eye-rolling and derision? Why is it unreasonable to acknowledge the difference of opinion and respect it?
It’s dumb and unoriginal, like most April Fools’ jokes.
You’re telling people something plausible, which if true would signal either a massive life change or having to make a decision that, depending on location, might be life-threatening, illegal or heavily politicised (although pregnancy is two out of the three already).
The “ideal” outcome for the teller is that the tellee freaks out, which is a legitimate reaction for such a big announcement. There is no indication that it’s a joke apart from the date, unless you have no uterus or you’re post-menopausal or something, in which case it could potentially be funny depending on audience.
Fine, say that I have no sense of humour, but it’s because I do have a sense of humour that I find this joke (and its twin, the “I’m in the hospital”) unfunny. It’s like giving a cat lover a cat turd with googly eyes on it, and reacting to their disgust by saying, “Oh, I guess you don’t really love cats after all!”
Also, fake “I’m gay” announcements are more offensive as pregnancy is sometimes a good thing for a person, but coming out is always a tense time for non-het people, and making one of the biggest steps they have to make into a joke is damn insensitive.
Pretty much any joke can offend someone these days. If you ask why the chicken crossed the road, you’re risking offending those fighting against factory farms. Not to mention antibiotics being used in our meat!
I really find it hilarious that people are taking that seriously. John clearly does not believe that. He participated in pranks on the Daily Show, and recently he even did that bit on his own show where he tricked people about where certain South American countries are. You know, the exact same type of prank as his example of tricking you into thinking April Fools started during the Great Depression.
You know a prank most people like? The surprise birthday party. Not the one where you just show up, but where you actually trick them into going somewhere or doing something either to set it up or to actually do it.
And then there are the transparent pranks like the ones most websites pull. People love those! Or the ones that are transparent if you know what day it is–and that’s where the pregnancy one comes in.
There may be reasons not to do it, but the stuff about miscarriage and stuff are not it. Under that logic, if you were actually pregnant, you should never announce it.
Then you missed the point of those tricks. He mislabeled these countries not to make fun of the audience for not recognising such pointless trivia on sight, but to make the point “these are small, unimportant countries” in a funny way.
It could be funny if the tellers life situation makes pregnancy happy but highly improbable…like if they were post meno, or if just had triplets on March 20 or similar.
I wouldn’t think it’s offensive. I’d think it was boring.
To my way of thinking, a proper April Fool’s prank is something harmless that makes the target double check reality. Something like coming back to your office to find that someone has carefully, individually, lovingly wrapped every last one of your possessions (furniture included) in aluminum foil, or that your car has been inexplicably filled with balloons.
The BBC’s classic spaghetti harvest story was funny. Dressing MIT’s Great Dome up as R2-D2 is funny.Boogly’s gags are funny. The point is to be absurd. A woman just going, “ha ha, I’m preggers! PSYCH!” isn’t absurd or even uncommon.
You: Guess what? I’m pregnant!
Me: Nice. Congratulations!
You: Just kidding!
Me: [drops dead from laughing so hard]
Seriously, maybe with some friends who know how impossible you getting pregnant is, there might be some humor. Like what bengangmo said: if you were a granny or something. Otherwise, it’s not remotely a funny joke.
After a perfect first pregnancy, we spent two years trying to have another. Five early losses. Three incidental diagnoses. One elective surgery.
Eventually I had to give up because I couldn’t handle the emotional upheaval anymore.
However: anyone who thinks that this joke is tasteless because it might upset infertile people is a nitwit. Everything effing upsets infertile people. I know because I was (am) one.
I know that after my recent participation in the April Fools brouhaha on here, I probably came across as some sort of humorless scold. I’m not really, or at least I don’t think I am. I just really want jokes to be funny. A boring lie is not funny. I lump the “I’m pregnant LOL NO I’M NOT LOL” jokes in the same category with “I got a promotion! LOL NO I DIDN’T!” or whatever. As someone said up-thread, it’s people who want to participate in the spirit of April Fools’ Day, but don’t really have a sense of humor or know how to be funny or even know the difference between a joke and a simple lie. So all they can do is tell a lie and then announce that it was a lie.
It’s boring. It’s not funny. It’s not offensive unless you consider all bad jokes to be offensive (I could make a case for this).
Yes - this exactly. I came in trying to find a way to say this, but Arabella Flynn put it better than I could.
The pregnancy thing is like saying ‘I bought a new T-shirt today! HAHAHAHA PSYCH no I didn’t!!’ and thinking it’s hilarious. It’s not. People are just smiling weakly to cover the fact that they’re edging away from you.
It isn’t funny at all and not just for the reasons presented so far. In this interconnected age, what if someone in your extended family or friends reads it and believes it? The notion that the idea of a new pregnancy is your alone to toy with simply isn’t true. You are also saying that the rest of your family will soon become new grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Believe it or not, many people are actually personally invested and happy about such news. You may not be in close daily contact with all of them but the announcement is significant in their lives as well. Now imagine that you are a heartless and humorless dick that has Grandma Edna on your Facebook feed and she reads it and gets so excited that she doesn’t see your kneeslapper retraction. You just killed her first great grandchild that never existed in the first place. Nice job.
The only one I can think of that is less funny than that is the fake winning lottery ticket gambit. Presenting people with happy news only to rip it all away when you become tired of dealing with their transient joy is always a sure people pleaser.
Usually I’d find it dumb and unfunny. If I were fresh from a loss of one sort or another (and failure-to-conceive counts) I might find it grief-making to see someone else expecting when I wanted to be the one to be pregnant.
I have to post an exception though: on a parenting email list I participate in, each year on April 1, someone tries to prank the list with a posting that is anywhere from a little odd to really “out there” but at least in the realm of possibility. Usually I fall for it, hook, line and sinker, because I don’t notice the date. There’s one mom who has 5 kids, all girls. A couple years back someone else posted something as the April Fool’s joke, we all figured it out, then this mom mentioned that they were expecting baby #6. In that situation, we thought it was hilarious (we all fell for it).
It’s not funny, but not because it’s offensive. It’s just not funny. Anyone offended or hurt by a joke (any joke) because of their personal circumstances, well, tough. Humor, and life in general, don’t revolve around you and your problems.