Planning a Family Night

So I had this great idea for our family night this week. I thought it would be fun to make a music video with the family and upload it to YouTube to share. It made so much sense to me since YouTube had posted on April 1, 2013, an April Fool's day video saying that they were finished taking submissions and that they'd be shutting down that night at midnight. Their message was basically that there was still time to get in your last minute submissions to win some cool prizes that were supposedly promised back when they launched in 2005; winner was to be announced in 2023. Well of course YouTube isn't just a video contest, I believe it is the second largest search engine behind Google. I never figured that this fake video would have come across so believable, and even then, I didn't anticipate my family's reaction. Needless to say, we didn't end up making our video and posting it. Emotions ran too high.

Here is YouTube's video:

Here is the immediate response of my family:

Even as I watch this video I can't believe that nobody realized that YouTube was playing an April Fool's joke on everyone. We'd even been talking about April Fools earlier that evening. I was amazed that my reactions to their questions and my tone didn't just give this all away. I have to admit, I'm responsible for their tears. Yes, it was YouTube who made the video, and no, I had no intention of playing a joke on anyone, but I could have spared them some emotional distress by helping them understand that it was a joke. Oh April Fools! Why must you put the innocent and unexpecting in your path of questionable amusement?