Tech giant Google was forced to roll back its “mic drop” April Fool’s prank after some users claimed the Gmail joke cost them potential employment.
On Thursday, Google announced an “eject button” feature for Gmail that allows users to have the “last word” in an email thread.
“Today, Gmail is making it easier to have the last word on any email with Mic Drop,” the company said on its official blog. “Simply reply to any email using the new ‘Send + Mic Drop’ button. Everyone will get your message, but that’s the last you’ll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won’t see it.
“When you drop the mic, your email will also include an explanatory image–just to help set expectations.”
The “explanatory image” is actually a GIF file of a mic-dropping minion.
However, Google replaced the “send and archive” button with the “mic drop” feature, causing some users to send an unwanted mic-dropping minion on professional emails.
Gmail’s help forum was flooded with complaints from angry users, claiming the minion may have cost them future employment or opportunities.
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“Accidentally hit this new “mic drop” button halfway through composing a professional email. Dying to remove this thing. Any help appreciated!” Sam Culkins wrote.
“Thanks to Mic Drop I just lost my job. I am a writer and had a deadline to meet. I sent my articles to my boss and never heard back from her,” Allan Pashby claimed on the support forum.
The button didn’t actually prevent users from receiving replies, the emails were just moved to the general “all mail” folder in Gmail, preventing users from receiving notifications of new mail in their inbox.
“Mic Drop is a terrible idea. Google, turn it off! I use Gmail to communicate with people who I care about,” James Apple wrote. “I trust Google with all of my emails and documents in the cloud. I know that this feature is just an April Fools Day joke, but it’s challenging my trust in Google.”
The tech company removed the April Fool’s prank and apologized for a “bug” in the feature.
“Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs,” Victor-bogdan Anchidin, a Google software engineer, wrote on the blog. “We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off.”
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