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Super Awesome Science Show recap: The science behind April Fools’ pranks

Click to play video: 'From chocolate Whoppers to ‘smartphoneshoe’ – companies get creative with April Fools’ Day pranks'
From chocolate Whoppers to ‘smartphoneshoe’ – companies get creative with April Fools’ Day pranks
A roundup of some company attempts to prank consumers for April Fool's Day – Apr 1, 2018

Have you ever been the target of an April Fools’ prank? Although you may not realize it, the effort that goes into these attempts at humour is nothing to laugh at. It takes time, research, and proper planning to make a prank, or even a joke, work.

On this week’s Super Awesome Science Show, we’re going to learn more about the mechanics and the need for a good April Fools’ joke.

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Our first guest is Thomas Limoncelli. He’s a systems analyst and helps information technology companies succeed. He’s also a web-based April Fools’ master. He shares his insight into what makes an excellent online prank.

Next, we talk with Julia Rayz at Purdue University. Her focus is on artificial intelligence and humour. She’ll explain why computers make for a horrible audience and may never be able to tell an effective joke.

In our SASS Class, our guest teacher is Michelle Eskritt-Keck. She’s a psychologist who has been focusing on a special need for any good April Fools’ prank: deception. We explore how humans find ways to get people to believe them and how one particular sector of our population may not fall for any attempts at humour.

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Guests:

Thomas Limoncelli
https://everythingsysadmin.com/
Twitter: @yesthattom

Julia Rayz
https://polytechnic.purdue.edu/profile/taylo108

Michelle Eskritt-Keck
https://www.msvu.ca/en/home/programsdepartments/bachelorofscience/psychology/facultyandstaff/eskrittkeck.aspx

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