April 1 came and went yesterday, and this year it seems that everyone wanted in on the act of pulling an April Fools’ Day prank. Surprisingly, a lot of Malaysians went online to pull off their own stunts, to varying effects. Let’s take a look at some of the best Malaysian April Fools’ Day 2014 pranks online!
Let’s start with Malaysia’s favourite discounts site, Groupon. The company was notorious for leaving its 2012 April Fools prank online, only for it to magically surface again exactly a year later – a feat which will take something even bigger to top. I mean, how do you top a Groupon for a unicorn ride?!
Surprisingly, this year Groupon went for something that’s more relevant with us Asians: Selfies. The deal was released on March 31, offering a 100% discount for an online selfie-taking course for beginners, allowing you to learn up to ten different selfie techniques (we didn’t know there were that many either). They even released a video alongside various selfies from the ten techniques, giving you a taste of what it’s like to be a selfie king/queen.
Next, there’s our favourite burger joint, myBurgerLab. Last year, they announced a delivery service for their hugely popular burgers, and requiring customers to use a promo code to claim a free gift (trolol01 – as if that’s not a massive giveaway). This year, the “trolol01” promo code came back – and myBurgerLab raised the stakes again with a “Buy 1 Free 1*” promotion…which turned out to be true! Customers who went to myBurgerLab were pleasantly surprised to see a Lengchai/Lenglui discount appearing in their receipts, proving that April Fools’ Day can be an awesome tool for marketing added with a little bit of fun. Well played, guys.
Another well-executed joke was from local streetwear brand, The Swagger Salon, who announced a “preview” of its upcoming Q2 t-shirt design: a collaboration with Gildan, one of the world’s largest t-shirt suppliers. We loved the YouTube video, which was shot a la Apple and its white backgrounds, while owner Yung Shen played his Jony Ive impression perfectly. The shot of the t-shirt itself got us in stitches.
Everybody’s go-to convenience store, 7-Eleven, had a little bit of fun too, although it got us questioning their taste in dessert flavours. The convenience store chain published on their Facebook page that it will be introducing a new flavour for its iconic Slurpee drink: nasi lemak. Yup, we’re slightly disturbed by the fact that the chain store is mixing two of Malaysia’s favourite foods into one. Slightly.
What could be more over the top than 7-Eleven? Look no further than local smartphone company, Ninetology. The brand, which has a smartphone called the Z1, opened a pre-order campaign for a highly futuristic smartphone called the U9i1. Why do we think this is highly over the top? Let’s take a look at the specs of the device: “9.9 Penta Core” CPU, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Black GPU, 999MB RAM and 999MB ROM, expandable memory via mini-microSD up to an additional 32TB, and a 9.9″ display with a resolution of 9290 x 5225 (“SHD”). More nonsensical specs can be read via its pre order page here, but it’s just painful to read.
At least, some people got over the top right. Our favourite Malay-language tech portal, Amanz.my, reported that TM announced its plans for providing WiFi access to rural Malaysians with a technology called WauFi. Incorporating local culture with futuristic technology, TM WauFi really got us laughing with the Photoshopped image of a wau bulan with the WauFi logo, as well as the “second phase” of the project, a WiFi Hotspot using another Malay cultural icon, the kuda kepang.
At Lowyat.NET, we had a couple of ideas on how to spice up April Fools’ Day in our own way. First, we paid homage to the litany of “viral” headlines, ending each of our headlines from yesterday with classics such as “you’ll never believe what happens next!”, “it is truly unbelievable!”, “the results will shock you!” and of course, the ever-present “WOW! OMG!”. The casual and liberal use of exclamation marks really made us feel rather dirty, to be honest.
We also decided to write some of our posts in Bahasa Malaysia. Granted, most of us have a terrible command of the national language, so some of us took the easy way out with a little help of everyone’s best Internet friend, Google Translate. Nonetheless, we did come up with several posts in Malay, notably the Nokia 3310 PureView – and the term “bom gambar“.
The Internet should be a lot safer now that April 1 has passed, and you won’t be seeing any posts in Malay on our site anytime soon – though you won’t believe what will be coming your way next year! It’ll blow your mind, truly unbelievable. Wow!
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