April 1: The Day We Trust No One
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Episode Summary
April Fools’ Day: jokes, pranks, and emotional damage. Okay, maybe not supposed to be emotional damage—but here we are. In this episode of Seriously Sus, Nanette and Miranda side‑eye April Fools’ Day and unpack why it no longer feels playful. If April 1st makes you tense instead of laugh, you’re not broken. You’re living in 2026. We dig into how a holiday built on deception ran straight into misinformation culture, scam psychology, and a massive trust problem. And yes—we also unpack what it says about us that we launched this podcast on April Fools’ Day. (Was it irony? Chaos? Or did we know exactly what we were doing?)
Research Citations
We don’t just side-eye; we cite our sources.
General origins & uncertainty
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — April Fools’ Day
https://www.britannica.com/topic/April-Fools-Day - History.com — April Fools’ Day: Origins, Meaning & Jokes
https://www.history.com/articles/april-fools-day - Library of Congress — April Fools: The Roots of an International Tradition
https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2016/03/april-fools/
Calendar change / France / Edict of Roussillon (1564)
- Britannica — April Fools’ Day (Edict of Roussillon reference)
https://www.britannica.com/topic/April-Fools-Day - History.com — Origins of April Fools’ Day
https://www.history.com/articles/april-fools-day - Monsieur de France — History & Origins of April Fools’ Day
https://monsieur-de-france.com/en/history-origins-april-fools-day
Poisson d’Avril (April Fish)
- Britannica — April Fools’ Day
https://www.britannica.com/topic/April-Fools-Day - Wikipedia — April Fools’ Day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day
Roman Festival of Hilaria
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Hilaria (Greco‑Roman festival)
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hilaria-Greco-Roman-festival - History.com — Hilaria in Ancient Rome
https://www.history.com/articles/april-fools-day - Library of Congress — April Fools: The Roots of an International Tradition
https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2016/03/april-fools/
Medieval Europe / Scotland
- History.com — April Fools’ Day (Hunt the Gowk, Tailie Day)
https://www.history.com/articles/april-fools-day - Britannica — April Fools’ Day
https://www.britannica.com/topic/April-Fools-Day
BBC Spaghetti Tree Hoax (1957)
- BBC — BBC fools the nation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm - Wikipedia — Spaghetti-tree hoax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti-tree_hoax - All That’s Interesting — Inside the Spaghetti Tree Hoax
https://allthatsinteresting.com/spaghetti-tree-hoax - Museum of Hoaxes — Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
https://hoaxes.org/af_database/display/C333
✅ HUMOR PSYCHOLOGY
Benign Violation Theory (core framework)
- McGraw, A. P., & Warren, C. (2010). Benign Violations: Making Immoral Behavior Funny — Psychological Science
https://leeds-faculty.colorado.edu/mcgrawp/pdf/mcgraw.warren.2010.pdf - Humour Research Lab — Benign Violation Theory (overview)
https://humorresearchlab.com/benign-violation-theory/
“Sweet spot,” psychological distance, power asymmetry
- Kant, L., & Norman, E. (2019). You Must Be Joking! Benign Violations, Power Asymmetry, and Humor — Frontiers in Psychology
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01380/full
Pranks triggering trauma, hypervigilance, erosion of trust
- Sarkis, S. (2022). Don’t Be Gaslit by Social Media “Pranksters” — Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/202203/don-t-be-gaslit-social-media-pranksters
Hypervigilance & trauma responses
- Simply Psychology — What Is Hypervigilance? A Core Symptom of PTSD
https://www.simplypsychology.org/hypervigilance.html
Fight‑or‑flight physiology
- Harvard Health — Understanding the Stress Response
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response - Mayo Clinic — Chronic Stress Puts Your Health at Risk
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037
Pranks triggering cortisol & stress
- Memorial Behavioral Health — Prescribing a Dose of Laughter for April Fools’ Day
https://blog.memorial.health/prescribing-a-dose-of-laughter-for-april-fools-day/
Why humans don’t fact‑check instantly
- American Psychological Association — What makes people susceptible to believe and act on misinformation?
https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation-belief-action
Anxiety increases threat interpretation
- APA — same source as above (anxiety increases susceptibility)
- Mayo Clinic — stress & anxiety amplify threat perception
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037
✅ APRIL FOOLS AS DISINFORMATION / CONTEXT COLLAPSE
Hoaxes becoming misinformation
- Springer — Fool’s Errand: April Fools Hoaxes as Disinformation
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-24337-0_32 - Global Fact‑Checking Network — Satire & Humor as Sources of Fake News
https://globalfactchecking.com/learning_articles/useful-lessons-from-media-pranks-satire-and-humor-as-sources-of-fake-news/
Decline of trust
- Psychology Today — The Silent Decline of Trust in Modern Life
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindful-relationships/202511/the-silent-decline-of-trust-in-modern-life
Newsrooms pulling back from April Fools
- Chronicle AI — Why News Outlets Are Increasingly Wary of April Fools’ Pranks
https://chronicleai.org/article/april-fools-day-why-news-outlets-are-increasingly-wary-of-pranks - Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists — April Fooling
https://ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org/2024/04/02/april-fooling-2/
Misinformation eroding institutional trust
- Springer — Media Attention to Misinformation Undermines Trust
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-025-10090-y - University of Oxford — Hoaxes, Fakes & Ethics in the Age of Misinformation
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-03-25-oxford-leads-exploration-hoaxes-april-fools-day
✅ META / REFERENCE DATABASES
- Museum of Hoaxes — April Fool Archive
https://hoaxes.org/af_database - Wikipedia — April Fools’ Day (for cross‑reference only)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day