How Google’s April Fools 2016 Prank Backfired on Them

April Fools might be over but it would seem like its made some irreversible damage to some people. Some pranks that seemed harmless turned out to do more harm than good. Numero Uno offender is search engine Google.

For April Fools 2016, Google introduces their “Mic Drop” feature for Google Mail/ Gmail. They describe the one-day-only feature as:

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

So basically that means after sending the email with the drop mic function, recipients would receive the mail but can never respond. As in it wouldn’t even go to your inbox. As if you’ve just built this huge wall between the two of you. Doesn’t help that the annoying minion King Bob also figures into the equation.

So imagine waking up and gearing up for the day, you have your coffee and half-asleep, you open your Gmail account. You read an important email, like a job opportunity, and reply. Only you reply with the mic drop option.

Boom.

Say goodbye to that contact, particularly getting a reply from that person.

It’s horrible. And users who had the displeasure of using the “prank” had these things to say.

Accidentally hit this new ‘mic drop’ button halfway through composing a professional email. Dying to remove this thing

This is horrible – just sent an email to a client with this stupid icon on it. I can’t afford these stupid pranks!

Some of the more damaging stuff that one might

Thanks to ‘mic drop’ I just lost my job.

I sent my articles to my boss and never heard back from her. I inadvertently sent the email using the ‘mic drop’ send button.

Do you f****** think that when it’s April 1st my email is something I f*** around with?

As of writing this post, Google has (a) removed the offensive button and (b) furiously apologized for the damage it has wrought on poor hapless souls who used 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. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.