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Snapchat pulled off the only good April Fools’ Day prank this year

There had to be one!

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Asa Mathat / Recode

April Fools’ Day is the most wonderful time of the year — if you’re so bored by your job in marketing that pre-briefing journalists on fictional new products is “fun.” For the rest of us, April 1 is “useless internet day,” and most April Fools’ pranks are just dumb PR stunts.

So congratulations are in order to Snap, which came up with the only thing from among this year’s pranks that legitimately made me laugh. Take a picture with Snapchat and swipe right to get the first filter: A fake Instagram overlay for your photos.

In case you don’t get it, allow me to dissect the frog: Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram have copied Snapchat over and over and over and over again. Stories, the chronological picture series that Snap pioneered, has been copy-pasted into the Facebook app, the Instagram app, the Messenger app and WhatsApp, because everyone loves stories.

Recode’s Kirt Wagster alerted me to the new filter with this exquisite picture:

Note the like from “my_mom” and the vapid emoji caption. Subtle! Clever! Literally all the things that tech April Fools’ is not.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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