Remember the red Staples button?

"THAT WAS EASY"

The other day I saw a thread saying something like “By now I think we can all agree that doing April Fool’s jokes as a business is really bad and we should never do them”. As is often the way with the internet I saw it, didn’t really think too much about it, and scrolled onwards; then I thought about it some more "(“deeped it”, as the kids would say), scrolled back to try and find it, and couldn’t for the life of me find it again.

Of course, there’s been a lot of necessary discourse over the years about what April Fool’s jokes are funny, and which are just downright cruel (for example, we hopefully all understand by now the emotional burden of a “funny” fake pregnancy announcement.) But I disagree that April Fool’s are never funny, as long as no-one vulnerable is the butt of the joke! For example, this morning John Lewis tweeted (Xeeted?) this, and the only butt of the joke is me, who saw it and thought, very seriously, “that’s the dream”, before clocking what day it was.

Back when I had a shop for The Enthusiast & Co, I did an April Fool’s that I think (I hope!!) was similar levels of chuckles and no-one gets hurt. Inspired by the childhood pilgrimages we used to make to Staples¹ (not sure why we used to go so often, but I really do feel like I went there a lot as a kid) and their classic “That was easy!” button, I announced an “Enthusiast” button featuring a voiceover of me telling the user how amazing they were.

from nohat.cc

I pitched it as a “everyone needs a cheerleader now and again” kind of vibe, and invited my followers to click the link in my bio to join the waitlist for when it launched.

And people did.

The actual page they were taken to upon clicking revealed that it was, in fact, an April Fool’s, but it also had a section where people could register their interest in case I ever actually did bring a similar product about. And people did, which blew my mind and warmed my heart simultaneously. It was a really good reminder of why I set The Enthusiast & Co up in the first place, because we live in a society where enthusiasm is often discouraged, and in response we’re shrinking who we really are. I’m honoured that there were people out there who would pay to have me in their corner, championing them and what they were doing to show the world more of themselves.

I did investigate making them a proper product after my shonky prototype, but — and I hate to reveal how the sausage is made, folks — the profit margin wasn’t viable. The actual buttons themselves are probably most commonly known as those voice command buttons for dogs, and because of (I can only assume) Bunny, that giant labradoodle thing on TikTok that could practically string together full sentences, they were very expensive, as everyone was buying them to see if their dog was some kind of canine Einstein².

Though I may not have the button to prove it, just remember that the world does need your You-ness, and I’m cheering you on.

p.s. this is not relevant to any of this newsletter, but I just thought it was hella cool: yesterday was Easter Sunday, Trans Visibility Day, and the 25th annviersary of the release of The Matrix — a film by a trans woman that’s an allegory of Christianity. Isn’t that great?

1. I always wanted to buy a carbon copy/duplicates book, because I thought it seemed like the coolest, most business-y thing ever. 7 years into actually running a business and I’ve never needed one, which is perhaps the saddest story you’ll ever hear

2. Side note - I thought those videos were funny until I saw one where a dog asked its owner if it could go outside, she said no, and he stared her dead in the eye whilst pawing a button that then said “Bitch”. Of course, I have questions as to why there was a bitch button in the first place, but that whole interaction FREAKED ME OUT!!!