A Reminder That Not Everyone Reads Before Commenting

On April Fool’s day, NPR had an extremely simple joke that turned out to be an incredibly effective demonstration of how many commenters on Facebook actually read the articles they comment on.

The post was simple:

Except if you actually clicked through you got this:

Congratulations, genuine readers, and happy April Fools’ Day!

We sometimes get the sense that some people are commenting on NPR stories that they haven’t actually read. If you are reading this, please like this post and do not comment on it. Then let’s see what people have to say about this “story.”

Best wishes and have an enjoyable day,
Your friends at NPR

And of course, it worked like a charm, with several commenters even blaming video games. The anger at being accused of not reading, and the theories about why are both fun to read:

Luckily, there were some people who got the joke, although as one commenter pointed out, many couldn’t help but spoil it (which somehow didn’t stop more people from commenting):

And some took the joke and ran with it:

So remember next time you see something that gets you riled up on the internet: It’s hard to fit the full story in a headline!