New Holiday Proposal To Counteract The Cruelty Of Pranks On April Fools: Honesty & Vulnerability Day
This was created as a Facebook event worldwide by the rather well-known Lee Harrington (look them up). Since not everyone has FB, I'm sharing it here. I wanted to make sure all the details came through even for people who couldn't visit the event page, which of course meant that it's too long for Twitter, so I'm making a public blog post so that I can tweet *that* and anyone can see it (hopefully).
I HATE April Fool's Day. Our culture has begun to reward and celebrate the sorts of pranks that punish belief and gullibility. Now, as a skeptic, I would ordinarily say that's a good thing. But we aren't just teaching people to be more skeptical, we're teaching people to be more cynical because we're presenting these false stories by TRUSTWORTHY SOURCES and then humiliating people when they have the gall to believe a person (or a business) who has previously earned their trust. April Fool's Day isn't about teaching people to investigate or question, it's about setting someone up with a totally believable story or prank as presented by someone they have reason to believe, and then publicly displaying their belief in the most humiliating way possible. April Fool's Day has become:"Ha ha, I'm a good friend that you have every reason to believe, and I'm telling you a totally reasonably believable story, BUT IT'S FALSE and you believed it, you fool! You're such an idiot for believing me, even though I deliberately set you up to believe me!"
And that's the nice version. Other popular forms of pranks involve other sorts of humiliation that don't require belief but often require destruction of property or poking at people's vulnerable spots (like fake pregnancy announcements on social media when there are women who can't have children but who desperately want them, for instance, or fake-coming out as gay when real people face discrimination, ostracization, violence, homelessness, and even death). So I am really opposed to April Fool's Day as a national holiday. But THIS is a holiday that I can get behind:In our culture, April Fools Day has become a day of pranks and emotional confusion, deceit cast in the guise of playfulness.
Let us make a new holiday to counter the experience, one week later...
April 8th
Honesty and Vulnerability Day!
Turn to a friend and share how you adore them. Tell the world about a joy of yours, or a tender shadow that has been weighing you down. As you do so, let them know that you are being vulnerable and honest, and ask that they receive your gift of honesty and vulnerability from a place of love as well. This is not just an online event, this is a push to make the world at large a better place for us all.
Day of Honesty and Vulnerability is a chance for us to build strength and connection in our world rather than perpetuate pain and confusion. Let us build a better world for us to all live in, one day at a time.
#HonestAndVulnerable
#HAVDay
#HonestyAndVulnerabilityDay