Gmail users not laughing over Google’s April Fool prank
Steve Carell appears on with a minion character from "Despicable Me 2" in Universal City, Calif., June 22, 2013. Google added a button to its email service for April Fool's Day that allowed users to fire out a minion GIF, which angered users who say they unintentionally attached the gif in important business communications. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
NEW YORK — Google is acknowledging that it pranked itself after an April Fool’s Day Gmail tweak angered some people who use Google’s email for work.
The company added a button to its email service that allowed users to fire out a minion GIF, a character from the animated film “Despicable Me,” which would drop a microphone and then mute responses to whatever email the user had sent.
The Gmail Help Forum on Thursday was soon populated by angry users who say they unintentionally attached a minion dropping a mic during important business communications.
Google Inc. apologized and turned off the feature, saying that due to a bug, the mic drop “inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs.”
