Google's Mic Drop April Fool's Gmail Prank Bugs-Out And Backfires Annoying Users

This April Fools day and like all others before it there's no shortage of good gags floating around the Web. As always, some jokes are obvious from a mile away, while others are subtle and require critical thinking. With whatever April Fools' will bring, one thing is a certainty: Google's going to have a chuckle or two up its sleeve.

This year, the company announced "Mic Drop", a humorous feature in Gmail that lets you have the last word in an email chain - and then never see it again. Admittedly, this is the kind of feature that many people would actually want, even if it's not going to be entirely useful. Most of us have been there: we're stuck in the middle of an email chain that simply seems to have no end. You just sit there... waiting for it to die. Or, you could just use Mic Drop - if it were a real thing - to send a picture of a Minion from Despicable Me dropping a mic, along with your message.

As cute as Google's Mic Drop might be, the company placed the feature much too close to the "Send" button. Very quickly, this led many Gmail users to accidentally send these mic-dropping Minions to contacts, some of which are professional contacts where such an email would not be appreciated or appropriate. In fact, that's a direct complaint of some users. Twitter use J. Nathan Matias asks a question many echo: "Who thought this was a good idea?"

Accidentally clicked the Gmail mic drop button on an important professional email. Who thought this was a good idea?

— J. Nathan Matias (@natematias) April 1, 2016

Among all of the hate for Google's Mic Drop gag, some users believe Google didn't do anything wrong. Another Twitter user blamed others for being too careless. "If you can't pay enough attention to an email you're sending to not click the wrong button, that's on you, pal.", writes Landmark.

RE: Google Mic Drop. If you can't pay enough attention to an email you're sending to not click the wrong button, that's on you, pal.

— Landmark (@LandmarkMKE) April 1, 2016

Whatever your thoughts, Google has decided that the joke didn't go according to plan, so the company pulled it down its April Fool almost as fast as it seemed to go live. It's a bit of a bittersweet end to a feature from a company that typically delivers some of the best April Fools' gags around. Better luck next year, Google.