In a move that's either super lame or meta enough to make Charlie Kaufman squirm in his seat, the Chinese government's leading state news agency denounced April Fool's Day as some sort of Western culture ballyhoo.
"The so-called Western April Fool's Day does not conform to Chinese cultural traditions or socialist core values," Xinhua, the state's leading propaganda agency, said in a brief statement released on Friday.
It's not entirely clear whether or not they're joking (which would be an amazing way to mess with a population of more than 1.3 billion people), but either way, it seems like Chinese government officials have sat on one too many whoopie cushions over the years. Fart noises, right?
Xinhua has endorsed April Fool's antics before, though. Last year, the new organization praised Google Australia for "fooling thousands" with more than a dozen pranks on April 1, and even tweeted this adorable laughing kitten:
Aussie April Fool's Day pranks fool thousands http://t.co/SuSiUtb76P pic.twitter.com/LqlRkhifs6
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) April 1, 2015
In any case, the announcement surely can't stop Chinese pranksters from enjoying the day if they really want to: You might be able to take the fool out of April, but you definitely can't take the April out of the fool.
And, if Xinhua is making this move as a prank, and we've just fallen for it, then more fool us.