April Fools’ Day is more than half over, and I am relieved. I long ago soured on what I once accepted as a fun and silly holiday, an occasion for pranks and other mischief.

Permit me some largely unsubstantiated, mostly vibes-based speculation: I don’t think I’m alone. The vibes seem to have turned decisively against “celebrating” April Fools’ Day in the “traditional” way: i.e., peddling supposedly harmless and transitory falsehoods and hijinks.

Yes, some are still doing it. I’ve worked very deliberately to insulate myself from this nonsense, so I’m unaware of many examples other than what is coming to me unbidden. Such as this “announcement” that the D.C. Metro is launching a line of perfumes. Ha ha. Very funny. Yet even the lingering pranksters ply their trade from a defensive crouch, or at least with a more-than-knowing wink. Outright deception seems to be falling out of fashion, punished with anger either initially or upon the discovery of the act.

If I’m right, why might this be so? I blame the internet and social media. So much of the digital information we consume every day of the year, not just today, is of dubious veracity. Something about those platforms rewards attention-grabbing prevarication, encourages the severing of information from context, and activates parts of the human brain that are decidedly not rational (e.g., tendencies toward tribalism, confirmation bias, and credulity). Now, every day, it is unclear what’s real, what to trust, on whom to rely.

April Fools’ Day is only fun when there is, if not an accepted baseline of truth, a general view that the truth is what people are looking for. Neither accurately describes the current digital landscape. So in the waning hours of this dubious holiday, I’ll be trying to engage my critical faculties as much as I do every other day of the year.