April Fools' Day 2013

April 1, 2013 was an April Fools' Day that fell on a Monday. In the Pokémon fandom, some websites pulled hoaxes on gullible fans.

Hoaxes

Fansites

Bulbagarden

• Bulbanews posted an article about Team Plasma attempting a Bulbagarden takeover.
• Bulbagarden forums were once again changed to become Bananagarden Forums, returning from 2007, with the forum taking on an appearance based on bananas. Along with that:
  • Some forum sections were replaced with non-Pokémon related sections, and some were replaced with sections about the Generation III related topics like Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire and speculation on Red and Blue remakes.
  • Team Aqua and Team Magma used the Video Games section to recruit members for their cause.
  • The Fun&Games section was announced to be closing.

Other fan sites

• Psypoke featured a Slowpoke crawling across the bottom of the site and forums with the message "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" on April 2, 2013 after not running a prank on April 1.
• PokéCommunity made all of their user's posts have a random Pokémon for their avatar, username and the custom user title to that of the random Pokémon. The Pokémon would change upon every time the page is refreshed, and the Pokémon may become a Shiny Pokémon, signified by a sparkling effect on the username and the avatar would show a Pokémon's shiny sprite. Also, the fifth generation gaming moderator "Forever" claimed that she would be leaving the site, but was later revealed to be a joke.
• Pokémon Database changed the header to use "Disapprovalmon", turned all images upside-down, and changed the font to Comic Sans.
• Project Pokémon changed the forum name to Project Digimon.
• PKMNcast.com, which normally features a Pokémon of the Week on Mondays, instead featured an article about Cardfight!! Vanguard.
• Smogon and Pokémon Showdown! changed all the sprites on Pokémon Showdown to various fan-drawn sprites.
• The Cave of Dragonflies posted a fake Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow Safari Zone Mechanics page, claiming, among other things, that holding down the A button at precisely the right time could get a Safari Ball to act like a Master Ball, that the likelihood of a Pokemon running away is partially based on a "nervousness factor" estimating how jittery the player is acting and thus how wary the Pokemon would be, and that encounters in the Safari Zone are systematically biased towards Pokemon the player has already caught.

Others

• The official Pokémon Facebook account posted news that revealed several colleges would be offering courses in Pokémon mastery.

Gallery

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  Pokémon's Facebook

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  The link from Pokémon's Facebook post

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  Bulbagarden Forums Skin

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  PokemonDb's April Fools design

This article is a part of Project Fandom, a Bulbapedia Project that aims to write comprehensive articles on every aspect of the Pokémon Fandom.