Google Apologizes for Major April Fool"s Day Fail

Oops, Google’s bad!

The global giant apologized on Friday after its April Fools Day prank went so off course that it actually got someone fired.

The company had tried to play along with the unique occasion via a temporary Gmail feature titled Mic Drop.

The feature was comprised of an orange “Send” button that would add to your message a GIF of a Minion dropping a microphone and automatically archive any responses.

This would thereby give you the impression of having the last word in any conversation in which you were a participant.

HOWEVER…

… this new button looked far too similar to the regular “Send” button. And it was also located right alongside the regular “Send” button.

And it also replaced a “Send and Archive” button that some Gmail users enable.

The catastrophic result was that many people sent a Minion GIF in a professional email by accident, including Andy Baio, former Kickstarter CTO and founder of XOXO Festival.

“I can’t believe how short-sighted Gmail’s “Drop Mic” April 1 joke is. It replaces the “Send+Archive” button, and attaches GIFs to sent mail,” he wrote in a critical Tweet today.

A writer named Allan Pashby, meanwhile, says he lost a job when he inadvertently used the Mic Drop feature to submit an article… didm’ hear back from his editor… and then received an angry voicemail about the prank.

“Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs,” Google software engineer Victor-bogdan Anchidin wrote by way of apology.

“We’re truly sorry.”

The Mic Drop button, as you might imagine, has been removed by Google.

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Mischa Barton: Rude! Self-Entitled! Worst DWTS Celeb EVER!

If you thought it was just nerves making her stiff, you are sorely mistaken.

Rumor has it that Mischa Barton is the most unpleasant participant to ever appear on Dancing With The Stars, and that is saying something.

Barton “is just not coming off as a nice person,” sources from the LA-based set tell Radar Online.

“It is really quite unfortunate because when she first came on the show, members of the cast and crew said they were hoping that she was going to be the person that they used to love watching on TV.

“They were actually really excited to meet her.”

On Monday, Barton faced elimination alongside Doug Flutie and Geraldo Rivera. 

When Rivera was voted off the show, “everyone hugged him, except for Mischa,” a source pointed out.

“Misha had practically no response at all to Geraldo getting kicked off.”

DWTS is a team-driven show where contestants and professionals spend hours together, bonds are formed.  So when people noticed that Barton didn’t join everyone to see Rivera off, “all that did was add to the feeling on set that Misha does not want to be there, and she just wants to take the money and run,” the source said.

“Some people are claiming that Mischa is the most self-entitled and rude celebrity that the employees of the show have ever had to work with! She does not discriminate who she is rude to either.”

This wouldn’t surprise me in the least, as I’ve watched Barton’s expressions and body language since the March 21st premiere, and she looks like she’d rather be anywhere else.

Mischa Barton and Artem Chigvintsev – DWTS Premiere

Wendy Bell, Emmy-Winning News Anchor, Fired for Racist Rant

Wendy Bell is out of a job after making the sort of negative headlines on which she typically reports.

The Emmy Award-winning anchor – who had been with the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based station WTAE-TV for 18 years – was fired on Wednesday after she went off on a racist rant via her Facebook page.

“WTAE has ended its relationship with anchor Wendy Bell,” said Hearst Television, the station’s parent company, in a statement to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“Wendy’s recent comments on a WTAE Facebook page were inconsistent with the company’s ethics and journalistic standards.”

So… what, exactly, did Bell write on Facebook?

What prompted her ousting?

On March 18, nine days after a mass shooting Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, Bell left the following message:

“You needn’t be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday … they are young black men, likely in their teens or early 20s …

“They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs. These boys have been in the system before.

“They’ve grown up there. They know the police. They’ve been arrested.”

Bell even acknowledged that this post could be deemed “racist” and said she regretted “offending anyone” prior to deleting it from her account.

But the damage had already been done.

In a phone interview with the Associated Press the day after she was terminated, Bell said that she didn’t get a “fair shake” from WTAE.

She went on to say she’s “sick” from the entire affair, adding by way of explanation:

“What matters is what’s going on in America, and it is the death of black people in this country … I live next to three war-torn communities in the city of Pittsburgh, that I love dearly. My stories, they struck a nerve. They touched people, but it’s not enough.

“More needs to be done. The problem needs to be addressed.”

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Kim Kardashian & Spencer Pratt: No Longer Besties!

It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when Kim Kardashian clung desperately to the bottom rung of D-list.

She’d pop up on the occasional gossip blog, but she was known as Paris Hilton’s friend with the giant butt, and that’s about it.

Obviously, the Kim Kardashian sex tape hit the web in 2007, and the rest is history, but for the first few years she was in the spotlight, Kim was forced to pal around with the worst kind of reality TV nobodies.

And when we say “the worst,” we mean the worst. We’re talking people life Spencer freakin’ Pratt:

Spencer shared the above tweet yesterday as a reminder of a time when he used to pal around with big-bootied hangers-on and NFL players. (Kim was dating Reggie Bush at the time.)

Frankly, we’re surprised to see that Spencer has a sense of humor about his eternally-plummeting popularity.

After all, this is the same guy who – presumably with a straight face – compared the cancelation of The Hills to 9/11.

We guess in that analogy, Kim is Condoleeza Rice, Heidi Montag is Dick Cheney, and the show’s declining ratings are a melting steel support beam. Or something.

It’s possible we’re giving way too much thought to the crap that comes out of Spencer Pratt’s mouth.