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What's up with these animations whenever I up-vote/down-vote an answer? Is it a special day? (Birthday, maybe?)

EDIT: Oh no, it's March 31st where I am, but this may not hold true for SO-time...

I am NOT a fool

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13
  • 72
    Just for the record, I think this is a great way to encourage voting on posts. We ought to keep it permanently.
    – Cody Gray
    Apr 1, 2011 at 0:09
  • 10
    @Cody The horror...
    – Mateen Ulhaq
    Apr 1, 2011 at 0:12
  • 1
    Not too new: stackoverflow.com/badges/804/suffrage
    – Kobi
    Apr 1, 2011 at 0:38
  • @muntoo ...you haven't used all your votes in one day?
    – Michael Mrozek
    Apr 1, 2011 at 1:01
  • 10
    w00t, when I just voted, I saw an unicorn running from right side on, targeting the horn on the vote number, stabbing it and running off screen on the left side, with the vote number on its horn! Oh boy, that was awesome!
    – user138231
    Apr 1, 2011 at 1:40
  • 5
    Why is there an infinite recursive loop of duplicates!
    – Earlz
    Apr 1, 2011 at 1:52
  • 18
    So this post is closed as an exact duplicate of a post that is an exact duplicate of this post? Circular dependencies are bad.
    – Martin Doms
    Apr 1, 2011 at 2:01
  • @Cody - I agree. The animations should stay. Even if the unicorns go, we should replace them with something else.
    – Joshua Carmody
    Apr 1, 2011 at 14:18
  • Do we really need 24 hours of unicorn animations? UGH! It was funny the first few times, now it just is annoying. And NO please no permanent animations unless you can make it a user preference that I can turn off.
    – Jason S
    Apr 1, 2011 at 15:04
  • 2
    Very much doubtful that they'll stick around any longer. April Fools schenanigins rarely do.
    – Cody Gray
    Apr 1, 2011 at 15:51
  • @MartinDoms: We have a meta topic about that already: Prevent circular close as exact duplicate loop
    – Powerlord
    Apr 1, 2011 at 19:06
  • I don't see any animation!
    – J. Walker
    Jun 27, 2012 at 19:17
  • FYI unicorns are extinct. I thought that SEs are supposed to be constructive. I ewonder how many upvotes are wasted now just to see the pretty unicorns.
    – J. Walker
    Jun 27, 2012 at 19:19

9 Answers 9

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123

UNICORNS! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!

and... what is more META than unicorns dancing on unicorns dancing?

enter image description here

I'll tell you: NOTHING!

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4
  • 7
    I hope you don't mind, but I added more meta.
    – Rob Hruska
    Apr 1, 2011 at 0:23
  • 3
    There's a bug! Only the outer-most unicorn animates on this post.
    – Gabe
    Apr 1, 2011 at 1:31
  • 5
    Now I'm a little sad: what happens to the unicorns after Apr 1? Is there a correlation between the availability of pastel colored glue and Apr 2?
    – Jay Riggs
    Apr 1, 2011 at 2:53
  • Whats with the unicorns?
    – J. Walker
    Jun 27, 2012 at 19:18
69

Neat.

Yes

Celebrating neatness!

enter image description here

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4
  • 5
    Is that unicorn flipping us off? Why would a unicorn give me the bird just for voting up?
    – tvanfosson
    Apr 1, 2011 at 3:19
  • 5
    With their one horn, unicorns are always flipping us off, expressing their disdain for our primitive human culture.
    – Rob Hruska
    Apr 1, 2011 at 4:12
  • omg! There are 3 of them dancing for your upvote! XD
    – gideon
    Apr 1, 2011 at 7:09
  • 1
    I've added the celebrations on neatness! if you don't mind. (0;
    – KMan
    Apr 1, 2011 at 11:29
35

It's the final feature that will turn SE into a multi-billion-dollar company! You know you love them...

And no, the fact it's April 1st has nothing to do with it.

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2
  • 5
    sorry. I voted you down just to see the animation. :-D
    – Spudley
    Apr 1, 2011 at 11:00
  • 1
    @Spudley - I'd do the same if I were allowed
    – fbrereto
    Apr 1, 2011 at 17:04
29

I found real.

enter image description here

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1
  • 25
    That's a tricorn!
    – Sony Santos
    Apr 1, 2011 at 11:24
25

Super Neat! This ones the BEST!!

enter image description here

Note: I undid/redid my vote a couple of times until they came again, dancing for me!

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19

I just love the downvote unicorns. They are very fast.

enter image description here

Herez another one: back-kicking version:

enter image description here

PS: I revoked the downvote on the questions :P

There are many more...go n discover now...happy downvoting :)

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1
  • 6
    I missed these. Is there a link to temporarily reactivate the April 1st behavior?
    – Mr.Wizard
    Apr 3, 2011 at 21:24
17

I have no idea.

Should add one handing out unicorn dollars.

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4

the animations are a real cute April 1st! I first stumbled over reading "Ponies and Balloons" in SO question and only later found the animations... upon first reading the words "Ponies and Balloons" and not being native English speaking I thought it's a figure of speech and found rather shocking evidence it's actually being a code phrase...

As much I love the animation this code phrase has a very negative association :-(

One of her more shocking revelations is that the BP cleanup team routinely stage fake cleanup operations when politicians come to inspect, and that when the politician leaves, 85% of the workers and resources rolled out for his/her benefit are then pulled back. The BP officials jokingly refer to this hoax with the code phrase "Ponies and Balloons".

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3

Could you add a setting to allow us to keep unicorns even after April 1st (maybe with a less-than-100% chance to occur)?

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2
  • 3
    I would suggest that they appear if there are more than X votes.. ;)
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Apr 2, 2011 at 8:27
  • @Shadow Wizard: that might cause some to hold off voting on a post until it has already reached the threshold - sort of a chicken and the egg.
    – Brian Reichle
    Apr 3, 2011 at 5:11

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