Break Offers $1000 for April Fools Prank Videos

By now the April Fools thing is played out. Twitter is basically unreliable this day of the year, and even Google is an annual conspirator. Will Richmond almost had me this morning with the news that Netflix is buying HBO from Time Warner. And PBS hiring Ann Coulter drew a few laughs.

But the real gold on April Fools is happening all around us—offline—in the form of phone calls, elaborate hoaxes and faux interventions. Thankfully almost all of us carry around some form of camera to capture these gems on video. If they’re really good, Break.com will toss you $1000 if they feature your prank on their homepage. Creators can submit eligible videos through April 30th, 2011.

Break has long offered up cash to video creators for videos deemed worthy enough to make the Break.com homepage, though usually that’s pegged around the $400 mark. April Fools however is like Christmas for the site known for prank videos and skateboard fails. Over the past four years, the company says it has paid out over $56,000 to creators for Fools videos alone.

Break.com is paying for your original videos of April Fool’s Pranks! Do you love getting your coworkers or roommates with a prank from time to time? Do you plan on scaring and pranking your girlfriend or boyfriend all day on April 1st? Maybe your prank backfired? This is your chance to get paid for filming pranks on your friends, family, boyfriend or girlfriend! Upload your videos and winners will be selected between March 1st and April 30th, 2011.

Tomorrow Break is taking over YouTube’s homepage, curating top prank videos as a Guest Editor with Mediocre Films Greg Benson. It’s a nod to Break’s knowledge of online comedy, showing there’s not exactly bad blood between the two video sites. The announcement video goes live later today. The move coincides with Break’s “subscriber appreciation” on their main YouTube channel, which follows a recent trend on YouTube of channels giving away PS3s and iPads for fans that prove they are subscribers.

In the midst of all this, Break launched a new original web series, Awkward, that itself it a bit of a prank series. The weekly series—new eps every Wednesday—stages a series of hidden camera pranks on unsuspecting bystanders, like this Secret Service style office building denial (below). The series will live on Break as well as their newly launched “Break Originals” sub-channel on YouTube.