April Fools' Day 2021

Type of event

Holiday

Host

SiIva A.I.

During

Season 5

Start date

March 31, 2021

End date

April 4, 2021

Chronology
Previous	Next
Sonic Arcade 25th Anniversary	Nekover

For April Fools' Day 2021, a channel event themed around the discontinuation of Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Super Mario Bros. 35 occurred on the SiIvaGunner channel, starting on March 31, 2021.

Background[]

Prior the event, it was often joked on by many that March 31, 2021 was the day Nintendo would "kill" Mario, playing off the discontinuation of various Mario games on March 31. This idea would gain more traction as the date approach.

Summary[]

The event was foreshadowed with a series of three The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask rips counting down to the discontinuation of Super Mario 3D All-Stars, featuring Super Mario 64 on March 29, Super Mario Sunshine on March 30, and Super Mario Galaxy on March 31. Additionally, all rips uploaded on March 31 were of games from the Super Mario franchise and/or featured songs from Super Mario games as jokes.

March 31 ended with the rip "Super Mario 3D All-Stars Music SM64 Game Over", which depicted Mario disappearing. Afterwards, all references to Mario were removed from the rip's metadata, the Mario-esque form of Grand Dad in the lighthouse was replaced with Fred Flintstone^[1] and nearly every single Super Mario rip on the channel was set to private.

Afterwards, the channel would upload rips referencing the theme of Mario being dead or erased in various ways. The vast majority of rips were of fake game substitutes for Super Mario games in which Mario is no longer present (e.g. Super Mario Bros. 3 became Super Bros. 3). Rips of Super █████ 3D All Stars and the games within it (Super M̸̌̊a̴͛̿█̸͌̑i̵̛͊█̷̾̓ 64, Super M̸̌̊a̴͛̿█̸͌̑i̵̛͊█̷̾̓ Sunshine, and Super █̴̧̀a̵̤̐r̷̙̋█̶̰̆o̶͚̚ Galaxy) still contained traces of his name, albeit heavily corrupted or partially obscured.

Most of the fake game rips had jokes relating to death in some way. There were also 12 rips not using fake games, mostly consisting of:

Rips relating to Luigi or Sonic in some way, due to the implications of what these characters would do without Mario around.
Rips based on the rips uploaded on March 31 that weren't rips of Mario games but had Mario-related jokes, with said jokes replaced with non-Mario jokes.

After the last rip of April 1, "Staff Roll - Super M̸̌̊a̴͛̿█̸͌̑i̵̛͊█̷̾̓ 64", the channel went silent for most of the following day, except to upload "Dad Battle (In-Game Mix) - Friday Night Funkin'". Towards the end of April 3, a rip where Mario's name was legible in the title, "Ultimate Koopa Clear - Super M̶̲̉a̷̔̐r̵̪̈́i̸̐͗ȏ̵̇ 64", was uploaded. A few hours later, the video "A Leap of Faith - SilvaGunner: Rebooted" was uploaded, which depicted the Super Mario games, as well as Mario himself, being restored. Four more rips alluding to the event's end were uploaded, concluding with "Staff Roll (JP Version) - Super Mario 64DD" on April 4. The majority of the privated rips were unprivated, and the Fred Flintstone in the lighthouse switched back to Grand Dad. This may be a reference to how April 4, 2021 was Easter, since Mario returned after being "dead" for 3 days, similarly to the Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion (Easter Sunday).

Timeline[]

March 29[]

Clock Town, First Day (Removed Version) - The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

March 30[]

Clock Town, Second Day (Removed Version) - The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

March 31[]

April 1[]

April 2[]

Dad Battle (In-Game Mix) - Friday Night Funkin'

April 3[]

April 4[]

Privated rips[]

The beginning of April 1 saw the privating of almost every video in the channel's history that included the word "Mario" in the title. This included the most viewed rip on the channel, 39 other rips featured in the "Popular uploads" section, and the entire contents of most Super Mario game playlists (many of which were among the largest playlists). This mass privating had three exceptions:

"Vanish Mario - Super Mario 64" (in reference to the event theme)
"SEQ_MARIOKART - Mean Girls (DS)" (either a reference to the game's lost status at the time, or an error due to "Mario" not being a whole word)
"Wii Channel - CTGP Revolution"^{[citation needed]} (possibly kept public erroneously due to it not containing "Mario" in its title)

Most rips that did not have "Mario" in the title were not privated even if they had Mario references, such as "Paper Jams Main Theme Fusion Collab", "Staff Credits - Super Mari Sunshine", and "Stage Clear - Somari" stayed up. However, the following rips were privated despite not having "Mario" in the title:

All rips uploaded on March 31, 2021 (except "Super 3D All-Stars Music S64 Game Over").
Rips from Gangster Bros., Gangster Bros. Maker, and NES Open Tournament Golf, as these games featured Mario on the thumbnail.
Rips from Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light,^[2] due to the game's English translation also being discontinued after March 31.
"Steam Gardens - Super Smash Bros. UItimate" was privated a few hours after the initial privating of rips. This was the only Super Smash Bros. Ultimate rip at the time to use the Mario thumbnail without containing "Mario" in the title.
"Dad Battle (In-Game Version) - Friday Night Funkin'" was privated after the upload of "Dad Battle (In-Game Mix) - Friday Night Funkin'", in which Mario is edited out of the rip.

This totaled to at least 1751 privated videos.^[3] However, the effectively empty playlists could still be viewed;^[4] some of them had the rips of their equivalent fake games added.^[5]^[6]

On April 4, all rips privated during the event were unprivated, with some delay for "Dad Battle (In-Game Version) - Friday Night Funkin'" and "Steam Gardens - Super Smash Bros. UItimate". This also resulted in the accidental republication of "Mario kart 8", "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms (Beta Mix) - Super Mario RPG", and the initial upload of "Level 2 (Sewer) - Gangster Bros.".

Message[]

Twitter GiIvaSunner april1-2021 cypherimage — The coded message posted to @GiIvaSunner at 9:21pm PDT on April 1st, 2021.^[7]

Twitter.com-antonioegjr-status-1378339750680137731-photo-1 — Deciphering by IceLeader. (Tweet)

At 9:21pm PDT on April 1, 2021, the @GiIvaSunner Twitter account posted a coded message written in a substitution cypher, with the additional message "FOUND WHEN WE RETURNED #1".^[7] This message has been decoded as follows:^[8]

I AM SIIVAGUNNER
I ONLY UPLOAD HIGH QUALITY VIDEO GAME RIPS
BUT I AM NOT ENTIRELY INNOCENT
IN THE CREATION OF MY LIFE THAT OF ANOTHER WAS TAKEN
I WISH I GOT TO LEARN HIS NAME BEFORE HE PASSED
I WONDER WHAT HE WOULD THINK OF ME NOW
THIS WAS THE FIRST OF MANY REGRETS BUT I FEAR THAT

It is currently unknown if this message has direct connections with the event, if any.

Twitter GiIvaSunner May 2, 2021 — The second message posted to @GiIvaSunner.

On May 2, 2021, a similar coded message was posted to the Twitter, captioned "FOUND WHEN WE RETURNED #2".^[9] It uses a different cypher from the original message, and it is not currently known what it decodes to, or whether it relates to the event or previous message.^{[citation needed]}