10 New Nerd Days
This week, Neon Splatter recognized an important date for us as we turned one on May 10. But it seems like you’re constantly turning around to find a new nerdy holiday that finds a way to celebrate some franchise, property, or other occasion. Most of them are geeky winks cleverly utilizing some number scheme or simply finding a mention in a book or movie to determine the date.
Last week was “May The Fourth” aka #StarWarsDay, a play on “May The Force Be With You.” That’s followed by “Revenge of The Fifth”—because why not appropriate May 5 from an entire nation/people? To be fair, non-Mexicans observing Cinco de Mayo usually just means drinking another margarita and wearing borderline offensive novelty sombreros, so might as well have a distraction for that crowd with another celebration.
People are terrible.
But it’s not just those nerd holidays. It ranges from the basic to the middle brow to the out ‘n’ out classy:
April 8 — Rex Manning Day (from EMPIRE RECORDS)
May 4 - 5 — the previously mentioned high holy days for Star Wars fans, using slant soundalikes.
June 16, Bloomsday — honoring author James Joyce based on publication Ulysses.
October 3 — a nice nod to one line of dialogue from MEAN GIRLS.
March 14, Pi Day — because 3.14. Eh? Eh? Math is fun.
April 25 — the perfect day, according to a beauty pageant contestant in MISS CONGENIALITY.
Of course this isn’t even mentioning religious, federal, national days of importance either. But why limit to just these few bits of math, movies, and literature? I propose we have but scratched the surface!
There are many dates thrown around in the arts and entertainment. Either explicitly stating a particular day or nerds have reverse engineered to figure out the historic date in question…or just having some fun with numbers.
Because, remember: math is fun.
Below are ten new nerd holidays that folks should observe with the proper hashtags, tie-ins, wardrobes, events, and general geek shenanigans.
Some of them may be niche, some may be stupid, but all are good opportunities to act the fool and possibly even convince your employers that you should have PTO on these dates.
In chronological order by the calendar…
1. January 20 - Ice Cube’s Good Day
The Internet is a playground of nightmares. It giveth fun delights and it taketh joy via horrible repugnant monster people. But one of its gifts was finally breaking the code to determine exactly what was the date for that one good day Ice Cube reported in his song “It Was A Good Day.” And utilizing all of the lyrical clues about certain events that happened in Cube’s life as well as California as a whole it was determined that this good day was, in point of fact, January 20, 1993. Not sure what celebrations would entail, but certainly no using AKs.
2. February 3 - The Day The Music Died
Admittedly, not a fun day but still an important one. “American Pie,” Don McLean’s iconic song from 1971, details the change in music (and pop culture as a whole) from the ‘50s to the ‘60s with the death of three major figures of rock ‘n’ roll music: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. All three were on a tour when their plane crashed ending their lives and careers prematurely on February 3, 1959. That year is both a literal end of a decade and symbolic one as the 1960s would give way to a real counterculture and new sounds in rock and other genres of music. So it may not be a “good day” like Cube’s, but it is one that would be good to commemorate with sock hops and blasting ‘50s rock or watching LA BAMBA or THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY (both films are unfairly overlooked these days and better than they should be).
3. April 24 - A24 day
Let’s get this out of the way: A24 has become a weirdly fetishized brand that’s essentially the hipster film equivalent to the MCU or Star Wars. People shell out big bucks for unimpressive products on their website while devotees herald each new movie release as the best thing ever. Having said that…they still put out some incredibly dope titles and support artists that may not otherwise be able to make movies. It’s never good to be a zealot to a corporation, but at least this company put out EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. This nerd holidate is a pun like May 4 or Pi Day, and it should be observed by people (re)watching and raving about the studio’s excellent catalogue while also making deceptive trailers about horror films. Still love A24, but…c’mon. We know it’s true.
4. May 18 - Brooklyn Nine-Nine Day
Your conventional line of thinking is that Brooklyn Nine-Nine Day should be April 28, the day that Jake knew he was going to propose to Amy. But let’s swerve into smorter territory and go with the explicit date that Jakes tells Gina to mark: May 18.
What makes this work even better is that the day itself is way off (it’s actually October), which is a pretty great and delightfully confusing bit of intentional mistake. Obviously the day should be honored with consuming lots of Orange Drink™, Peralta’s ‘breakfast burrito’ (Gummi bears inside a Fruit Roll-Up), watching B99 and DIE HARD, and probably having at least one heist.
5. June 16 - Marvel Day
Much like #MayTheFourth, this is a dedication to a Disney owned entity which is itself a megacorporation using numerical comedy. In the Multiverse of Marvel, Earth-616 is the de facto universe for the comic books while all the other Earths are found in “What If” and other storylines.
Weirdly, according to DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (and Mysterio in SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME, which makes no sense), the MCU’s universal designation is also 616. Which shouldn’t be the case but most likely will necessitate a change in the comics as those are the bastard children of the much more popular films. ANYWHOSKI, June 16 (or 6/16) is a good day to celebrate the House of Ideas, its characters, and all other attached projects.
Whether it’s the MCU films and shows, or the ‘90s cartoons that you all love despite them being really poorly animated and full of unnecessary changes to classic stories, the pantheon of great characters, or trailblazers like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Jim Starlin, Louise Simonsen, Ta-Nehisi Coates, or many others. It would be fun to celebrate these worlds with cosplays, special events, film marathons, game tournaments, or other ways to empower fans (how about a bunch of short films or contests to create new characters?).
6. June 22 - Summerween
Gravity Falls needs to be a bigger deal than it is. Don’t get me wrong, it has a massive and devoted fandom. The Disney show created by Alex Hirsch is a brilliant blending so many influences and unique ideas that it would serve well for more artists and audiences alike to be familiar with it. I mean, it’s Twin Peaks meets The X-Files meets Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminati! trilogy meets Cthulhu mythos all by the way Scooby-Doo and the Disney Afternoon cartoon block.
In the show, which takes place over one summer experienced by the lead characters, the titular town celebrates a Summer-time Halloween festival with some of their traditions. Summerween (not a great portmanteau, but we work with what we have) involves Jack-O-Lanterns made out of watermelons (called Jack-O-Melons, natch), costumery, candy, candles warding off ancient evils, and more candy. June 22 is actually close to the summer solstice, so it also works with Halloween’s tradition of co-opting ancient rituals and pagan observations for horror and Type-2 diabetes. Besides, who doesn’t want two Halloweens?!?
7. July 3 - Humanity Flails (ID4)/“Judgment Day” (T2)/Military Nukes Zombies (ROTLD)
Americans love blowing stuff up SO much they can’t even wait until the national holiday DESIGNATED for such ‘splosions to detonate on U.S. soil. In THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985), upon the military’s old zombified mistakes arising, the Pentagon braintrust nukes all of Louisville, KY in hopes of ending the undead plight (spoiler alert: it does not work out). A few short years later, in 1991’s TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, a somber Sarah Conner informs us all of how Skynet became self-aware and nuked humanity to hell. Continuing the nuclear holocaust theme (and horrific fallout for American citizens), after the aliens attack in INDEPENDENCE DAY on July 2, countries try to retaliate with their own arsenal and fail pathetically until a stammering nerd and former West Philadelphia native take to the skies.
Before the pedantic nerds jump on it: July 3 is not Judgment Day, it’s just the release date for T2. BUT, there are like seven different possible days across multiple different years within the Terminator franchise, ranging from 1995 to 2020s, from April to August. It’s a goddamn mess. So why not use the movie as the namesake date. The point is the day should be filled with all manner of explosions and a sense of defeat. And radiation, I guess?
8. October 24 - Save The Goondocks!
This is a small one but, according to a newspaper that is briefly seen (detailing the Fratellis’ escape), the events of THE GOONIES transpire October 24, 1985 (and spilling into the morning of October 25 where Chunk adopts actual adult man Sloth without consulting his parents). This would be a good day to have parades, or dress like pirates, or force husky outsiders to do a degrading dance for your amusement.
I guess you could use the date as an excuse to do some civic good around your town. But that won’t happen and you know it. Instead it should just be about friends gathering, some sort of versions of haunted houses where you go through booby traps, and giving those gold coins from Hanukkah or other sorts of “treasures.” That’s right, it can also be a gift-giving holiday. And no, “friendship” is not a gift.
9. October 30 - Draven’s Night
Waitaminute, October 30 is already a holiday! It’s Mischief Night or Devil’s Night. It’s even central to the plot of THE CROW! Precisely. But we’re reframing it from Devil’s and mischief (which sounds too precious anyways) to honor Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and be less destructive but still mad.
Draven’s Night sounds super dark and dramatic. Lee and others said that Draven comes back from the grave full of madness, so this works with the party atmosphere and sense of vicarious living through new persona. People dress in their punk and/or goth finest, slap on all the face paint, and party into the night while slamdancing, guitar soloing, doing shots (don’t drink a bullet, that’s just stupid), and speaking in poetry and rhymes and Cure lyrics. World Goth Day is for posers—Draven’s Night is for celebrating life in the most stylish and operatic manner possible!
10. November 12 - Enchantment Under The Sea
This one is a lay-up. A film series about time travel smartly uses specific dates (you hear that, Terminator franchise?) to move the plot along and create a sense of ticking clock…even though it’s already happened in the past. Avoid being square and celebrate BACK TO THE FUTURE’s prom with your own Enchantment Under The Sea dances or other soirees. You can either have it be a throwback to 1955 (or 1985) style and music or contemporary dress and dance; it’s your day so make the most of it. These nerd holidays should be about celebrating stuff people love in fun and inventive ways, finding excuses to dress up goofily and indulge in the entertainment that helps make our days just a bit better. Plus you get to beat up the ginger from CHILDREN OF THE CORN.