Stop Informing The Green Day Dude September Has Ended
Imagine you're an artist of some kind -- music, literature, puppetry of the penis, whatever -- maybe not what anyone would consider a genius but impressively successful in your field. One of your more serious songs, books, or penis puppet shows is about an incredibly painful memory that you associate with a specific time of year, and your audience decides it's funny to remind you, en masse, when that time of year arrives. That's basically what you're doing when you tweet "Wake up!" at Billie Joe Armstrong on October 1.
If you're the kind of person who only pays attention to the catchy parts of songs (and we've all been that person at some point -- shout out to the other people who were this year years old when they realized Destiny's Child's "Bills, Bills, Bills" wasn't about gold-digging), "Wake Me Up When September Ends" is not about Armstrong's impatience for the arrival of spooky season. It's about his father's death in September 1982, when the singer was 10 years old, and how every passing year is taking him further away from someone he loved so much. Soooo ... not the most appropriate thing to memeify.
Not only is it a dick move, but it's also a hack move. Maybe you would have a sense of humor about it; Armstrong certainly does, but he also really hates it just because it's annoying to have millions of people tweeting the same stupid joke at you at the same time. You know that feeling when you tweet a joke and 10 idiots reply to explain your own joke back to you? It's like that, but about your dead dad. The only time it's funny when everyone tweets the same thing is when the number 69 has come up.
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If a September meme tradition is the only thing keeping you going, and no one could blame you, may we suggest instead Gilmore Guys star and The Good Place writer Demi Adejuyigbe's annual celebration of Earth, Wind & Fire's celebration of the 21st of the month? Sadly, it has already passed this year, but that just gives you almost a full year to anticipate his next move. If his trajectory of escalation is anything to go by, September 21, 2021, is going to involve an actual dinosaur whose DNA has been encoded to spell out in scales on his back "That's today."
Top image: Reprise/Warner Bros.
