Swing your sabers! Today is Geek Pride Day
Hackers, programmers, gamers, and overall dweebs have reason to rejoice. It's Geek Pride Day, when geeks the world over are supposed to revel anew in everything that makes them misunderstood by the other half.
Despite the fact that I have crashed computers since I was 8, know more people online than in real life, and have knifed four people consecutively in Battlefield, I have somehow managed to miss out on the fact that today, May 25, is annual Geek Pride Day.
No more, however. When I found out about this hallowed day of geekery today, I immediately went and put on my Boba Fett/Empire Strikes Back T-shirt and listened to the original movie soundtrack in a 320Kbps MP3.
Why is May 25 the chosen date? Well, a few critical events happen to fall on this day:
- May 25, 1977: Star Wars opened in 32 theaters and became an instant cult-classic.
- May 25, 2001: Two weeks after "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" author Douglas Adams died, fans commemorated his passing by creating "Towel Day," playing off an amusing life-saving reference in his famous book.
- A special day for Discworld fans. According to the Discworld & Pratchett Wiki, "The People's Revolution of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May ended the increasingly tough reign of Lord Winder."
Geek Pride Day (be sure to check out some of these amusing "Geek Pride Day" videos on YouTube) was originally created by a Star Wars-obsessed group in Spain that dubbed the day "Orgullo Friki" in their native tongue. On May 25, 2006, a crowd of 300 in Madrid celebrating the event held a makeshift parade, and one of the highlights of the afternoon was forming a giant human Pac-Man game.
The newly created holiday became a viral topic online and has grown progressively larger ever since. A Spanish Web site that serves as a makeshift headquarters for Geek Pride fans in that country created a special video hailing the event.
Did you know it was Geek Pride Day? If so, how did you mark it? ForeverGeek has a great list of responsibilities geeks must shoulder, and you may want to take those responsibilities extra seriously today.
- If there is a discussion about something geeky, you must give your opinion.
- Wait in line on every opening night. If you can go in costume or at least with a related T-shirt, all the better.
- Befriend any person or persons bearing any physical similarities to comic book or sci-fi figures.
- Try to take over the world!
Hey, now that I think about it, I inadvertently celebrate this holiday every day.