Loud Shirt Day: A Crazy-Sounding Holiday Worth Supporting
Peculiar People Day... Lost Sock Memorial Day... Smile Power Day... Winnie the Pooh Day.
If you didn't already know (don't feel bad if not; I didn't), these are all celebrated holidays. They obviously aren't in the same league as a Christmas or Thanksgiving, or heck, even Groundhog's Day or April Fool's Day, but they exist, because... well, I don't know really--I assume it has something to do with advancements in technology resulting in everyone having too much time on their hands mixed with the dangers associated with too much emphasis on uniqueness and free love or something.
Anyway, clearly the idea of a holiday has gotten a bit out of hand, and everything under the sun has gotten its own day, from stuff that sort of makes sense (National Good Neighbor Day) to the stuff that, at the very least, has a purpose of some kind (International Moment of Frustration Scream Day) to the stuff that doesn't really have any reason to exist at all (Plush Animal Lover's Day).
It seems that for every significant holiday like Martin Luther King Day, we get 25 days of this nonsense. I get the feeling that, in trying to have something every day, the crazies who devised these holidays really began grasping at straws. For what it's worth, today is apparently National Beheading Day. Whoopty doo...
Anyway, the reason I'm pointing all of this out is that I recently stumbled upon an off-the-beaten-path holiday in New Zealand that, unlike these lame entries, actually deserves some attention here in the U.S.--Loud Shirt Day.
It sounds silly, but Loud Shirt Day is actually an annual appeal by two charities to raise money for deaf and hearing impaired children with cochlear implants. The basic idea is for schools and businesses to get involved and then allow students and employees who make a donation to wear a loud shirt--free of social judgment, regardless how obnoxious it is--on September 18.
Loud Shirt Day was pretty successful last year--1,300 organizations helped raise $140,000 for the cause--and it seems to be getting an even bigger push this year. Local actors Rhys Darby (of Flight of the Conchords and the Jim Carrey film Yes Man) and Robyn Malcolm (star of the Aussie TV show Outrageous Fortune, but more recognizable for her appearance in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) have donated shirts for auction, as has American rocker Alice Cooper. Darby also stars in an amusing commercial that perfectly captures the holiday's goofy appeal.
I know this is Aussie news, but I thought it was worth pointing out, because it's just pretty darn cool. With all the lame holidays we have here in the U.S., it would be nice to see Loud Shirt Day make the conversion to America. It would mean finding a different date for National Cheeseburger Day, but I'm sure we'd all somehow manage to get by.