October 3rd Is National Boyfriend Day

About

October 3rd Is National Boyfriend Day refers to a series of posts and videos made about the significance of October 3rd as a day to commemorate your significant other. The day comes as a counter to August 1st, which is generally understood to be National Girlfriend Day. The date also hold significance due to a scene in the popular film Mean Girls, where Cady Heron (played by Lindsey Lohan) tells her love interests what day it is. The phrase grew in popularity on TikTok in the days leading up to October in 2022.

Origin

The origins of National Boyfriend Day are unconfirmed, but magazines and commemorative posts about the holiday began around the year 2014, with the earliest known post by an official publication about the day being made by Marie Claire magazine on October 3rd, 2015. The Facebook post^[1] gathered over 200 reactions in eight years (seen below).

The most popular posts about National Boyfriend Day were made by the official Facebook page for America's Funniest Home Videos in the years 2017^[2] and 2018^[3], gathering over 600,000 and 70,000 interactions each.

Discourse about the holiday picked up steam in 2022, with a series of TikTok creators making videos referencing the event in the days leading up to it. The earliest known TikTok^[4] post about "National Boyfriend Day" was made on October 3rd, 2021, by TikToker @natejulkowski, when he posted the google search result for "National Boyfriend Day." The post gathered over 2 million views and over 160,000 likes in nearly a year (seen below).

Spread

On August 2nd, 2022, TikToker^[5] @taco0809 posted a video saying "National Boyfriend Day is October 3rd" and "Make sure you give him the same energy he gave you today." Her posted gathered over 500,000 plays and 130,000 likes in nearly two months (seen below, left). On August 9th, TikToker^[6] @lsaacsgirlfriend posted a video about the holiday as well and gathered over 600,000 plays and nearly 100,000 likes in nearly two months (seen below, right).

As the trend progressed, it became apparent that the primary discourse surrounding the day revolved around whether or not someone who considers themselves a boyfriend will be "posted" on their partner's social media on October 3rd.

On September 2nd, 2022, TikToker^[7] @randoms14324 posted a video about National Boyfriend Day and reminding people to post their boyfriend. The post gathered over 1 million plays and 200,000 likes in a month (seen below, left). On September 17th, TikToker^[8] @realdeathrowlife posted a video talking about getting "posted" on October 3rd as well, gathering over 200,000 plays and 60,000 likes in two weeks (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References