The final September 21st

The Garbage Day Discord Has A Banner Now

While I was on vacation, I made a very risky decision: I left the Garbage Day Discord alone for a week. Right now, I’m the only person who moderates it and it’s just small enough that I figured it could survive me taking a short break. While I was gone, my intrepid community decided the server needed a banner and got to work. The absolutely incomprehensible image above was created by user HarryJ and I think I understand every reference included in it (at least the references that are actually understandable). The fact it includes my face makes me deeply uncomfortable, but I can’t deny that it’s a damn good banner.

If you’re curious what the Discord is like, hit the subscribe button below!

It Was September 21

There’s an old term I really like from Usenet, one of the first real bulletin board systems on the internet, called “Eternal September”. Usenet, during the 80s, was used primarily by various colleges and research facilities. Every September, new students would log on to Usenet and immediately cause problems before they learned the network’s well-established and rigid “netiquette”. Then, in September 1993, AOL opened up Usenet access to all of its users, flooding it with a never-ending influx of new and clueless users, effectively erasing the network’s cultural memory. “September 1993 will go down in net history as the September that never ended,” a post on the alt.folklore.computers newsgroup read.

In my opinion, Eternal September is still the key conflict of all social networks. A completely inaccessible community will either die out or radicalize into something toxic. But communities without any sort of traditions are equally chaotic. There needs to be something that holds our social networks together, but you also need to know how to let stuff go. I’ve read pieces arguing that the internet now is one big Eternal September, but I don’t really think that’s true. Instead, I think social media moves in cycles of about 5 years or so and, for the most part, memes and established online behavior dies out naturally, though typically inelegantly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Eternal September lately because it feels like we’re at a really interesting changing-of-the-guard moment online right now and we’re watching a new generation of internet users create their own traditions, while many of our older ones are ending. Case in point: Yesterday was the last of Demi Adejuyigbe’s yearly “September” videos.

If you’ve somehow missed them all up until now — which is possible, many Gen Z internet users were as young as 10 when the first one came out — here’s a playlist. Describing what these videos even are and why they rule is, honestly, a little tricky. But the bit is that Adejuyigbe does a dance to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” on September 21st, the date mentioned in the song. The first two videos in the series, 2016 and 2017, were pretty low-key affairs, with Adejuyigbe dancing alone in his apartment accompanied by a remix of “September,” where the only words that play are “the twenty-first of September” over and over again.

Then, in 2018, things escalated. The video left the apartment and added a children’s choir. It also advertised a shirt, with all the proceeds going to RAINN, RAICES, and The National Center For Transgender Equality. In 2019, a mariachi band was brought in, along with more merch, with proceeds going to the Climate Mobilization Project. And 2020’s upped the ante even further. It was shot from the back of a truck and included a banner flown from a plane. It also came with a call to action: If viewers donated $50,000 to five different charities, Adejuyigbe would do another for 2021.

Well, Adejuyigbe came back with another video this year — the first to feature the actual real track of “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire. Embedded above, it’s essentially a short film and is over 4 minutes long, with a second 4-minute segment afterwards about which charities are attached to this year’s video and a pretty big credits section, complete with videos from members of Earth, Wind & Fire. It’s a masterpiece and the bathroom scene is unbelievable. But it’s also probably right that it’s over. The “September” videos probably weren’t sustainable — and not just because this year was the year that millennials finally felt old online.

Adejuyigbe told Vulture last year, “It kind of feels like a prison I’ve built myself. September 22nd is a very nice moment when I don’t have to think about that.” Which, fair enough. I can’t imagine how hard it has been try and top yourself every year with one of these videos.

But, also, Adejuyigbe got his start thanks to Vine, where he went by the name @eletrolemon. The first “September” video wasn’t a Vine, but it might as well have been, aesthetically. And Adejuyigbe’s yearly videos were sort of the final link to the Vine era of the internet, which really doesn’t feel like it has much in common with our current one anymore.

I’m sure there are many Gen Z internet users that know about these videos and love them and those that don’t can easily look them up and quickly understand the joke, but things are changing online and new traditions and inside jokes are being created. And I’m sure this is uncomfortable for millennials (everything is), but that’s actually nice. Yes, there is probably something to be said about the fact that the internet these days feels a lot less free-form and weird and creative than it did during the age of Vine, but I’m not sure that’s totally true. In fact, just in the last six months, I’ve been coming across more and more weird viral one-off stunts and projects, the kind that Adejuyigbe was making in the lead up to the first “September” video.

So, yeah, it’s all bittersweet, but it’s kind of nice to let an internet thing die when it probably needed to. As a massive fan of these videos, the last thing I would want to see is a tired and miserable Adejuyigbe dancing with James Corden at the Grammy’s or something. (Though that wass probably never going to happen.)

It feels like in the world of digital content, you either burn out, get canceled, or just disappear one day. Good internet creators don’t seem to ever get a chance to give themselves a good ending. There’s the expectation that everything online has to last forever — or be violently brought to some kind of horrible end. So I’m really happy Adejuyigbe got to go out on a big one, on the 21st day in the 21st week of 21st year of the 21st century, raise a buttload of money, and finally escape his own Eternal September.

Fat Bear Junior Starts Tomorrow

Good news everyone! Fat Bear Junior starts tomorrow! What’s Fat Bear Junior you ask? Well, every year Katmai National Park in Alaska conducts the internet’s greatest competition: Fat Bear Week. From September 29th to October 5th, people vote on who is the fattest brown bear at the park. It’s great. This year, Katmai is adding a new competition just for cubs!! Fat bear cubs!!!!!!!!!!

Starting tomorrow two sets of bear cubs will go head to head to find out who is the fattest baby. You can head over here to get all the info on this tournament of champions.

The Internet Is A Trauma Response

New meme alert! Here are my three favorites:

These are all generally making fun of the dumber parts of TikTok that traffic in amateur psychology, but I do have a couple quick high-level thoughts about this. I think it’s interesting that this keeps happening on different social networks. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and now TikTok have all ended up inspiring a huge chunk of new users to identity as vague stereotypes associated with mental illnesses or disabilities. Trauma TikTok follows the annoying rise of ADHD TikTok earlier this year.

I assume this is because most social platforms emphasize identity over content, which leads users to convert their identity INTO content, which, in turn, creates endless personality archetypes to connect with each other to. Simply put: On corporate social networks, where you’re expected to share content, everything eventually becomes a Zodiac because you are the content. Though, who knows, maybe this is just a trauma response to being too online.

A Good Tweet

(Click here to read more about this.)

A Redditor Has A Question About His Cat

Oh hell yeah, you read that screenshot right. Let’s dig into this, shall we?

Apparently, the fursuit cost $6000 and the furry friend is mad at the original poster because he thinks he’s “gatekeeping” his cat. Incredible stuff all around. You can read the whole post here.

Let’s see what the commenters had to say:

• “Can confirm that the furry community has the same reaction. People have been cancelled for this before.”

• “I have reached the end of the Internet.”

• “It’s perfectly reasonable for OP to not want people to whack it to the personification of his cat.”

What do you guys think? Is this gatekeeping?

A Good Really Video

I don’t know how I missed this video when it first came out or how I discovered it on Twitter earlier this month, but it’s one of the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. WARNING: It involves a lot of puking!

Finally, A Good Dumb Rock Feud

Machine Gun Kelly and Slipknot are beefing lol. The whole thing kicked off at Riot Fest over the weekend. While on stage, Machine Gun Kelly told the crowd, “You all want to know what I’m happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old wearing a fucking weird mask on the fucking stage. Fucking shit.” A point of clarity: Machine Gun Kelly is 31, which isn’t a much better age to be doing what he’s doing.

MGK was performing at Riot Fest at the same time as Slipknot on another stage and I’ve seen reports that Slipknot were making fun of him at the same time. But apparently, though, this feud has been going on for a while.

As Kerrang pointed out, Taylor told Cutter’s Rockcast a few months ago, “I hate everything. I hate all new rock for the most part. I [hate] the artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock — and I think he knows who he is. But that’s another story. I’m the worst. And I hate everything. And people are used to that with me, though.”

Things boiled over on Twitter this week, with MGK tweeting that Taylor was meant to be featured on the song “can't look back,” but was cut because it was “fucking terrible.” Except, then Taylor tweeted out screenshots of emails between him and Travis Barker that show that actually Taylor requested to be removed from the song after MGK gave him (extremely bad and dumb) notes. Now everyone is dunking on MGK for being a poser, who then responded by tweeting:

And, once again, Machine Gun Kelly is 31.

Anyways, this is all actually good for rock music. Slipknot are arguably the biggest rock band on the internet (I once saw the analytics of what Slipknot’s Facebook page does to a website when they share your post and it’s staggering) and Machine Gun Kelly should absolutely start publicly beefing with them. Yes, this is all extremely embarrassing, but if you want guitar music to be cool again, you need drama!!!!

A Beautiful Obituary

Click through to read the whole obituary. It’s a short and absolutely gorgeous tribute from a brother to his sister with cerebral palsy. The LA Times did a follow-up story on the obituary after it went viral on Twitter, which is equally lovely and you can check that out here.

Another Good Tweet

This was dropped in the Garbage Day Discord by lusername.

One More Very Important “September” Thing

Some Stray Links

• “The Unbelievable Grimness of HermanCainAward, the Subreddit That Celebrates Anti-Vaxxer COVID Deaths”

• “The pseudoscientific spectacle of @BangEnergy.CEO”

• “Will DAOs replace Corporations?”

• “How Did We Get So Stuck on Here?”

P.S. here’s a really good Japanese wrestling promo.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***