Happy Pop-Culture Holiday

May the Fourth be with you on this Star Wars Day. To celebrate, it seems like a good time to take a look at the common phenomenon of property-centric “holidays” like this one, of which there are many. 

These pop culture events often simply commemorate the date the property first launched. But often the hook is something more in-world and meaningful to fans, such as a character birthday, a pun that connects the date with an element of a property, or a significant date in the plot or lore. Some of these celebrations are created by the licensors, but the bulk get their start as fan-driven grassroots efforts, with the licensors jumping on the bandwagon later. 

Activities, official and otherwise, that tend to take place around these events — which can extend beyond the day itself — include fan fests, parties, promotional giveaways, contests and sweepstakes, retail activations, social media campaigns, screenings, discounts on existing merchandise, charity tie-ins, pop-up experiences, and new digital and traditional content releases. And of course, the occasions often call for new merchandise. Some items are collectibles pegged specifically to the holiday, with a dedicated logo, while others are of more general interest but with their launch timed to the celebration. 

Here are a few examples of widely observed property-centric holidays to give a sense of the landscape: 

• May the Fourth (Star Wars). The celebration of May 4 was grassroots in origin, based on the similar sound of the date and the well-known in-world blessing, “May the Force be with you,” which seeped into fans’ everyday usage almost immediately after the 1977 release of the first film. Lucasfilm and its licensees have increasingly supported the event over the years, especially since Disney purchased the studio in 2012. It was around that time that May 4 became known as Star Wars Day; in the early days, marketers tended to link the phrase “May the Fourth be with you” with Independence Day (July 4).  

• Mario Day (Super Mario). This March 10 celebration is based on the visual similarity between the character’s name and the date (MAR10). Fans inaugurated the celebration, but Nintendo, along with its licensees and promotional partners, are now strong backers. That was especially true this year when the holiday occurred at the midpoint of the year-long 40th anniversary celebration that kicked off in September 2025. 

• N7 Day (Mass Effect). This annual celebration on November 7 is tied to the N7 military designation of Commander Shepard, the video game’s lead character. Fans had celebrated the date for some time before licensor BioWare got involved in 2012, in conjunction with the release of Mass Effect 3. In 2025, the developer and its corporate owner EA (the latter recently acquired by several private equity firms) used the occasion to alert fans that a new Mass Effect game was in the works. 

• Alien Day. This celebration takes place on April 26 in honor of LV-426, the moon where the xenomorph was discovered in the original 1979 film. The designation LV-426’s association with April 26 got started with a community-produced LV-426 fan fest in 2015, which took off on social media. Licensor 20th Century Fox (now part of Disney) adopted the date the next year as the official Alien Day.

• First Contact Day (Star Trek). This April 5 celebration is a nod to the date of April 5, 2063, which in Star Trek canon is the date Zefram Cochrane led the human race in making first contact with an alien species (the Vulcans). The event was depicted in the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact. First Contact Day is a holiday within the Star Trek universe and became a real-life celebration shortly after the release of the film. Paramount uses the milestone to promote new initiatives, especially in recent years, although its official celebration of the franchise is Star Trek Day on September 8, marking the anniversary of the first episode of the original series in 1966. 

• Back to the Future Day. This event celebrates October 21, 2015, the day in Back to the Future Part II (1989) on which the characters arrived in the future to fix the damage done when they had traveled to the past in the original 1985 Back to the Future. The festivities began on the same date in real-life 2015, when fans got together to remember the beloved franchise, and has been going on for the decade-plus since. While fans drove anticipation for the real-life arrival of this pivotal in-world moment in 2015, licensor Paramount was involved from the start. The first year of festivities occurred during the franchise’s 30th anniversary year, doubling the reasons to celebrate. 

• Superman Day. April 18 was the date Superman debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938 — recognized by fans as the birth of the modern superhero genre — and has become the primary commemoration of the property. Both DC Comics and Warner Bros. have been heavily involved in marketing the property on that date, especially in the last couple of years, with Supergirl and Krypto being front and center (along with Superman) in this year’s initiatives. 

Since these celebrations, and many, many other similar examples, are typically propelled by fans in the early days, their precise history can be difficult to trace. But the fact that they tend to have grassroots origins is a signal that such celebrations hit home with fans, especially those who are deeply steeped in the universe. As a result, those fans tend to embrace licensors’ official offerings and marketing initiatives associated with the milestones, as long as they are closely and authentically aligned with the properties’ history and lore. At the same time, the holidays give licensors another moment on which to capitalize in their quest to engage fans regularly throughout the year.