Light Jacket Day / April 25th The Perfect Date

Submission 45,019

About

Light Jacket Day / The Perfect Date is a mock holiday celebrated on April 25th and based on a line from the 2000 comedy film Miss Congeniality, in which a beauty pageant contestant mistakes a question about her ideal romantic rendezvous for her literal favorite day of the year. The meme and reference routinely see a resurgence each year on April 25th with users across social media reposting the scene or screencaps of it.

Origin

Light Jacket Day, also known as "The Perfect Date," comes from a line of dialogue heard in the 2000 comedy film Miss Congeliaty.^[2] Released on December 22nd, 2000, Miss Congeniality stars Sandra Bullock as an undercover FBI agent posing as a beauty pageant contestant. In the film, a beauty pageant host asks a contestant about her "perfect date." Misunderstanding what the host means by "date," she responds, "April 25th because it's not too hot and not too cold. All you need is a light jacket"

On April 26th, 2012, the website WeKnowMemes^[4] published a screencap of the scene (shown below).

Spread

On April 25th, 2016, the Instagram account @girlssthinkimfunny^[3] posted a variation inserting Beyonce into the scene with the caption "🎶I'm having girl problems feel bad for me son,I got 100 problems cuz now Beyoncé's one!🎶🍋 #fabsquad #april25 #badphotoshopsonpurpose #prayforjay." The post received more than 13,000 likes in its first year.

On January 6th, 2017, Instagram user @happybucky posted a variation of the meme, featuring Chris Evans delivering the lines. Within four months, the post had over 740 likes.

News Media Coverage

On April 25th, 2016, The AV Club^[1] published an article about Light Jacket Day, pointing out that the weather doesn't match what the character describes.

The following year, on April 24th and 25th, 2017, several news media outlets covered the popularity of the date, including Mashable,^[5] TIME,^[6] and more. Twitter published a Moment^[7] commemorating the day.