Green Day Trends, Which Means It's October 1st

There is hardly anyone who still sincerely makes "Oh, it's time to wake up Billie Joe Armstrong" jokes anymore, yet every October 1st, like a bad April Fools prank, "Green Day" trends on Twitter because it's time to wake up Billie Joe Armstrong.

Yes, it's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" season yet again. In 2004, Green Day released the aggressively maudlin ballad on the back half of American Idiot, and while it was written about the passing of singer Billie Joe Armstrong's father as a child, Green Day never marketed the song that way, opting instead to release a music video that featured a miniature soap opera about a couple splitting apart because of the man's decision to go fight in the Iraq War (ahh, the Bush years).

The "Wake Up Billie Joe! hoofle doofle" joke was an internet staple of the early 2010s in the era of advice animals, but in current times, there are hardly any tweeters still sincerely trotting it out. The joke has turned itself into a form of bait to rile up the many, many passionate Green Day fans who still get upset at the joke.

Such is the beauty of the internet: if a meme lasts long enough, the backlash to it will itself become a meme. May the two sides fight for eternity to ensure that every October 1st, we remember to wake up Billie Joe Armstrong, as he asked.