For those of us who grew up with Tina Fey’s teen masterpiece Mean Girls, 3 October has become one of our favourite national holidays.

If you aren’t familiar with the Lindsay Lohan-fronted 2004 comedy, it’s not too late to get involved with the festivities. The film follows Cady, who attempts to take down the ‘plastics’ led by none other than Regina George (Rachel McAdams). 

Yet, the home-schooled student accidentally gets sucked into their pretty perfect aesthetic and becomes another minion in their mean gossip-driven world.

Early into the cult classic, Cady is thrilled as her high school crush, Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett), finally talks to her. Though the conversation is short-lived, it has been memorialised in memes for the past two decades. 

In a voiceover, Cady says: “On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was.” Then, she replies: “It’s October 3rd.”

It’s one of the briefest exchanges in film history, yet it reminds us of a simpler time when everything the person you fancied really set your soul alight. Since then, 3 October has been affectionately dubbed as Mean Girls Day.

Mean Girls is, of course, also responsible for several stellar one-liners that are now deeply ingrained in our pop culture, such as “You can’t sit with us”, “On Wednesday we wear pink” and “Get in loser; we’re going shopping.”

But 3 October is not the only iconic date mentioned in a movie that has become a firm fixture in our annual calendar.

In Miss Congeniality (2000), Cheryl Fraser (Heather Burns) takes to the stage as part of the beauty pageant and is asked to describe her perfect date. The sweet Rhode Islander is flummoxed by the question – one intended to encourage her to share her romantic dreams – and takes it slightly more literally instead.

“It’s a tough one,” Cheryl beams, as she delivers the classic line: “I’d have to say 25 April. Because it’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket.”

Ah, Cheryl. When 25 April rolls around, memes of this moment always resurface on socials. Burns herself even gets involved, as she still adores the iconic scene and the supportive fanbase built over the past 23 years.

“I love it. It seems to each year get a little bigger even,” she told E! News. “And it’s such a nice day for me because people come out of the woodwork sending me memes and things. And I go around town … people give me free coffee and, you know, it’s just everyone’s kind of happy to see me on that day.”

Characters who elevate an everyday calendar date for us are always welcome. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) in Friends famously introduced an excellent pre-holiday holiday as she wished her pals a “Merry Christmas Eve Eve”. Naturally, this is now a real holiday celebrated by die-hard fans of the show.

More recently, Harry Potter fans turned out in full force as they flooded Kings Cross station in London on 1 September, aka Back to Hogwarts Day.

Last month, thousands of people turned out at the station to see the Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade appear on the train departures board.

Our collective dedication to celebrating fictional holidays, whether it’s a character’s birthday, a one-off date mentioned in a movie or simply a fictional holiday we wish was real, it’s a delightful way to commemorate our defining films, franchises and TV shows.  

Images: Paramount Pictures