Today Is Steak and a BJ Day: Internet, Twitter Celebrate

Nevermind that a new Harvard study says eating red meat will make you dead quicker. Today’s a day to fire up the grill, cancel your evening plans, and go down in a blaze of charcoal and glory. As [mostly guys on] Twitter will enthusiastically remind you: it’s Steak and a BJ Day.

What’s the story? With a stereotypically male lack of subtlety, the name pretty well explains the entire concept. But I’ll elaborate just a little anyway. Note today’s date. Yes, 3/14 is also Pi[e] Day, which is great on its own but would make for even better dessert follow-up. The 14th of March comes exactly one month after Valentine’s Day, a holiday many people view as an overcommercialized hijacking of romance and love. Others [again, probably mostly men] complain that the holiday has a primarily female-oriented focus, with an emphasis on fine wines, flowers, expensive dinners, gifts, and even feelings. Ick.

Enter Steak and a BJ Day, Valentine’s Day’s hairier, leaves-the-seat-up, distracted-by-sports-and-breasts counterpart. While I had a hard time finding any reliable information on the origin of the pseudo-holiday, the “Official Steak and a BJ Day Website” suggests that it might have been “invented by the Romans in 269AD, and institutionalized through St Valentine’s cousin, Claudius Fellatio,” though I suspect this information of fallacy. But do we really need to get hung up on origins? Here’s how the website explains the day in its sort-of manifesto:

The overarching theory is one of “Man’s Valentine’s Day.” You know the drill. Every 14th of February men get the chance to display their fondness for a significant other by showering them with gifts, flowers, dinner, and many other romantic baubles. They rack their brains for that one special gift that will show their spouse that they truly care.

Well here’s a little secret: men feel a tad left out.

Anyway, Twitter is having fun with the concept. While a few concerned voices decry the day as propagating sexist stereotypes, most folks are taking the idea lightly for what it really seems to be: a bold, boyish, shameless attempt by men to participate in two of their favorite meat-themed activities on the same day. As you’d expect from such an idea, #SteakandBJ is affording tweeps a rare opportunity for a little “know-what-I-mean?” quipping.

The driving idea behind today’s holiday may not be very tender, but jokes about it have thus far been pretty well done. Forgive me.