Overview

New Year's Day is observed on January 1st, marking the first day of a new year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. The holiday is typically observed at midnight, celebrating the ending of one year and the beginning of the next. These celebrations include countdowns, toasts, New Year's resolutions and fireworks. Additionally, New Year's Day marks the end of the holiday season.

Background

January 1st was instituted as the "New Year's Day" for the first time in 45 B.C. when the Julian calendar went into effect.^[1] Julius Caesar, the then-Roman dictator, put the new calendar in place due to the fact that the Roman calendar frequently fell out of sync with the seasons because the calendar followed the lunar cycle. According to History.com:

"The year was calculated to be 365 and 1/4 days, and Caesar added 67 days to 45 B.C., making 46 B.C. begin on January 1, rather than in March. He also decreed that every four years a day be added to February, thus theoretically keeping his calendar from falling out of step.

Related Memes

New Year's Resolution

A New Year's Resolution is a goal one aims to achieve in the coming year. These goals typically focus on areas of self improvement, such as health, but can extend to creative and financial goals as well. New Year's resolutions have been a tradition for thousands of years, beginning with the Babylonians who "crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed."^[2]

Steve Harvey's New Year's Eve Outfit

Steve Harvey's White New Year's Eve Outfit refers to a series of jokes, image macros and photoshops about Steve Harvey's attire for the "New Year’s Eve With Steve Harvey: Live From Times Square" television special.

Novi God

Novi God (or Nowiy God) is a holiday pop song and music video that has inspired numerous parodies on Youtube due to its low-budget greenscreen effects and awkward, apathetic dancing. Typically these parodies feature four people standing in front of greenscreen backgrounds and lipsynching to the original song while mocking the dancing and exaggerated facial expressions of the original. The style of the video is similar to those of other viral hits such as Mark Gormley and Tunak Tunak Tun.

Manchester New Year's Eve Photograph

The Manchester New Year's Photo is a photoshop meme based on a photograph taken during 2016 New Year's Eve revelry in Manchester, England.

Mariah Carey's New Years Eve Performance FAIL

Mariah Carey's New Year's Eve Performance FAIL refers to singer-songwriter Mariah Carey's live performance at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest in 2016, during which she stopped singing due to a technical malfunction with her monitors.

If You Play This Song On New Year's Eve

If You Play This Song On New Year's Eve refers to a snowclone popular on Twitter in which users say that if one starts a song at a specific time on New Year's Eve, then a specific moment in the song will happen the moment the new year begins.

Search Interest

External References