Rex Manning Day

Overview

Rex Manning Day is a mock holiday celebrated on April 8th and based on a scene from the 1995 comedy film Empire Records, in which the character Mark (played by Ethan Embry) looks at the camera and announces that fictional recording artist Rex Manning (played by Maxwell Caulfield) would be visiting the record store where the film is set. He refers to Manning's visit as "Rex Manning Day." Online, people use April 8th and Rex Manning Day as day to express their appreciation and fandom for the film.

Background

On September 22nd, 1995, the film Empire Records was released in the United States.^[1] In the film, the employees of Empire Records, spend much of the film preparing for an in-store promotional visit and album signing from Rex Manning. Before his arrival, the character Mark looks at the camera and says, "We mustn't dwell. No, not today. We can't. Not on Rex Manning day!"

Developments

As the film gained a cult following, people online began posting about Rex Manning Day on various websites. However, the actual date for the holiday remained inconsistent.

On February 15th, 2006, Blogspot^[2] user savejack posted an image for Rex Manning Day (shown below, left), featuring a picture of Manning and a note that reads, "Marsi – I love you…you're one sexy biotch."

Later that year, on November 1st, 2006, Urban Dictionary ^[3] user Nathan K. Claus defined the day as "Only the best day ever! from the film, Empire Records (Regency 1995)." The post (shown below, right) received more than 200 upvotes.

On June 21st, 2011, the Twitter account @Rex_Manning_Day launched. Around this time, a website called "RexManningDay.org" also launched, which designated April 8th, the day the film is set on as Rex Manning Day.

The earliest mention of the April 8th celebration date available from these accounts was on January 26th, 2012. That day, they tweeted (shown below),^[4] "This is a very good idea. It is April 8th! RT @KyleDavidPierce I think I will be using a paid floating holiday for Rex Manning Day…"

On April 8th, 2015, Ethan Embry joined a Rex Manning Day event at Rough Trade Record Shop in Brooklyn, New York. The event served as a fan celebration for the film.^[5]

Since then, Rex Manning Day has been a popular trending hashtag on Twitter with people posting images and gifs from the movie on the site (examples below).

Date Meaning

On April 8th, 2018, Ethan Embry explained why April 8th was chosen as the date for the film. Embry explained that the date was decided upon to commemorate the day that Kurt Cobain, the lead singer, guitarist and song writer of Nirvana, was found dead. He tweeted,^[6] "The reason we picked April 8th as the day to have the powdered/coifed Rex Manning visit Empire is because Kurt was found on the 8th of April, the day the music of the 90s lost its mascot.#RexManningDay." Within 24 hours, the post received more than 1,300 retweets and 3,700 likes.

Media Coverage

Several media outlets have written about Rex Manning Day, including Billboard,^[7] The AV Club,^[8] ET,^[9] TIME^[10] and more.

Search Interest

External References