Eye of the Tiger

4/20 has become a cultural joke of its own without try-hard traditions

Wednesday, May 02, 2012 By Henry Tran

I often sit down and ponder over what makes 4/20 a day any different from any other. Besides the fact that it’s the day that kids love to sit around making really lame innuendos about smoking weed and giggling to themselves profusely over the mere mention of Mary Juana, I can’t see what makes this day any thing special at all. It seems really lame to me in general that kids see this as a day where the act of smoking recreational drugs is any more acceptable than any other day of the year. It seems extremely lame to me that kids think they are cool for smoking on this day and talk amongst their friends about it constantly, as if it were the biggest thing to ever happen to them. And it seems extraordinarily lame to me that kids that smoke weed everyday treat this day as if it were any more special than every other day of their pot smoking life. Let’s face it. There are people out there that smoke absurd amounts of weed on the daily and that they would treat this day as if it weren’t just another day of their life is overkill. If anything, they should be offended that what they do on a regular basis is being treated as a childish holiday for high school kids that are spending their week’s allowance so that they can fit into a pop culture stereotype. The fact that kids spend so much time talking about 4/20 on 4/20 is what irks me the most. It’s nothing but high fives and fist bumps after each of them exchange stories of how they plan to toke it up. On any other day of the year, talking about smoking weed so casually would label you as a try-hard douche and would be frowned upon. But because we have this weird little culture that’s developed the idea to create a day where people can act as douche-y and try-hardy as they want without any social repercussion, we get kids making lame pot jokes on Facebook. Admittedly, I do laugh when I hear the number 4/20, but it’s not because I condone it as a holiday or anything of that sort. The number has evolved to this point where it’s just a number that everybody recognizes as being associated with pot. Me laughing at the mention of the number 4/20 is the same as me laughing to the mention of the number 69. But really, this idea that April 20 is any better of a day than any other day to smoke weed is just juvenile. For those of you that smoke weed everyday; this is just another day. Those of you that smoke weed occasionally, this is just one of those days for you. And to those of you who don’t smoke weed at all but talk about 4/20 like you do because you think it makes you look cool; please don’t, it doesn’t.