The world might associate Australia with heat, beaches and an array of deadly animals and insects, but one thing people around the globe often fail to recognise is that we're a day ahead of a lot of countries.
That means we get to celebrate things like holidays and other major events before large parts of the rest of the world.
Such is the case on September 21, a Friday this year, which is undoubtedly one of the greatest days because it features in that song.
You know the one. It's a 1978 disco classic. "Do you remember?" sings Earth, Wind & Fire leader Maurice White, "the 21st night of September?"
I do, Maurice. I do because that day is today.
Earth Wind & Fire's "September" is three minutes and thirty-five seconds of classic songwriting, from the catchy melody to the nonsensical chorus of "ba-dee-ya-dee-ya" — wording co-songwriter Allee Willis begged White to change.
"It was so obvious that he was not going to do it," she told NPR. "I just said, 'What the fuck does 'ba-dee-ya' mean?' And he essentially said, 'Who the fuck cares?'"
The song is also responsible for annual Twitter chaos surrounding September 21. People will rush to tweet their excitement about listening to the song. Memes will burst through the internet. People will write sprawling essays about the power of the song and how its four chord chorus mirrors the Earth's four seasons. It will be streamed on Spotify and Apple Music an unnatural amount of times.
And all of this will happen, as it does every year, after Australia has already gone through its day. We are forced to see memes and internet trends well after they have spread, a victim of the internet's timezone bias. We miss the September 21 meme blizzard in the Northern Hemisphere, but must relive it on September 22.
Last year a video went viral of a guy called Matt Walker bugging his roommate with the song throughout the month of September. At home, in bed, at the gym. It was September and Matt Walker's roommate was going to be reminded of that fact. Over 200,000 people have watched the video on YouTube. More people will stumble upon it this year.
Television writer Demi Adejuyigbe has achieved perhaps the largest amount of online fame from the song, with his now twice-conducted "September 21, that's today" videos picking up over a million views and tens of thousands of retweets. It's a good video. It's a fun video. It's September 21 and everyone is just happy to see someone, anyone, dancing, even if they're dancing to a bizarro remix of the classic track.
People are already bugging Adejuyigbe for the 2018 edition. If he was in Australia, we'd have it by now.
please stop tweeting countdowns at me