# Earth Day Earth Day is a global environmental observance held every April 22nd, first organized in 1970 by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson and activist Denis Hayes. Online it's best known for Google's 2015 animal-matching Doodle quiz and the meme parodies that followed. ## Overview Earth Day is an annual event on April 22nd focused on environmental protection and conservation, coordinated by the Earth Day Network[2]. The 1970 debut pulled in participants from over 2,000 U.S. universities and 10,000 schools, and the observance later grew into one of the largest secular holidays in the world, with more than a billion people taking part each year[3]. The holiday itself predates the web, but Earth Day's clearest crossover into internet culture came from a Google Doodle in 2015[1]. The interactive quiz let users answer questions to be matched with one of twelve animals, including the pangolin, sea otter, honey bee, cuttlefish, and coral[3]. Google's Doodle program had been running since 1998 and expanded to same-day topical events by 2009, which is why an environmental quiz on April 22nd fit the format so easily[1]. ## How It Spread By 1990, Hayes took the event to more than 141 countries with an estimated 200 million participants[3]. That same year an 'Earth Day Special' TV production aired featuring a skit with comedians Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams[3]. The 2000 celebration was the first to use the internet as its main organizing tool, with Leonardo DiCaprio hosting the Washington, D.C. event and former Vice President Al Gore giving an eight-minute speech on the environment[2]. The meme side of Earth Day picked up on April 22nd, 2015, when Google published its animal-matching quiz Doodle[1]. Threads about which animal users had been paired with went up on 4chan's /an/ (animals and nature) board that day[3]. Cheezburger[4] highlighted parody versions of the quiz answers reworked with popular internet memes, from Doge to Pepe-style riffs on the twelve animal outcomes. Urban Dictionary entries poke at the day itself, with user definitions framing Earth Day as an excuse to switch off someone's electricity at the worst possible moment, or as a jab at 'self-proclaimed planet savers'[5]. That snarky framing is still recycled on social media every April 22nd. ## How to Use Online riffs typically follow two patterns. The 2015 Google Doodle spawned a template where users post which of the twelve animals they got matched with, often paired with a joke about how the pairing fits (or doesn't fit) their personality[3]. Separately, sarcastic posts about performative Earth Day rituals, like ceremonially unplugging appliances or biking one day a year, show up around April 22nd in the vein of the older Urban Dictionary jokes[5]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Earth Day? Earth Day is an annual environmental event held every April 22nd, coordinated by the Earth Day Network and observed by more than a billion people worldwide[2]. ### Where did Earth Day come from? U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed the day and activist Denis Hayes coordinated the first observance on April 22nd, 1970, drawing participants from thousands of American schools and universities[3]. ### What does Earth Day mean? The day promotes environmental protection and conservation, with roots in the American environmental movement of the late 1960s and John McConnell's earlier 1969 proposal for a spring equinox version[3]. ### How do you use Earth Day? Online, people share results from Google's 2015 animal-matching Doodle quiz and post jokes about performative activism, echoing the old Urban Dictionary definitions of the day[1][5]. ### Is Earth Day still popular? The event is still observed globally each April 22nd and is run by EarthDay.org, though its biggest internet meme spike was tied to the 2015 Google Doodle quiz[1]. ## References 1. [https://www.google.com/doodles/earth-day-2015]() 2. [https://www.earthday.org/]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/earth-day]() 4. [https://cheezburger.com/]() 5. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Earth%20Day]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/earth-day Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library