No sooner have we taken down the Columbus Day decorations and it's that time of year again — INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY! Why, it'd sneak up on us, if IT DIDN'T INSIST ON SHOUTING ... symbolically, anyway.
Now in its 13th year, International Caps Lock Day is the biannual event (Oct. 22 and June 28) launched by software developer Derek Arnold on Oct. 22, 2000, with this explanation, posted on a now-disabled webpage:
International Caps Lock Day is in fact a testament to the small mindedness of certain Western individuals: the majority of the world’s population writes in scripts which have no concept of letter casing. Therefore it is advised to laugh at anyone who invokes this day as an excuse to dismiss local typographical conventions: they are simply making an ass out of themselves.
It's also the special day on which we make that extra effort to annoy our Internet friends and co-workers and run afoul of case-sensitive passwords by abusing what, in some circles, is called the "Billy Mays" key — so named for the unmodulated pitchman Billy Mays, who passed away on June 28, 2009. It is in Mays' honor that Arnold added the second International Caps Lock Day to the calendar.
With this addition, International Caps Lock Day modernized slightly more than its official website, which boasts a "mobile" version and a Twitter account, and alleges to be a member of the "Family Matters" webring (it is not).
Speaking of Twitter, if you're wondering how International Caps Lock Day is spending itself, look no further than the micro-blogging site:
Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah abut the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.
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