Sometimes you just need to accept that the world at large is a gigantic suck-fest.
You get up in the morning (did we mention you have to get up in the morning) drink coffee (Which is most certainly not the finest Kopa Lua blend) get off to work (through bad traffic and doesn’t pay enough) have lunch (at that diner that’s always so disappointing) stay late (because your boss is a jerk and doesn’t understand “schedules”) and drive home (with cops that are no doubt out cruising for Quota tickets).
In short, everything is terrible and anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something. That Sucks Day brings awareness to this fact and is a great way to shut down those nay-sayer optimists no one really likes.
History of That Sucks Day
That Sucks Day seems to have come out of nowhere as a vindictive dedication to all things that suck. Throughout the history of the holiday and the organization that sponsored it, That Sucks LLC, they seek to exemplify all that is terrible and wrong in the world.
As such they recognize historical figures (sometimes of questionable existence) that have been excellent representatives of suckage throughout the world.
Characters like the terrible seer Nostrasuckus who, rather than predicting a broad range of events specialized only in letting us know when things were going to suck.
Oddly, he appeared to be a terrible seer as well (unsurprisingly) as none of his predictions have come true. Which is hard to believe given the huge amount of suck in the world.
We can’t forget Evangelista Torricelli either, the man that proved that the ultimate in suckage technology existed, the vacuum, which of course was immediately followed by the invention of the vacuum pump. If the world didn’t suck before, whole new ways of sucking were surely on the way.
Did we mention that the American Tax Day, the Sinking of the Titanic, and Abraham Lincoln’s assassination all occurred on National That Sucks! Day? Yeah, it really is that bad of a day.
How to Celebrate National That Sucks! Day
Well first, you might pop on over to thatsucks.net and get yourself involved with the organization that serves as the foremost watchdog on the suckage of history, the present, and no doubt will keep cataloguing things that suck far into the future.
Unless they get lazy and quit, (people sometimes suck like that). There you can discover the history of suckage, little sayings called “suckisms” to get you through a sucky day, and of course no life is complete without a complete selection of suckumentaries of people who have come, gone, and sucked life away at every corner.
National That Sucks! Day is your opportunity to stop having such a bright disposition, and just let everyone around you know “That Sucks!”
Facts About National That Sucks! Day
The Ancient Roots of the Word “Sucks”
The slang use of “sucks” to mean something unpleasant or bad is much older than many people realize, with roots traced by linguists back to at least the 19th century in English.
The Oxford English Dictionary notes figurative uses like “to suck” meaning to be contemptible or disappointing by the early 1900s, and scholars of American English have documented its spread through youth slang, jazz culture, and later rock music, where it became a common, informal way to express dissatisfaction long before it went mainstream in movies and television.
Why Bad Experiences Stick in Memory More Than Good Ones
Psychologists have repeatedly found that negative experiences are more likely to be remembered and to shape behavior than positive ones, a phenomenon known as negativity bias.
Research by social psychologist Roy Baumeister and colleagues showed that bad events “weigh more” than good ones in people’s evaluations of relationships, work, and life in general, with a rough rule of thumb that it can take several positive experiences to psychologically counteract a single negative one.
Complaining Can Feel Good, but Only Under Certain Conditions
Studies on emotional regulation suggest that venting about something that “sucks” can actually provide short‑term relief, but only when it is done with a sense of shared understanding and some goal of problem‑solving.
Research summarized by the American Psychological Association indicates that repetitive, unfocused complaining, especially with other chronic complainers, tends to increase stress and reinforce negative thinking, whereas expressing frustration to a supportive listener while also seeking solutions can lower distress and improve mood.
How Pessimists Sometimes Make Better Realists
While optimism is often culturally celebrated in the United States, research on “defensive pessimism” has found that some people actually perform better when they expect things to go badly and plan around it.
Psychologist Julie Norem’s work shows that defensive pessimists lower their anxiety by imagining worst‑case scenarios and preparing for them, and they often achieve outcomes as good as or better than their more optimistic peers, especially in academic and performance settings.
Torricelli and the Discovery That Nature Can, in Fact, Suck
In 1643, Italian scientist Evangelista Torricelli built the first mercury barometer and used it to demonstrate that a vacuum could exist, overturning the long‑held Aristotelian belief that “nature abhors a vacuum.”
By inverting a mercury‑filled tube into a dish, he observed that the space above the mercury column was empty of air, revealing atmospheric pressure and helping to found modern vacuum science, which paved the way for everything from vacuum pumps to electric light bulbs and semiconductor manufacturing.
Tax Day and the Titanic Did Not Originally “Suck” on the Same Date
Although American Tax Day and the sinking of the Titanic are often linked in popular culture as occurring on the same date, the original events were separated by time and context.
The Titanic struck an iceberg late on April 14 and sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, while the modern April 15 income tax filing deadline in the United States was not standardized until the 1950s; previously, individual income tax deadlines had been set for March 1, then March 15, and only later moved to April 15 for administrative reasons.
How Bad Days Influence Decision‑Making
Behavioral economists have found that being in a negative mood can subtly shift how people judge risks and rewards.
Studies published in journals like Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes report that people who are primed with unpleasant experiences or memories tend to perceive ambiguous situations as more threatening, are more loss‑averse, and are more likely to avoid taking beneficial risks, which means that “sucky” days can have measurable effects on financial choices, workplace decisions, and even health behaviors.
