Happy Blursday to all my readers! This term entered the lexicon soon after lockdown began. My office was closed in March 2020 and everyone was told to work from home for two weeks till the pandemic had run its course. Well two weeks turned into two months and then two years. Everyday was the same and like many other people who worked remotely, I started to lose track of the days. Was it Thursday or Friday? Sunday or Monday? With no daily commute, every day felt like yesterday, especially under lockdown when we couldn’t go outside except to go shopping or for a solitary walk around the block. Time seemed to pass quickly and the days went by in a blur.
The Collins Dictionary has “blursday” listed as a new word suggestion: “humorous word for any day of the week that feels not much different from the one before” (Melony).
The Urban Dictionary has a couple of entries for “blursday,” one dating from 2007, so this isn’t a new term:
Defintion #1: “When you’ve been sheltering in place for so long because of a global pandemic you have no idea what day it is as they all blur together.
–Blursday! Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, blursday, blursday, blursday and blursday” (DarleneOliviaPope).
Defintion #2: “A day you spend hungover, high, or drunk.
-I got so drunk on Friday. I slept in all blursday but Sunday I went to brunch” (J4432).
Blursday appears in a number of online publications. An article published for WebMD on May 7, 2020, entitled “Today is Blursday: How Lockdown Warps Time,” describes the feeling “of your internal clocks melting as your stay-at-home days drone on” and that many people all over the world report that their perception of time has been distorted because of the effects of lockdown. Most feel that time is speeding up but others say their days have slowed down to a crawl (Goodman).
Some people got creative during lockdown and produced journals for sale like this cool notebook from Amazon described as a “Funny notebook for the shelter in place self-quarantine phenomena where the days blur together” (Lit Notebooks).
Blursday is the name of a movie released in June 2021 which was directed by Vincent Soberano, an award winning actor and filmmaker, and tells the true stories of three couples in their apartments during lockdown. The IMDB entry describes the movie as “a unique and profound story about loss, love and pregnancy during confinement.”
An article published for Broadway World on May 29, 2021 quotes Soberano’s reasons for making the movie: “On Blursday, I wanted to produce a time capsule film, detailing a journey through THE FIRST 100 DAYS of the global pandemic. Following the global theme of “we are all in this together”, I created a couple of cinematic rules: To be performed by three couples around the world and to be captured inside their own apartments using computers and phone cameras.” The movie was filmed at each of the couples’ apartments in Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Buenos Aires, “shot via Zoom and in person” (Wild). Watch the trailer below:
Social Media Trends as of May 7, 2022
Facebook #blursday: 2,400 people are posting about this
Instagram #blursday: 6,081 posts
TikTok #blursday: 828,000 views
YouTube #blursday: less than 100 videos and channels
Google Trends: blursday first appeared as a blip in February 2009 and didn’t really take off in popularity until March 2020 when lockdown arrived in the United States. The term peaked in April 2020 at the peak of lockdown and then tailed off for a pit, spiking again in November 2020 (as some states reintroduced lockdown after previously lifting them) before returning to where it was in 2009.
Sources:
“Blursday.” IMDB. June 5, 2021. URL: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14016668/.
BLURSDAY a film by Sergio Guerrero-Garzafox (TRAILER v1). YouTube. July 6, 2021. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnXwLdXqxms.
Elly | Corporate Millennial. “When you blink twice and it’s Sunday again.” TikTok. October 3, 2021. URL: https://www.tiktok.com/@1corporatemillennial/video/7014913386840444166?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en.
DarleneOliviaPope and J4432. “Blursday.” The Urban Dictionary. April 24, 2007; September 23, 2020. URL: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blursday.
Goodman, Brenda. “Today is Blursday: How Lockdown Warps Time.” WebMD. May 7, 2020. URL: https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200507/what-day-is-it-this-it-your-brain-on-quarantine.
Lit Notebooks. “Just another Blursday!: Funny shelter in place humor planner, journal and anything book.” Amazon. June 15, 2020. URL: https://www.amazon.com/Just-another-Blursday-shelter-anything/dp/B08BD9CXLH.
Melony. “Blursday.” Collins Dictionary. 20 May 2020. URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/submission/22351/Blursday.
Piscine26. “blursday and don’t know what day of the week it is” image. Adobe.com. File no: 408910903.
Wild, Stephi. “LALIFF 2021 Will Screen BLURSDAY, a Film Shot During Lockdown In Three Different Countries.” Broadway World. May 29, 2021. URL: https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/article/LALIFF-2021-Will-Screen-BLURSDAY-a-Film-Shot-During-Lockdown-In-Three-Different-Countries-20210529.