The other day, a friend messaged me after seeing my Instagram status and said, “What on earth is ‘May the 4th be with you’… is that some kind of inside joke?”
And honestly? I felt like I had been waiting for that question my whole life.
Because once you explain it, it’s the simplest thing and yet somehow it’s turned into this whole thing. So let me break it down the way I broke it down for her.
First, let’s talk about what it looks like from the outside. You open Instagram on the 4th of May, and suddenly everyone is posting the exact same sentence. People who have never mentioned Star Wars once in their lives are posting lightsabers. There are clips, memes, dramatic music, and for some reason everyone seems very emotional about it. Then the brands join in. Companies that haven’t said a word about Star Wars all year suddenly sound like lifelong fans with a themed post and a limited offer. It genuinely starts to feel like you missed a meeting.
But here’s what’s actually going on. It all comes from one line in Star Wars: “May the Force be with you.” At some point, fans noticed that “May the Force” sounds exactly like “May the fourth” and that was it. That’s the whole origin. Just a pun that people liked enough to repeat every year until it became a whole day. And here’s the part that makes me love this story even more it wasn’t even fans who started it. Back in 1979, a British newspaper ran the headline “May the Fourth Be With You” to congratulate Margaret Thatcher on becoming Prime Minister. Just a clever headline, probably written by some journalist who thought they were being very funny and then went home and forgot about it. But fans picked it up, ran with it, and somehow, decades later, it turned into a global holiday. Nobody sat down and planned that. It just happened, the way the best things usually do.
And honestly, at this point it’s not even just one day anymore. It’s basically the whole month. May 1st is 501st Day, named after the 501st Legion, a fan group known for their incredibly detailed stormtrooper costumes. May 4th is the main event, where everyone posts quotes, rewatches films, and suddenly remembers they own something vaguely Star Wars-related. May 5th follows with “Revenge of the 5th,” a playful nod to Revenge of the Sith and basically an excuse to focus on the villains and the darker side of the story. May 14th is the birthday of George Lucas, the man who created the entire universe in the first place. May 16th marks the anniversary of Attack of the Clones. May 19th celebrates both The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith. May 21st is Empire Day, which leans into the whole Galactic Empire storyline. May 25th is a big one! It marks the anniversary of A New Hope, alongside Return of the Jedi and Solo: A Star Wars Story. And May 27th marks the anniversary of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.
So at this point, it’s no longer just a clever pun. It’s a full calendar. So what do people actually do on the day? Honestly, it’s simpler than you’d think. A lot of people rewatch a film. Many start with A New Hope because it’s the original entry point into the story. Some post their favourite quotes or scenes. Some dress up. Some fully intend to dress up and then decide they’d rather just stay in with snacks, which is also completely valid. There’s also a suspicious amount of unplanned shopping. People suddenly remember something Star Wars related they definitely need, and the day always ends up more expensive than expected.
But my favourite part of all of this isn’t the memes or the shopping or even the calendar full of dates. It’s what Star Wars is actually about at its core, the idea that no matter how dark things get, good always wins. That’s the thread running through every film, every series, every story in that universe. The odds are never good, the villain is always terrifying, and somehow, somehow, the right side still comes through.
So when someone uses the day as an excuse to sit a friend down and say, okay, tonight you’re finally watching this, that’s the real tradition. Just passing something on that made you feel something, and hoping it does the same for them.
And that’s really all it is. A joke in a newspaper that fans turned into a habit, and then somehow into a whole month!