These Were The Twitter Heroes We Needed On IWD

Not all heroes rescue puppies from burning buildings and punch Nazis in the face. Sometimes, they take time out of their busy day to inform trolls and clueless dudes on Twitter that International Men's Day does exist — and, by the way, that International Women's Day isn't the appropriate time to start whining about misandry and the matriarchy. Well, unless your intention is to illustrate the very reasons we still need feminism; in that case, Twitter trolls are doing a great job. Fortunately, so are Twitter feminists — in particular, English stand-up comedian Richard K. Herring, who responded to literally everyone who, in response to all the chatter about International Women's Day, asked when International Men's Day is, reminding them that it is, in fact, real. Bustle has reached out to Herring for comment and will update when we hear back.

On March 8, each year without fail, Twitter explodes with people (mostly men) complaining about International Women's Day for leaving men out. "Where's International Men's Day, huh?" they ask, as if it hasn't been celebrated daily since the dawn of time. As Select/All points out, this train of thought is the gendered equivalent of wondering why there isn't a White History Month every time February rolls around, with one significant difference: Unlike White History Month, International Men's Day actually exists.

It's on November 19. Surprise!

This year, International Women's Day also marked the Day Without A Woman. You might think that while ladies were taking a well-deserved day off to go protest the patriarchy, Twitter would turn into a neckbearded hellscape of men's rights activism, but you would be wrong. On Wednesday, a number of feminists rose to the occasion, correcting everyone who complained about the lack of International Men's Day.

The award for MVP, however, undoubtedly goes to Herring, who tweets under the username @Herring1967. On Wednesday, he took it upon himself to respond to every single person he saw asking about International Men's Day.

Seriously. All of them.

As you can see, Herring was no Twitter bot — he was carefully crafting each reply for maximum, glorious condescension.

Unsurprisingly, he got a little frustrated from time to time.

As more and more people noticed his project, he capitalized on the attention to encourage people to donate to the anti-domestic violence organization Refuge, which focuses on women and children. Later, he tweeted that the organization had reportedly received more than £10,000 more than usual in donations on Wednesday.

Herring is by far the most dedicated, but he wasn't the only person to take on the Sisyphean task of correcting misinformed meninists. Many other Twitter users joined in, including genderqueer blogger and activist Charles Clymer.

Maybe one day International Women's Day will go by without a chorus of "but what about men?!" reverberating from the internet. It would obviously be ideal if this was the result of society achieving gender equality, but honestly, I'd settle for men's rights activists learning to use Google. In the meantime, here's a fun game: On November 19, come back and see if anyone is actually celebrating International Men's Day after all the fuss.