Every third Monday of January, that is Monday, January 16, 2023, would be the most depressing day of the year.
It even has its name: “Blue Monday”.
Officially, this date was determined by a scholarly scientific calculation linking various conditions and criteria.
Unofficially, Blue Monday is only a commercial and marketing creation.
We find the origin of Blue Monday
(to be translated as "depressed Monday" in French)
in 2005. The travel agency Sky Travel then built a whole communication around the theory that the third Monday of the year is the most depressing , whatever the year.
To prove it, she puts forward an equation signed by a psychologist, taking into account the weather, the salary, the Christmas debts, the time spent since the holidays, the stopping of good resolutions or the motivation to conclude that the third Monday of the year is the most depressing day ever.
But the very way in which this equation was determined proves the deception.
Its "author", Cliff Arnall, has since admitted that it makes no sense (he also signed an equation for an ice cream brand, defining that the third Friday of June was the happiest day ).
In 2006, a scientist revealed in The Guardian that the equation had not even been written by any peer, but that Sky Travel had just offered to pay several of them to sign it.
“I encourage people to refute this theory”
With The Telegraph, in 2010, the author chosen by Sky Travel, Cliff Arnall, had made a kind of mea culpa: “I am delighted if Blue Monday makes it possible to free speech about depression.
From now on, I encourage people to disprove this theory and use this day to focus on what really matters.
“For his two” studies “, the one determining the most depressing day of the year and that for the happiest day, the doctor had been paid just under 2,000 euros, also reported the newspaper.
Despite everything that is known in 2023 about Blue Monday, the "most depressing day of the year" still persists.
Some media
(although increasingly rare)
still take it at face value.
But it is especially on the side of the brands where we see the Blue Monday prosper: Marionnaud thus promises 32% reduction only this Monday on a selection of products, Leclerc promotes raclette and chocolates so "that Blue Monday is a Monday like the others”, Total promises a 16% reduction in its car washes through the application only on that day.
Sky Travel can no longer take advantage of it: since 2010, the travel agency has been closed.
