On Tuesday we arrived at work only to realize that we had missed the memo on an important (unofficial) holiday: Pepero Day. Pepero, a chocolate-covered-breadstick-type-product is the gift of choice for your friends and classmates—and lucky for us, teachers too. The ostensible purpose of this whole ordeal remains unclear, but you can think of it like a cross between Valentine’s Day and Sweetest Day, although this doesn’t even try to seem genuine; it’s 100% pure, Grade-A marketing ploy, and the Lotte conglomerate couldn’t be happier about it.

I can’t overstate how big a deal this is—I saw people lined up at 10pm Monday night with baskets full of these snacks and the kids came in with huge bags to give out, for no reason other than it was November 11th. Entire store displays were built from boxes of this stuff. See, the story is that 11/11 looks like four sticks of Pepero, so a few middle school girls bought some for each other as a token of friendship and now the craze has swept across the country. Seems kinda unlikely to me, at least given my experience with middle school kids.

You don’t want to miss the official Pepero Day song:

In addition, a teacher on YouTube has made a handy guide to this ridiculous holiday and the history of Pepero:

Evidently, Pepero Day is far from unique; it turns out the Koreans have more than 50 product marketing “holidays” over the course of the year, according to the Korea Times:

“It almost became an automatic practice to set aside one day for a businesses’ front product,” said a spokesman of the Korea National Council of Consumer Organizations, adding that because consumers’ psychology drives them to purchase under pressure, companies know what they’re cheap strategy is.

Yes, even basics like Fish, Apples, women’s bras, and pork belly slices have their own “special days” in Korea. I used to say that Sweetest Day was baloney, but I guess I should revise that: Bologna Day is baloney.