588: Pep Rally

Pep Rally

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Title text: You know, pep rallies weirded me out in high school, and they've only gotten creepier in retrospect.

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Explanation

American high schools have a long and widespread tradition of pep rallies. These events typically take place during football or basketball season. The student body is crowded into the gymnasium, often the school fight song is played, cheerleaders and/or the school mascot might do a routine, and the team is introduced. The intent of such events is to inspire school spirit and encourage support for the sports team and attendance at games.

Randall apparently finds such events to be "creepy". The notion of "school spirit" tends to involve emotional involvement with a group identity which is almost entirely arbitrary. As Randall points out, American school districts are generally divided geographically (by ZIP code, in this case), and which school a person attends is both involuntary and more or less random. Moreover, the notion of such rallies is based around hyping up the school, with cheers calling themselves "the best" or something similar being quite common. Not infrequently, there's either an implicit or explicit denigration of whatever school is their primary rival in sports.

That notion clearly troubles Randall, because such divisions make no sense, and are potentially hurtful and even harmful.

In this strip, while some students appear to agree with the sentiment, others openly challenge it, pointing out that students from the opposing school have done kind things for them. This sentiment appears to spread, as multiple people chime in, referring to good people who happen to go to, or work at, a different school. One student mentions that he's texting with a friend who goes to the other school, who "sounded kind of hurt" by their cheer.

In a superficial sense, this can be taken as a deconstruction of things like cheers and slogans (which were likely never meant to be taken literally). In a larger sense, though, defining oneself by an arbitrary group identity (be that national, ethnic, religious, political, etc) and treating that in-group as better than others, is common human tendency that can have very serious social consequences. The strip seems to encourage seeing others as human beings and being kind to everyone as more important than having strong group identities.

The title text says that Randall was weirded out by pep rallies growing up. Introverted people, particularly those with little love of sports, are often uncomfortable with such rallies. Now that he's older, he finds them even more creepy, possibly because he sees them as promoting a brand of tribalism and groupthink which he finds troubling.

Transcript

[Ponytail stands in front of crowded bleachers (with only Cueballs in it), waving pompoms high in the air.]

Ponytail: Lakeview High is the best!

Crowd: Yeah!

Voice #1: Wait, why?

[Zoom on Ponytail, now with her hands and pompoms down.]

Ponytail: What?

Voice #1 (off-screen): A guy on the North High football team helped me rebuild my deck.

Voice #1 (off-screen): It seems ungrateful to presume we're better.

[Same picture with Ponytail now just listening.]

Voice #1 (off-screen): I mean, school districts are just based on zip codes.

Voice #2 (off-screen): Their principal donated a kidney to my dad.

[Ponytail looks down, holding up her pompoms.]

Voice #1 (off-screen): I'm texting with my friend there now. He says it's okay, and we're invited to their events if we want.

Voice #1 (off-screen): But he sounded kind of hurt.

Voice #2 (off-screen): Why are we doing this rally, again?

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Discussion

Reminds me of the whole traditional situation that various war leaders would inspire the troops prior to a battle with the whole "I spoke to God(/equivalent), and He is with us!" sort of thing. Presumably similar speeches were being made by his opposing number. And then there's the comedic subversion of "I had a little chat with God, last night and... I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. But you'll still try your best, right chaps?" 178.105.100.250 00:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Various times in the Bible, the leader would ask if they'd win this fight. God would say no, and the leader would refuse to fight. They only went headfirst into losing fights when they didn't listen to God. So there wasn't that subversion really. At least, not from their point of view. Cflare (talk) 15:38, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

You know, I think he may have got that from somewhere else.108.162.249.157 13:07, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I remember back in high school (not to far back), I once gave an obnoxious and over the top rant in APUSH comparing the high school rally to nationalistic propaganda indoctrinating Americans into an Us-Them Mentality. My APUSH teacher found it hilarious. We also had an Anti-Rally, where all the students (and teachers) who didn’t want to go to the rally would go hang by the cafeteria and play Cards Against Humanity, Mau, Ninja, or whatever else came to mind. I have a distinct memory of my Robotics teacher watching me friends and I play CAH. Also of playing CAH during APUSH and AP Lit after the AP Tests. This has nothing to do with anything, this just reminded me of those events and I thought people may find it amusing. If i’m Off base here, then I apologize. -- Comment Police (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I want to do this. Rallies are more obnoxious than your rant could ever have been. Trogdor147 (talk) 03:22, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps we should include a mention of the extraneous comma in the final panel ("...this, rally, again?") as a typo?-DrKaii -- Comment Police (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It could have been a 'verbal comma', where the speaker pauses to emphasize the word 'rally'. Possibly for sarcasm. [And I'm sorry, I probably ought to create a login, as much as I read explainxkcd.] 68.204.55.141 00:09, 9 December 2025 (UTC)
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