When I was a young teen, back in the mid-nineties, our school had an event they called "Cheemo Days" which apparently arises from an Inuit word meaning friendship. Knowing the cultural sensitivity of the town I grew up, I have no idea if this is correct.
Cheemo days were our school's version of "school spirit" week, where the Leadership class (handpicked mysterious cloaked students in some classroom ringed with opaque smoke, for various right-minded Christian children) chose some kind of fancy-dress theme, chose a bunch of "hilarious" games to play over lunch and a whole week of theme-based events.
The theme never failed to rest of some kind of vaguely insulting stereotype, something that would have been hilarious had you not been a member of that group. For example, Geeks, Punks, Goths, etc., all with themed costuming, all poking fun at the actual kids that fit these vague stereotypes.
For example, while I didn't really fit with them, I was often lumped in with the "geeks," and being part of that year's "geeks" team meant basically joining the Big Bang Theory for a week, dressed in geekface with a calculator and a pocket protector.
Now maybe for you, this sounds like overreaction. Of course it was - we were teens; nonetheless, it's important to point out that we had a particularly toxic school for "weirdos" - our town had the most Churches per capita in North America, and a very restrictive sense of "normal."
Our school was visited by anti-discrimination groups twice, and at least once they were booed and jeered and vowed not to return. My sister was "weird" enough for folks to light her hair on fire, and no, not as a prank. We even had a nearby White Power uprising - it wasn't a pleasant place to be labelled "different."
Despite being part of the groups parodied, I actually didn't mind that much. I mean, it hurt some of my friends who didn't like their actual style being parodied (this was back when being a geek was the equivalent of being a 30's sideshow attraction, before geeks were cool).
Similar to the punks, who found the "punk" costumes pretty demeaning. Still, I didn't mind, I thought it was "lame" but not really insulting. Just kind of one of those things I'd rather ignore and go about my business.
In the first year of my experience, I remember being too shy to don a full costume, but deciding to play along a bit, wearing my team colours. Apparently this wasn't enough "spirit," and I was snatched in the hall, downed and pelted with bingo-dabbers. I skipped all the events and generally stayed out of school at lunch.
The next year, the theme was around professions. I had been slotted into the "plumber" team, and despite everything, dressed in my best work-clothes, even bought a mini plunger to complete the ensemble. A kid who I'm pretty sure's dad was a plumber, stole my stuff and tossed my plunger into the rafters. Needless to say I skipped the events.
The next year, I was kind of dreading the whole thing. I was hanging around an older kid now (we wrote and directed a couple of short plays, horribly derivative 4th wall splattering comedies with way too many characters) and the "freaks" of the school, all gun enthusiasts with a penchant for porn, trucks, and bad cop movies and I was kind of sick of Cheemo days.
I thought, wouldn't it be fun if we created our own team. Pull a parody bit, maybe even show up and fail at a few games. I thought it was a bad idea, but my older friend thought it was hilarious. We bounced around 90's alternative isn't it ironic names until we came up with the Independent Team, with the slogan, "Join Us, Be Different!"
Our goal was to recruit a couple of the other freaks and geeks who didn't participate in Cheemo, folks who were going to skip the whatever stupid theme it was and the games anyway, and rally around with a few laughs. We made a few posters. My favourite slogan the older kid drafted was "Cheemo Days Is the Opiate of the Masses," but we had a lot of jokes of that ilk. We put up a few posters in public areas, with a few joke slogans.
The next day they were gone. Every one, torn down and scrunched into the trash. Maybe they had a right to do that, but it was irksome that nobody even got to see the joke. Somehow, however, the word had got out to every member of the high-school underclass that there was a new team, and the "man" (other children) didn't like it.
We soon had meetings of a dozen or more co-conspirators, including the absolute pariahs of secondary society. Suddenly it was an all-consuming mission, just trying to get one poster up that wasn't immediately quashed.
I printed off some deliberately misspelled "Join the Independant Team: We Stand Apart, Really Really Far Apart," type missives and snuck after ours to celo-tape them in the hidden corners of the school. I put them on windows, which was a feat, since our school practically had no windows, and those that it had were barred with a metal lattice.
Every poster was gone by morning. Now the school had a veritable movement on its hands. Freaks and geeks were printing posters in their spare time, I even had a guy tell me a poster reading "I bet you 10 bucks you'll tear this poster out of my hand" was torn out of his hand. One guy, the school scapegoat, the Harry under-the-stairs of the whole school, and his one friend printed business cards with Anarchy symbols and various slogans mixing fascist and anarchist ideology (I don't know how that makes sense either).
People were passing them along in secret, while meanwhile, I was writing a letter to the school and to various other authorities on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (yep, I was an ass) arguing that our rights were being quashed - I abandoned this step however, when I read what was being written on behalf of the independent team now.
Now people were taking it REAL serious and I was a little nerved. At our last meeting several of the lowest ranked kids started talking about what we were going to do next year. Somebody floated the idea of a "Fascist" team, and mentioned how "nothing" was going to stop us again, what kinds of battles they were ready to throw down if anybody stepped in our way.
I just backed out. It was all just big teen talk, but I made sure not to mention the Independent Team for the rest of the year, hoping it didn't come up again. I had the feeling something bad was going to happen if that started again.
The independent team didn't rise, but something else did. One year after that, Columbine happened in the US. Everyone wanted to blame video games, or TV, or movies, but for me it was obvious. If a little prank based solely on goofy ironic slogans could boil over into a thirst for revenge, I could completely understand how two kids with access to guns and a few shoulder-borne chips could take that final step of gumption and kill the enemy.
These guys were desperate to fit in with anybody, to be noticed for something other than being "weirdos" or losers. They'd burn the school down to feel an iota of warmth. So I don't know if that fits, but yeah, I'm so glad kids are taught to be more inclusive today. Maybe it doesn't always work, but I hope people know the drying tinder that sits silently in the corner of a high-school hallway.
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