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What is Glowsticking?
What is Glowsticking?
| Should We Spread Glowsticking In High School? |
| Thursday, 07 February 2008 21:00 | ||
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An in-depth article discussing the issue of "Should we spread glowsticking in a high school setting?" Many newcomers and non-glowstickers ask this question -- Why is it so bad to glowstick in a high school setting?? I will admit that this is not an easy question to answer, and the answer is also not an easy one to comprehend. However, I do believe that it is important for us to try our best to understand this topic fully, in order to preserve our beloved dance and its culture. The following explanation will be based somewhat on generalization, but I believe this generalization is necessary, especially on this specific topic. Will there be exceptions? Perhaps. But realize that history often repeats itself unless we make a collective and conscious effort to change its path. Since glowsticking is relatively new, in order to find answers in history, we look to another underground dance form that has already made its mark? Bboying or breakdancing. Bboying started as a fairly underground dance form, but once MTV got a hold of it, it exploded through TV and movies such as Flashdance. After that, it seemed like everyone was spinning on their backs on a piece of cardboard. MTV made bboying the popular thing to do, not just for the people who live bboying as a lifestyle, but for everyone, the general public. It’s not hard to see that during this process, the culture and the meaning behind bboying becomes diluted. People who saw bboying through mass media only saw the moves, and the fame associated with the ability to perform these moves. The culture and its meaning are, of course, lost. After all, you don’t need to understand what bboying is about in order to learn the moves and become popular, to jump on the trend. Naturally, when MTV decided that bboying is no longer the cool thing to do, these posers fell off the bandwagon. Bboying was chewed up and spitted out by mainstream. The point is, when an underground dance form becomes a mean to popularity, whether through mainstream and mass media or otherwise, it dilutes the art and culture. Many of the poser-bandwagon-break dancers have no idea what it means to be a Bboy, they just copy what is cool. That’s the lesson I think glowsticking can learn from the history of underground dance forms. Many of us who has been through high school can agree that a big part of high school revolves around fitting in, popularity, and trying to identify yourself. This is definitely not a bad thing; it's just a process that most of us had to go through before truly finding ourselves. However, it is most likely a bad setting to introduce an often-misunderstood underground dance form, such as glowsticking. If we ask the high school kids who insist on glowsticking in high school why they do it, most of them will answer something along the lines of, "I did it once, then a lot of people thought that it was cool." They all came to ask me about it afterwards. I can therefore spread/promote glowsticking, because honestly, why would anyone keep glowsticking in school if they get picked on for it? With that said, can you see how it is very likely that they are glowsticking only for attention and praise, either subconsciously or purposefully? It makes perfect sense for people to repeat something because it was positively reinforced (through praise and gaining popularity), especially high school kids. If they don’t care about the attention and popularity they gain, why can’t they wait until after school? Wait until they go home or their friend’s house? Wait for a Glowsticking.com meet up? Or even organize their own Glowsticking.com meet up? The biggest concern of spreading glowsticking this way (in high school), is that the culture and meaning behind the dance often gets lost, much like what mainstream did to bboying. Let’s look at the 2 possible scenarios: One, you glowsticked at school and got picked on by many of your peers, so you probably won’t do it again in school and that was that. Two, you glowsticked at school and received positive responses, gained some attention, popularity, and had some people inquired about it. Let’s consider the best case scenario after that: you understand the culture related to glowsticking pretty well, you understand the philosophy and the non-competitive nature of it, and you explained to your peers all of this when they asked you about glowsticking. Why do you think your high school peers is now interested in glowsticking? Isn’t it very possible that the positive reinforcements (the praise, the popularity) are their motive? Much like how MTV made bboying the cool thing to do, you have just made glowsticking the cool thing to do amongst your peers. Perhaps you had the good intention of spreading glowsticking the right way by explaining the culture and philosophy behind the dance, but you have to consider how perceptive your audience would be towards these ideas. It is so easy for people to copy what you are doing without understanding the importance of culture, because they can gain what they want just the same. It is easy for us to say that culture and philosophy behind glowsticking is important because we care about this dance. But at the same time, we all need to realize that in an environment and mindset where popularity and fitting in is the most important thing, that often overshadows everything else. Just look at what kind of music high school kids listen to, what kind of cloth they wear, or even just how they talk, and maybe you will understand what I mean. Almost everything done in high school is for the same purpose of fitting in. That’s why it’s much better to promote glowsticking at a rave, immersed in the culture that glowsticking originated from. People are already used to the ideals and philosophies of tolerance and acceptance, so there is much less of a chance that people will take it out of context. Even at a club that plays electronica (dance music), you can bet the vibe is closer to a rave than when you are in a high school. People go to a club or a rave to have fun, to party, to let loose. People go to school to learn. Once the culture and meanings are lost, what gets spread around from then on will be the diluted form of the dance. Or even worse, after a friend has taught a friend who has taught a friend, some other ideals that are in direct conflict with what glowsticking should be about gets mixed in there. People who did not care about glowsticking, could very well want to battle each other just because it creates tension and drama that can net them more popularity. Let’s see who is the best. Everybody come watch!! We are going to settle this once and for all!? It may sound like we are saying that, if you are still in high school, then you do not have the ability to appreciate and understand the culture and meaning behind glowsticking, but that’s not the case. There are quite a few Glowsticking.com members who are still in high school, and they live glowsticking. And that is also not to say that immaturity and high school mentality completely disappears after high school. Of course not, different people grow up at different paces, and some carry high school into college with them. No one instantly grows up on the day of graduation. You have to understand that we are not discriminating against age, but against the setting (of glowsticking in high school). Because high school is a breeding ground for mainstream, and what is said often was not heard. Of course we want to promote glowsticking, but we also want to promote it correctly. We need to pick our battles carefully, and more often than not, doing it in a high school setting yields more bad than good. Q & A Q: What about promoting glowsticking in college? How is that different than high school? A: College has more opportunities to explore, more chances to learn about yourself, more people coming from different cultural and experience backgrounds. You are almost forced to learn to be more open-minded. The administration in college is usually less strict than high school. Generally speaking, introducing a sub-culture or dance like glowsticking in college is much safer and usually yields much better results than in high school. Q: I am still in high school, and I am not old enough to go to a rave or a club, but I like to learn about glowsticking and find/hang out people with the same interest. What should I do? A: You came to the right place! Even though Glowsticking.com has most of its members in the United States, we do have members all over the world. Introduce yourself in our community forum and check out our regional/meetup section. You may be surprised to find that there are more glowstickers around you than you think. Glowsticking.com meetups are also a great substitute. You can even take the initiative to organize one if no one else around you is. Bring your non-glowsticker friends to a meetup to introduce them to our culture. Ask more experienced members for help if you need to, I am sure any of them will be very eager to answer any questions you have. Even if there weren’t many glowstickers around you, making friends on our community forum and mingling is a great way to compensate for the distance between all our members. Q: Isn’t glowsticking about expressing yourself? Tolerance and acceptance? Why are you so strict about glowsticking in high school? I just want to have fun and do whatever! A: Just because glowsticking is about tolerance and acceptance, it does not mean we should let everyone walk all over us. Just because glowsticking is about expressing yourself, it does not mean you should disrespect this art form that we come to love. We are willing to explain our points nicely and politely, as we did in this article, and in return, you should respect our culture that goes along with the dance. Help us preserve it, and promote it in the right direction. It’s fine that you just want to have fun and you don’t care about glowsticking with your heart and soul, but I hope you can at least see that many of us do, so please don’t help destroy it through disrespect.
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