50 Shades of Squidward

In our most recent ECHO magazine, for my Letter From The Editor, I mostly focused on trashing the concept of band (Yes, it is pronounced beeeand) being a sport, which similar to Fascism in Germany around 1935, is a commonly accepted ideology because anyone who disagrees is abrasively and rudely silenced. In other words: due to the vocalness of various band members over the years, whom I labeled as sexually active emo freshmen in my editorial, band is considered to be a sport in the school, and held in very high regard at that.

Don’t get me wrong: I love band. This is my fourth year of counting, yelling, sweating and generally being uncomfortable. I love my band family and especially my section; the best friends I’ve ever had have been marching alongside me for four years. Slow and G, the band directors, are in modern vernacular: mah boiiis. As a section leader, I’ve gained so much knowledge in establishing a near cult of personality based on me being stupid and goofy so that my section has fun and isn’t grumpy, making them work harder and try harder in order to do their part in the group, a valuable life skill. Anyway, that is probably a better way of expressing my tenure of section leader instead of being generic and stupid and saying something like it developed me as an individual and a person. On another honest note, I also learned a lot about backing up people in my section/throughout the band who I don’t really like, and how to let them know I have their back. I’m actually proud of that somewhat, because it does fit in with my most recent blog entry sans-majorly dope rap debut of using my passion for activities for developing myself into a better person. Anyway, band is a cornerstone of my high school years and I am proud to be able to say that.

But I expressed somewhat abrasively in about one-hundred words my opinion of band being a sport; and I do emphasize the abrasive label, as I kind of felt like a grade-A meanie when I first got the magazine and read it. For that I’d like to say I only had room for one-hundred words and wrote it at 11:30 on a Friday and felt somewhat edgy. I do consider that editorial somewhat of slip-up on my part, but it’s already out there, so whatever. As it is, I will defend it and still one-hundred percent believe in my point, I just thought I sounded like a jerk though; it came out meaner than it sounded in my head kids. Sorryyyyyy. Essentially, my point was that it’s not all that physical and all scoring is done by judges, meaning we could have the best performance ever in the history of high school marching bands, but if they didn’t like our hats they could give us the worst score ever in the history of high school marching bands.

I’m okay with people respecting the band, I actually do feel like acknowledgment and positivity towards the band has increased exponentially over the course of my career. Anyway, when I was a Freshman, we made finals at our first competition, which was the first time we had any achievement of that sort in four years. It was cool being a part of that, and is without a doubt one of my favorite memories even after all this time, even though we were in the seventh out of eighth seed, we didn’t care. One kid did though, and made Facebook posts about band being lame and seventh out of eighth isn’t that great and kids needed to chill out. Anyway, he was basically harassed by band kids for like, two weeks, including having a desk covered with sticky-notes saying band isn’t a sport. I don’t actually know how it really went down, but his senior quote in the yearbook was “band isn’t a sport”, which I found hilarious. After that, I feel like band was looked at differently at the school, which doubtlessly coincides with our improved performances and stuff, I guess. After that, every Monday in October is marked with questions from teachers and non-band people being overtly passionate about how good a job the band is doing; how the band is so underrated and deserves more respect; how the band has died and rose again in order that we would be able to experience God’s love and be reunited with him in paradise, just kidding, that’s Jesus Christ.
People don’t actually confuse Jesus with the marching band, but that was an expression to furthen my point, which is that people don’t need to take the band as seriously as they do in this school. You’re not a horrible inconsiderate jerk for not thinking an evening rehearsal is equivalent to a triathlon;you don’t need to walk up to me and say “hey man, like, what’s the football team doing on the BAND field! Amirite?!?!”, in fact, really don’t do that, because I’ll throw up in my mouth a little every time anyone says that; and you don’t need to pretend that the band is underrated/our hard work goes undeserved, it’s not and it doesn’t.
Essentially, I’d say that Rolla High School is a lot like Central Europe in 1935, with the sexually active freshman, which is more of a group of passionate band kids that in my opinion just think as a part of a hivemind and don’t try to define themselves, essentially playing into made up stereotypes that might apply to them because they are lacking in self-depth, being Nazis, and everyone else, people who really wouldn’t care normally, acting like they care because of the threat of a said group. With the Nazis, it was because they had guns and stuff; while with the previously referenced band individuals, they are kind of intolerably annoying/you just feel sorry for them due to their lack of awareness. Now band kids, I don’t care if you think band is a sport, I know a lot of you do, that’s okay, and you can still be cool in my book. But I also know that you know there are some people whose passion for band being a sport and unoriginal jokes about how they are a band kid make one-hundred and eighty five of us collectively wish that we could apply a policy of entropy minimization on them, or at least their mouths. Mmmmmhmmm…
With all that said: I love band. It’s not a sport though. We work hard as a band, but I feel like people overcompensate with their respect for us because they know we work hard. To non band people: You don’t have to cater to us to make us feel better about some kids completely unnecessary inferiority complex with a normally-less-than-amazing football team that did a really good job Friday night and made me proud to be in their band (emphasis on THEIR band; the vast majority of football team disrespect comes from the band and I find that shameful, especially because many kids use the argument that the school board annually sacrifices ninety-five percent of the school’s budget alongside nine innocent flute-virgins to the football team instead of buying us some a new marimba, again, as a shield in order to just be hateful), furthermore, don’t let the small yet confident and vocal minority oppress you. Whenever a non-band person speaks up about their opinion of band not being a sport (true), or that band is lame (way truuuu), or that we don’t really work that hard (some kids really don’t), or that band really isn’t that physical at all (true), I just want to hug them. I’m proud of them.