With the Homecoming Dance this Saturday, the administration faces the perennial problem of raising student attendance. This year, however, instead of a pleading Save the Dance campaign, the administration is instead launching an alternative tagline: Steer into the Skid. The architect of this campaign, administrator Doug E., admitted that “Students just don’t see the dance as ‘cool’ anymore. We get that. Now, we’re using it to our advantage. Instead of trying to make the dance cool, we’re intentionally making it as un-cool as possible. The dance is going hipster.”
This new dance will forgo the standard conventions of the dance such as a DJ and edible food. Instead, the students will be dancing in favor of alternative attractions: someone’s cousin in college playing The Smiths vinyl records, salt-free, fat-free, gluten-free, carbon-free salads, and “just becoming one with the music, man.” As a result of these changes as well as a mandatory dress code of bowties and Doc Martens, ticket sales have gone through the roof.
One enthusiastic student, Joe Fennel, said, <<All my friends are really excited to go to Homecoming. At first we couldn’t decide whether to go, but then we realized that it would be really cool to go to a school function that wasn’t mainstream, like classes or lunch. It’s basically an Anti-anti-Homecoming . . . way more authentic than those Anti-anti-anti-Homecoming posers>> (The student requested to not be quoted with standard “mainstream” double quotation marks).
The changes have extended beyond just the dance, with the administration now planning changes this year for the football game and pep rally. One administrator informed us that instead of the pep rally, students will have the chance to attend a seminar on organic gardening and do-it-yourself silverware. In lieu of the homecoming football game, Deerfield will face GBN in competitive yoga.
In a further effort to make the dance more underground, the location of the dance has been moved to “that one cool coffee place downtown” and the start time is now “whenever.” Students are being asked to bike or gallop to the dance if possible, as little parking is available. Bringing grandparents is encouraged.
Sophomore Adam Cabbage said that he cannot wait to attend the dance, which is being hailed as “the tumblr event of the year.” He and his group plan on stopping by the revamped dance before going on a walking tour of Chicago’s beanie heritage. Adam stated that his main draw to the dance is that “it is one of the only places where it’s quiet enough to think.”
