Today I got to miss a day of school. Generally, this is a prospect which would make me happy. Actually, I cannot recall the last time I missed school and felt bad about it. Even when I'm sick, I'm happy to miss school. So yes, I am not the biggest fan of school. But today was an exception. Today, I would've gladly attended school. I would've happily sat through my French class. I would've gratefully sat through my confusing physics class, and hell, I even would've smilingly written my math test. I would've done all these things to avoid We Day.
Crazy, cult, prozac, psychotic, unwell, worship and cocaine - all peculiar words which I will now officially associate with We Day and the Me to We organization in general.
Today is a life changing moment for me. I have experienced enlightenment. I feel wiser. It's incredible.
Here's the story:
So, a few weeks ago my wonderful French teacher (probably my favorite) explained the concept of Me to We to my class. She followed this explanation by asking how many of us would be interested in attending "We Day", the event associated with those who take part in the Me to We club. I raised my hand. First, the concept of giving back in your own way sounded appealing. Second, the concept of legitimately skipping school on the day of Math and Physics sounded fabulous, frankly.
Our teacher explained that being part of Me to We usually entails selling some products they tell you too. However, my teacher being very cool, made it very clear to us that we didn't need to do that; she told us that we could give back in our own ways. Particularly, she suggested that we maybe educate ourselves about clean water, or education, or something, and then share our knowledge with some other people at our school. This seemed good enough to me. So, a friend and I agreed to go and our teacher readily accepted us.
Being that the event is one which comes with a lot of hype, many people in our school were eager to go. Many people signed up to go, but there were only 20 tickets. In the end, 20 of us got to go. Naturally, we were very excited. Like I said, We Day comes with a whirlwind of hype, so going is something that is almost revered. If anything, We Day seems like a concert. There are a bunch of big name performers, so it's some sort of incentive to go. For me, most arena events are fun. I enjoy being in a huge crowd of screaming people. Sure, smaller, more intimate concerts are better, but arena events are a-okay by me. Finally, my friends were going.
If you were pathetic at math and physics. If you didn't speak the respective, numerical languages, wouldn't you be happy to disappear for a day? Sure you would. Now, what if you were not just disappearing to wallow in your own pity? What if you were disappearing to go to a concert with your friends?
Needless to say, I went to We Day today.
As you may have probably figured by now, I hated it.
Scratch that.
I didn't hate it. It scared me. Actually, it scared me to the point that I was regretful of not sitting in my amazingly brain-draining physics class. More than that, it scared me to the point where I was begging the universe to melt me into the Earth and use me as fertilizer for the crops in Mozambique. No, even more than that, I was hoping to be sitting in my grey math class and staring blankly, as per usual, at my test paper. Yes, yes, it was actually bad.
What could be so bad about an event as innocent as We Day? So much. For starters, it's not all that innocent.
First, for those of you who may not know what We Day is, I'll give you a run down:
A Me to We club at your high school may exist. It's purpose is to help others, whether locally or globally, in any way. This can be done in many ways. Some raise awareness, others raise money, but the basic goal is the same: help. Not a bad premise, right?
Anyways, We Day is supposed to act as an incentive for people to join the club. If you work hard to help people, your school gets tickets to We Day! There you get things and listen to your favorite musicians and speakers. All of these things inspire you to be wonderful and continue helping. Fair enough. And this is what I thought We Day would be.
Honestly, I am not the biggest fan of speeches, when the subject matter is, to me, uninteresting. As much as I love delivering them, I hate listening to them. When a person tells me about their life-changing trip to Thailand, I say "fine." Realistically, white people usually go to places like Thailand and Africa for one purpose. Need I say it? Sex. But they aren't all bad. For argument's sake, let's assume that the story we are being told is solely for inspirational purposes, and no sex exploitation of underage Thai kids has taken place. I'm still not interested. It bores me. But that's just me. I'm more there to listen to the music and be with my friends. But I digress.
My class made it to We Day. We took our seats and got excited. We took some pictures, and excitedly waited for the show to begin. And soon thereafter, it did.
One of the first speakers was the founder of the organization. The man was inebriated, at least I think he was. My conclusion comes based on the fact that I have never seen a man act that way without having a solid concentration of cocaine in hiss body. The guy jumped with each syllable he said. He flailed his hands. He grinned so broadly that his cheekbones nearly disintegrated. And most noticeably, his eyes were wide. They were the eyes of a cult-leading, cocaine-intoxicated man. Actually, if I had to draw a comparison, it would be to Joel Osteen. You know the televangelist? Yeah, him. Except that even Joel Osteen seems less jacked up than this guy. Joel Osteen doesn't prance around the stage; he doesn't gallop from one side to the other of a stage. That was this We Day guy. He was crazy. Seriously crazy. And the worst part was that he kept getting back on stage. It wasn't like he said his piece and then rushed back to the pharmacy for more Prozac. No. He would say his piece, get off the stage for a period of time (supposedly to snort a row of coke), and then return to say more stuff.
But you know what was worse? The fact that the man was worshiped like an absolutely almighty god. As soon as he was announced, the crowd of mostly tweens would scream as if Justin Bieber was about to come on stage. This leads perfectly into what irked me, or rather, shocked me the most during this event. The Heil Hitler signs. Any person has, at some point in their life, seen this picture, or one like it, from Nazi Germany.
But you know what was worse? The fact that the man was worshiped like an absolutely almighty god. As soon as he was announced, the crowd of mostly tweens would scream as if Justin Bieber was about to come on stage. This leads perfectly into what irked me, or rather, shocked me the most during this event. The Heil Hitler signs. Any person has, at some point in their life, seen this picture, or one like it, from Nazi Germany.
All these Nazis holding up their salute to the Furher. This is what was happening at We Day. No, this is not figurative language. This is not a metaphor. This is actually was all the children at We Day were doing to their Furher. They held up their arms, and they put up three fingers in the shape of a "W" and saluted the Hitler of We Day. It was mind-boggling. The fact is that I had never previously experienced anything like that. Perhaps that is why it was so shocked. But honestly, it was probably shocking mostly because of the resemblance to Nazi Germany. I am kind of at a loss for words. To describe the feeling you get when you see 18000 people all take part in the same greeting is awing. It's indescribable, but it is shiver-inducing - it scares you.
I was scared. Then they started chanting after him. He said "we are powerful, we can change the world" and they repeated after him. I didn't know what to do. What's more, you couldn't escape the terror. There were people standing at each door and you were informed prior to the event that you could not leave your seat during speeches. Having taken psychology, it sounded a lot like a cult to me. In a cult, the leader is enthusiastic. You repeat mantras, so that your brain doesn't have the ability to consider the things happening around you. You establish unity through a common salute or gesture. Your connections to the outside world are cut off. This is what was happening at We Day.
After a solid hour of speeches, a performer would come on and sing something. The crowd would applaud them. But no band got nearly as loud of a welcome as any speaker. Each speaker gave basically the same speech. It was mind-numbing, yet they were cheered for immensely. That is insane. Since when do regular children like speakers more than singers?
I won't drag this on too much longer. I just needed to express my disbelief with the event.
We Day is not a bad idea. To get kids excited for helping the needy is wonderful! It does, however, stop being so wonderful once you consider the means for hyping the children. Cult mentality is not right, no matter the cause, and especially when children are the victims. I am still confused about how one person manages to brainwash such a vast amount of people. Perhaps it isn't just one person, though. Maybe it's just peer pressure. When you look around and see your friend holding their arm up in a Nazi -I mean, We Day- salute, you naturally feel inclined to follow along with it. But it is still so wrong. It is upsetting that people are so much like sheep.
I would love to help out as much as I can. My teacher gave my Me to We club an array of possibilities for helping. I hope to take part.
What I never ever want to take part in again is We Day. I will never go into such a perverted environment again; at least I will avoid it at all costs. Because it is sickening and disgusting and so many more down-putting words. I cannot muster the skills needed to express how nauseating We Day was for me.
If I have the choice of taking a math test or going to We Day, I'm going to go with the math test. Frankly, I don't know if I would I have survived an hour longer. Maybe I would have started slitting my wrists. Being surrounded by my friends was not actually helpful. I felt hypnotized and fearful. I was ecstatic when it ended and when the guards removed their ugly figures from the doors to free me from the purgatory of We Day. I was happy to get the chance to walk through the city with my friend and grab some food. It wasn't special, but it wasn't We Day.
What I found was that greed is no good. I wanted to go to We Day so that I would avoid school, and maybe karma was payed me back for it. I wanted to go to We Day for the fun, the friends, the concerts, and instead I got the scary speeches, the crazy people and the Nazi-reminiscent salute. I yearned to go to We Day, and was willing to do anything to avoid math and physics, and this was the universe's way of telling me to not be so wanting.
So, learn from my mistakes. Don't be so blinded by the apparent shininess of an opportunity that you don't even consider the negative sides of it. Take part in the helping, but don't take part in the cult. Don't do that to yourself.
I was scared. Then they started chanting after him. He said "we are powerful, we can change the world" and they repeated after him. I didn't know what to do. What's more, you couldn't escape the terror. There were people standing at each door and you were informed prior to the event that you could not leave your seat during speeches. Having taken psychology, it sounded a lot like a cult to me. In a cult, the leader is enthusiastic. You repeat mantras, so that your brain doesn't have the ability to consider the things happening around you. You establish unity through a common salute or gesture. Your connections to the outside world are cut off. This is what was happening at We Day.
After a solid hour of speeches, a performer would come on and sing something. The crowd would applaud them. But no band got nearly as loud of a welcome as any speaker. Each speaker gave basically the same speech. It was mind-numbing, yet they were cheered for immensely. That is insane. Since when do regular children like speakers more than singers?
I won't drag this on too much longer. I just needed to express my disbelief with the event.
We Day is not a bad idea. To get kids excited for helping the needy is wonderful! It does, however, stop being so wonderful once you consider the means for hyping the children. Cult mentality is not right, no matter the cause, and especially when children are the victims. I am still confused about how one person manages to brainwash such a vast amount of people. Perhaps it isn't just one person, though. Maybe it's just peer pressure. When you look around and see your friend holding their arm up in a Nazi -I mean, We Day- salute, you naturally feel inclined to follow along with it. But it is still so wrong. It is upsetting that people are so much like sheep.
I would love to help out as much as I can. My teacher gave my Me to We club an array of possibilities for helping. I hope to take part.
What I never ever want to take part in again is We Day. I will never go into such a perverted environment again; at least I will avoid it at all costs. Because it is sickening and disgusting and so many more down-putting words. I cannot muster the skills needed to express how nauseating We Day was for me.
If I have the choice of taking a math test or going to We Day, I'm going to go with the math test. Frankly, I don't know if I would I have survived an hour longer. Maybe I would have started slitting my wrists. Being surrounded by my friends was not actually helpful. I felt hypnotized and fearful. I was ecstatic when it ended and when the guards removed their ugly figures from the doors to free me from the purgatory of We Day. I was happy to get the chance to walk through the city with my friend and grab some food. It wasn't special, but it wasn't We Day.
What I found was that greed is no good. I wanted to go to We Day so that I would avoid school, and maybe karma was payed me back for it. I wanted to go to We Day for the fun, the friends, the concerts, and instead I got the scary speeches, the crazy people and the Nazi-reminiscent salute. I yearned to go to We Day, and was willing to do anything to avoid math and physics, and this was the universe's way of telling me to not be so wanting.
So, learn from my mistakes. Don't be so blinded by the apparent shininess of an opportunity that you don't even consider the negative sides of it. Take part in the helping, but don't take part in the cult. Don't do that to yourself.
