The history of the clichés of high school culture

Breaking news! I got a DM from the artist of the game who explained the mystery card: "The creator of the game has been including depictions of past tournament winners in the games as 'champion cards,' so if someone takes the top trophy at one of the Epic Spell Wars tournaments, they get to be added to a future game. That guy was a sort of burly tattooed dude who was into weightlifting so I made him look like a Masters of the Universe character and his real name is Zach."

Fun fact: George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Franklin D. Roosevelt were all cheerleaders in college.

I think “Zachaton” is a play on the word “Hackathon” which is a competition in which programmers are grouped together in teams to create a program in a limited time frame, ranging from about a whole weekend to a whole week or month. Game Jams are a subset of this in which people go together to make a video game under a certain theme such as a word or phrase. Although, this is more of a College activity than a high school activity The phrase on his chest is an infinite loop in the BASIC programming language in which it will print the phrase “KICK ASS” repeatedly. This is more speculation, but I did notice that there is an interesting subset of programmers who are strangely into weight lifting and self sufficiency such as Mental Outlaw and Luke Smith. It could also be that high school teachers also double as coaches for sports teams. It could be that the computer teacher might be a weight lifting teacher. Edit: Zachaton’s face and beard does slightly resemble Richard Stallman, an Open Source advocate and key developer/founder of the GNU/Linux project.

Just a note about American High School yearbooks. I can only speak for my experience at my schools, but yearbooks we're not free. They were actually quite pricey ($80-100+ USD), and if you couldnt come up with the cash, you missed out on what was made to be a "quintessential" school experience. ***Edit: spelling correction

I think it’s really interesting that the stereotypical “American High School” is all based upon stereotypes from the 80’s. High school now-a-days in the States is quite different. We definitely still have the shells of those stereotypes, but I’ve never seen a TV show or movie about some of the newer cliques that high schoolers talk about.

I’m surprised JJ didn’t mention marching bands, I’d say they have become a massive part of American high school culture as well. Edit: I’d say they are pretty common in almost every state. I haven’t seen many public high schools without ones.

Fun fact: The College Board, trying to distance themselves from the SAT’s initial intent to determine aptitude/natural ability (bc it was based on eugenics and stuff), has made the SAT an empty acronym now. Technically the SAT doesn’t stand for scholastic aptitude test now, it stands for nothing 🤷‍♂️

My dad is a Chinese immigrant to America and his only exposure to American high schools was from 80's movies and one day he pulled me aside and very seriously said "Listen... if you are getting bullied by the jocks, you can tell me." and then I had to inform him that sort of bullying really only happened in teen movies.

As someone who attended American public schools K-12 and graduated high school in 2018, I think the Zachaton card is a relatively new clique that was emerging when I graduated. In America, there was always this divide between the “jocks”, who were usually always thought of as musclebound, attractive, physical paragons who were dumb as a box of rocks, and the “geeks/gamers”, who were typically imagined as nerdy, scrawny, generally unattractive bookworms, into board games, trading card games and video games, all things that in the early 2000’s were seen as “lame” or just for kids. But when I was leaving, I want to say around 2015-16ish, those two groups began to dissolve and form this kind of fusion clique of people who were both physically in shape and did sports as well as people who enjoyed the more “nerdy” kinds of things listed above, and it became less black and white. That’s my interpretation anyway.

19:20 I don't think yearbooks are generally offered for free. In my school there was usually a fairly hefty price between $30 - $60 to get them.

I was the kid that would be bullied mercilessly by the jocks in a stereotypical American high school. In reality the other students stuck to their cliques and just ignored the solitary awkward types like me.

He should make a second part: There are so many clichés that couldn't be fit in this video!

maybe it's just a canadian vs. US thing, but my high school yearbooks were ABSOLUTELY NOT FREE LMAO. i had to pay 70 dollars for my senior one.

As a Malaysian, my first impression of American high school based on movies is that there is full of bullying and fighting, and friendship between girls are always so fake, as there is so much betrayal and talking behind your back. And there are also cliques. If you sit at the wrong seat in the canteen, you will be bullied. And there is a constant struggle to be popular. If you try to be popular but your efforts go awry, you will be shamed forever and your name in high school will forever be tarnished. Basically very bad impressions. But apparently American high school isn't all doom and gloom according to the comments in this video.

The SAT is really crazy. Speaking as someone who got a relatively good grade (1260), studying for the SAT is almost like it’s own subject. There are classes specifically just called ‘SAT Prep’, and moreso from just talking about like strategies for manipulating questions in a way. It’s really strange to be honest

6:42 "Edge-lord neckbeard" - lose 2 social status - Then deal 3 damage to each foe with higher Social Status This one made me chuckle

As an American who grew up in the Midwest, I can say that I've never seen the Canadian style pizza pockets before, but have had countless hot pockets. In fact, they are so ubiquitous that I and everyone I know use the brand name "Hot Pockets" as a generic, like Kleenex.

Speaking about the American school system, when I first heard the term “kindergarten”, it was in the context of “I’ll have you know that I graduated kindergarten” or “we were in kindergarten together” so at the time I thought kindergarten was an elite nursery school that middle class parents would send their kids, like the nursery equivalent of Harvard or Yale.

I’ve always been blown away by the difference in American high school experiences just a few decades created. My mom did have an experience much closer to the movies- she went to a decently-sized high school up north. There were definitely cliques, she had a bully, and one time my (awful) grandmother had her dress up as a HEFTY TRASH BAG for Halloween which would be traumatic for anyone lmao, and the bully literally picked her up and walked her down the hall going “I’m taking out the trash” as people laughed and watched before being deposited in a trash can. Mom eventually got the bully to stop during a different year by ripping her earrings out of her ears 🤢 Meanwhile I grew up in a small east Texas town and my high school experience was a world apart- there were certainly cliques in that you had your group of friends you’d spend most of your time with because you shared classes or clubs, but the athletes were all also part of theater or band, the nerds who were in student council and stuff were also the burnout potheads, and there was almost no actual, stereotypical bullying. More cyberbullying and sneaky crap.

I would love to see gen z high school inspired shows now as a lot has def changed from even the 2000s high school experience.