The Panther Pep Crew, the leaders of Purple Mayhem, unveiled a fresh dance to Panther Nation last week, called The Hum. It’s rather simple, not difficult to catch on to if you haven’t see the short tutorial video the Pep Crew did on their Facebook and Snapchat.

Panther Nation knows how to get rowdy! Get ready for the year of "The Hum" @NCAA pic.twitter.com/Uk3dYr5elX
— Panther Pep Crew (@PantherPepCrew) September">https://twitter.com/PantherPepCrew/status/77587037... 14, 2016

 

But recently, "The Hum" has been getting called out as "replacing the Interlude," the dance that Ian Goldsmith created in 2010.

 

 

As a senior at UNI and a social media executive for the Panther Pep Crew, I would like to point out a few things before you “hate on The Hum.”

 

Enter the Interlude

 

Ian Goldsmith, in a stroke of genius, created the Interlude and posted the tutorial on YouTube on November 3, 2010. It was a hit and a little bit of a claim to fame, putting UNI on the map. Goldsmith even got Michelle Obama to do the Interlude.

 

Let’s do the math here. It’s been six years since the Interlude debuted. I, personally, was a sophomore in high school. Now, let’s think of those that are incoming students who are freshmen this year or who will be freshmen next year. They would have been in middle school when the Interlude was a huge deal.

 

Game Attendance

 

Game attendance is iffy depending on if it is a big game or not or if it’s Men’s basketball or women’s and such like that. But if you break that game attendance down by class (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate) you’ll notice that there’s generally less upperclassmen. I don’t know if upperclassmen just don’t have the time or if they think sports aren’t cool anymore or if ‘there’s too many freshmen’ but AS an upperclassman, I make sure to go to games because I’m supporting the student athletes on the team and it’s fun.

 

As the tweet above states, “No upperclassmen go to the athletic events anymore because Panther Pep Crew comes up with “The Hum” and brainwash all the freshmen to follow their cult. #bringbacktheinterlude” Well, I’m sorry, but in recent years, when the Interlude would play, no one would do it anyway. So it’s not the problem of ‘what our intimidation song is’ it’s the problem of people, when something changes, cannot handle that change and want to reform to that which is familiar.

Rebranding

 

UNI Athletics in general is going through a small rebranding. I don’t know if it’s just me as a design student, but I find it interesting. Take, for example, all the UNI varsity sports’ social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter). The logos have been changed so they all have a uniform theme. There’s more focus on the gold in UNI’s purple and gold color scheme. The logo and font stay unchanged, but the layout and uniformity is fresh. UNI also added some branding in the UNI-Dome, with the addition of “UNI FOOTBALL” under one of the press boxes and adding “Football” to the garage door that the football team enters the Dome through.

 

 

Keeping it Fresh

 

We can’t continue to do the same thing forever. We have to keep it lively and fresh and exciting for those who come after us. If we look at the example of the Interlude, we see that it started off hot, then at some point students thought they were too cool for it. And now, we don’t do it often at all at games because the athletics department knows that students won’t do it. Six years is a long time, almost everyone who would have been in the “original Interlude class” or was at UNI when it started will have graduated or be close to graduating by now. So why not have something fresh for those that are up and coming? They seem genuinely excited about it. Give them a chance to make it their own.

 

Taking Pride in Panther Nation

 

As far as UNI Athletics goes, they have fully embraced this fresh addition to the game programming. If you look at the video of the crowd doing “The Hum” during the Iowa State volleyball game, you’ll see that it worked to some degree at pumping the crowd and UNI team up while intimidating Iowa State.

Here it is guys! The new dance called "The Hum" Let's get rowdy this year, let's put some fear into our opponents! pic.twitter.com/KwPaoyAEuG
— Panther Pep Crew (@PantherPepCrew) September">https://twitter.com/PantherPepCrew/status/77551328... 13, 2016

 

The student section, Purple Mayhem, has been the fullest I’ve ever seen it during a volleyball game. The Panther Pep Crew had grown dramatically in number since last year. This means there are more people fired up to help cheer on and support the athletes that play their hearts out for Panther Nation. And isn’t that what we’re at the games for?

 

So, before you get your emotions all in a wad (which, really, if you’re freaking out over this your priorities are not in order) over the Interlude and “The Hum” just know that someone took time to create that dance, that “intimidation factor,” whatever you want to call it and it’s been a GIGANTIC success. Don’t tear them down.

There are many things in this world we don’t agree with, but sometimes we need to accept them, acknowledge them, and move forward.