*Editor’s note: This is an opinionated viewpoint based on one of the members of Knight Media that does not reflect the viewpoints of the entirety of Knight Media

Prospects pep assemblies are underwhelming. There is just no denying it anymore. From freshman year all the way to senior year, it feels like there has been a significant decline in pep assemblies from just four years ago when I was a freshman. With that decline, it has also become obvious that general student participation has also significantly declined during the assemblies as well.

So why do we keep beating the dead horse of pep assemblies? Is it time to just end pep assemblies?

One of the biggest things that has caused pep assemblies to fall flat was how fake they are. The host of each pep assembly reads off of a script for its entirety, the people who play the games are pre-chosen, and everything that happens is pre-scripted. 

For pep assemblies to be fun, they have to feel real and have surprises. Does anybody really care about events that are handpicked by the Associated Student Body (ASB) and everyone else who decides these “fun” events. 

This leads to the question, how can pep assemblies be fixed? To be completely honest, for pep assemblies to be fixed there need to be more than just changes to pep assemblies. Prospect needs to have a complete culture change. 

For years I’ve seen two forms of culture form around Prospect. The real traditions that have been around at Prospect for years, and this fake type of “culture” that has consumed Prospect. 

A fake “culture” that cares more about what people see on social media rather than actually whether the events are beneficial or fun for the students who are forced to participate in them. 

However,  it wasn’t always like this, at one point pep assemblies would not be considered a part of this category. But as time has gone on, pep assemblies have fallen to the darkside and have really become a tradition for how bad they are. 

For pep assemblies to become better, Prospect needs to break away from this fraudulent “culture” and realize that they are abandoning their real traditions. 

Prospect needs to realize that a script is not a tradition, fake games are not a tradition, and forcing students to do “school spirit” dances at 10:45 in the morning is not a real tradition. 

So can Prospect fix pep assemblies? Yes. Will they? Probably not. Because to Prospect, being able to put photos and videos on social media of those pep assemblies matters more than having a fun event.

But it’s not too late for Prospect … If they are able to finally realize that there needs to be a complete change in Prospect’s culture, then things like pep assemblies can become better. But for now, we will have to keep living with terrible pep assemblies.