Follow the Leader
The definition of the word “leader” according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is one who is in charge or command of others. In the animal kingdom, the leader would be the foremost animal, such as a horse or dog, in a harnessed team.
A follower is one who accepts the guidance, command, or leadership of another; or one who has a strong interest or pays close attention to something.
When you put the two together – “Follow the Leader”, you get a very popular game that was played in my childhood.
Growing up in the Bronx we had lots of chances to play Follow the Leader. It is basically a game of copycat. Depending on which version of the game you played and who was decided upon by the group to be the leader, determined various levels of difficulty.
The basic game of Follow the Leader was very simple and for the most part safe. It was a parade of sorts. The leader walked around doing weird things like shaking arms, dancing, walking backward, and the like. Whatever the leader did or sounds they made, all the people behind them had to follow and repeat the same actions.
For you Monty Python fans, imagine John Cleese doing his Ministry of Silly Walks routine https://youtu.be/eCLp7zodUiI with a whole line of kids following him, mimicking every step he takes. Add to that sounds he might make and you have the basics of Follow the Leader.
The younger you were, the simpler it was. When you were really young it was possible that an adult would take the role of leader. But as you got older, it was all kids around your age. And with kid leaders, each time played it became more and more unique, potentially involving trespassing on other people’s properties, running across a street where there were potential vehicles coming. You get the idea. In fact, it didn’t take us long as a group to determine that my friend Ronald was never to be allowed to lead. His comment, “What could possibly go wrong?” was pretty much ignored after the results of his first try at leading.
As we aged, Follow the Leader became stereotyped as a game for little kids. As we were much bigger, we needed more of a challenge in our followings. In fact, to be part of any pre-teen and older-aged group, you had to be a good willing follower or if you refused to follow, you were ostracised and potentially left out of group activities. Peer pressure became the norm. This version of Follow the Leader was called, Truth or Dare.
If Follow the Leader was Copycat, Truth or Dare was Truth or Consequences.
In Truth or Dare, you were asked a question by the leader, which you had to answer truthfully if you chose to; if you chose not to answer, you then had to accept a dare that was given to you. This was not a simple choice since you did not know what the dare was going to be, until after you refused to answer the question asked.
These “truth” questions were always very personal and potentially very embarrassing, generally involving secrets untold. “Who do you love in class?” “Have you ever seen your parents naked?” Sometimes an insider, who knew a secret about you, would ask you a question that would make you divulge it.
The “dares” on the other hand were meant to embarrass you or get you in trouble. “Tell a girl/boy you are in love with them.” or “Make a prank phone call to your teacher.” Though sometimes they were just silly things to do, like run around the block backward.
In Truth or Dare, the role of the leader changed hands throughout the game. Being the first one to be a leader set the tone. Knowing that if you asked someone to do something really dangerous or bad, there was a good chance that when it was your turn to be asked by a leader to do something it would be worse. So it tempered what you asked others to do. It was always advisable on your turn as the first leader to be good in your demands as you set the bar. In general, all dares had to be agreed upon by consensus, so no one could get really mean unless you were an outcast in a group of mean kids. Even still, Ronald was never allowed to lead first. That was not a tone, one wanted to set.
Whereas in Follow the Leader, being the leader only did things that they were capable of doing, in Truth or Dare the leader did not have to lead by example, which meant they could make dares that were things the leader would never do.
And finally, as most of you must agree as we moved into adulthood Follow the Leader didn’t stop. There were and are lots of real-life Follow the Leader situations, not so much in the form of games, as in our jobs and relationships that we have to play.
If you follow what I’m saying.
