Around 2011, I was co-editor in chief of the school newspaper and tasked with writing an article about high school cliques. I don’t remember exactly how this article came together, or why it was allowed to be published in the school newspaper, but the good news is my writing (and general world outlook) has gotten a lot better since then… knock on wood. Without further adieu, here’s a highschooler’s take on cliques…

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Girls have given cliques a bad name, and that is why men don’t have cliques.

A clique is defined as an “exclusive circle of people with a common purpose.” While many males often hang out with a specific group of people, or “crew”, these are very different from cliques. 

An example of one of these so called guy “crews” is The Revolution. It consists of six members: juniors Carter Fields, Matt Stockburger, Zach Routh, George Oliver, myself and sophomore Thomas Fallanca. This group is aptly named after a Dave Chappelle skit in which Prince refers to his crew by this name. 

“The Revolution is more than just a group of people,” Stockburger said. “It’s a lifestyle. We make Taylor gang look like a bunch of wusses.”

In order to find out more about guy “crews”, I took the liberty of asking some members of the Revolution what The Revolution is, and how it is different from a clique. Here are some of their responses. 

• “Oh man, this question separates the boys from the men from the boys,” Fields said. “Good thing I watched that documentary on those red fire trucks last week!” 
• Routh said, “Well this one time at band camp…”
• Fallanca declined comment, saying that he “ felt more comfortable ordering with Denise.”
• Oliver stated, “What isn’t the Revolution? We do what we want. We have our own name. We do the most fun stuff. The other day we watched Megapython while making special pudding.”

While girls often give cliques a bad name, guy crews are out in the world causing mayhem and making a name for themselves.

 Fields explained that The Revolution has made a habit out of ziplining out of windows, liberating traffic cones, playing Fruit Ninja… seriously, and carrying half-baked cakes into Harris Teeter.

Oliver said that the group has made a habit of watching extremely poor and low budget films in the Fields’ basement. “We go onto Netflix and pick out the movie with the lowest amount of stars. My favorite has been Megashark vs. Giant Octopus by far but we’ve also seen Megapython vs. Gatoroid, Dinocrock, and Godzilla,” Oliver said. 

While The Revolution may not sound like a very intelligent group, five of the six members have competed on academic team, while Carter is still hoping to get on the general knowledge team for sports. “I like turtles,” Fields said. 

“When the group is together,” Stockburger said, “We like to stick to the three D’s; Dave Chappelle, doing other stuff and driving. What can I say, that’s a pretty average day for us” he continued. 

The group shares a brotherly comradery that girls will never get to experience. After all attending the same college and being in the same fraternity, the group plans to move into the same neighborhood and dig underground tunnels to each of the members houses. 

If you have any more questions on what a typical day might look like for a group of guys or for The Revolution, check out The Revolution’s website at www.totalfreakingawesomeness.com/werule [2026 note: unfortunately this domain has since expired].

As Stockburger says, “I’m pretty sure the American war for Independence was named after us. We’re kind of a big deal.”