South Dakota "Dash for Cash"

This video features in a responsive display in the museum that presents the moments, stories and memes capturing the zeitgeist by going viral on the internet.

You’d be forgiven for mistaking this for a scene out of Squid Game, but unfortunately it’s not a dystopian TV show where contestants risk their lives in murderous games for cash prizes – it’s the Sioux Falls Stampede ice hockey team’s inaugural “Dash for Cash”. The people scrambling for $5000 worth of one-dollar bills, while the stadium cheers, are local teachers, who intend to use the money for school supplies. After the footage went viral on social media, it started a seemingly much-needed debate about school funding in America, which saw many teachers reveal that they routinely used their own money to buy classroom necessities, as well as raised questions of how we ended up in a society where desperation is turned into spectacle.

The footage was seen as particularly callous towards South Dakota teachers, who according to CBS News, earn the lowest salary in their profession in America.

“While the Dash for the Cash may have been well-intentioned, it only underscores the fact that educators don’t have the resources necessary to meet the needs of their students,” Loren Paul, president of South Dakota’s teacher union, said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. “As a state, we shouldn’t be forcing teachers to wrestle with one another to get the money they need to fund their classrooms.”

At a time when inequality is growing globally and teachers have born the brunt of teaching remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, more than a few users found the event tasteless at best and at worst, just another sign we’re living in the worst timeline. In response to the backlash, the Sioux Falls Stampede, and CU Mortgage Direct, who fronted the cash, released a statement apologising, saying: “we can see how it appears to be degrading and insulting towards the participating teachers and the teaching profession as a whole.”

The two organisations have since donated a further $15,000 USD to the participants.