Pile-on
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A pile-on, also known as stacks-on (Australia), bundle, monkey pile, pig pile, or dog pile, is an activity involving several individuals jumping (or piling) on top of an unfortunate victim, forming a pile of people. This is normally triggered by someone mentioning the words "pile on", or a word phonetically similar, e.g. "pylon". This person then becomes the target of the pile-on.
In many cases a witness to the utterence will point at the victim, yell "pile on!", and barrel the victim to the ground, initiating the pile-on. However, there are no guarantees that the witness will not be mistaken for the target (accidentally or intentionally) by those nearby. Even if the witness avoids this, there is still an element of self-sacrifice, as the witness will be second to the bottom of a heavy pile.
Obviously, one rarely intends to become the victim of a pile-on. A prankster will often try to trick a victim-to-be into triggering a pile-on[1], by, for example, asking the question "Hey, can you think of a word that rhymes with nylon?" An alternative prank is to simply pretend that a chosen victim has said "pile on", as once the stampede has been initiated, there is very little time to debate the victim's "innocence".
Although pile-ons are often deliberately instigated as pranks in this manner, it is surprisingly common that a victim simply says "pile on" accidentally, such as when discussing a previous pile-on, or even in unrelated speech, e.g. "put them in a pile on the table".
The end result of a pile-on is usually a gradient of increasingly crushed bodies, with the primary victim at the bottom being the most crushed. However, a victim with fast reactions may escape before the pile becomes too great, leaving the witness or prankster at the bottom.
It is inherently difficult to predict the degree of damage that each participant in a pile-on will actually suffer. The large number of variables, e.g. boniness, impact force, weight of jumpers, number of people who run in to jump and malicious intent of participants, make the outcome of each event highly unpredictable.
Better strategists are usually seen keeping some distance from the pile until they can make their run at it, deliver the jump, and retreat before they become mired in the pile. This allows him to make several jumps at the same pile before it ends.
This activity has been undertaken by British youngsters for at least 20 years, and has become widely known throughout at least one generation.
Recent variations of the game popularised by the use of camera phones, include 'Bags down' pile-ons and '1st Furlong' pile-ons. These stemmed from the 'lout' culture in certain university areas in England, most notably Chester.
