Crowd Chant

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
DAN DEA-CON! DAN DEA-CON!

Robin: Make fun of the Great White North all you want, but Canada is the greatest country in the world.
Barney : Great... Social experiment.
Barney: [Chants] U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Rest of the Bar: [Joining in] U-S-A! U-S-A!
Robin: What does that even prove? They'll chant at anything. Ca-na-da! Ca-na-da!
Rest of the Bar: ...
Robin: Ca-na... all right, so they won't chant at anything.
Barney: [Chants] Shrimp fried rice! Shrimp fried rice!
[rest of the bar joins in]
Ted: [Coming in] Shrimp fried rice, totally!

—How I Met Your Mother

If there comes a time in a work when the author wants to convey that the community has come together to celebrate an achievement or themselves as a society; or maybe you want to let the audience know the entire crowd backs up a competitor. That is when you'll see the crowd all chant the same word or phrase together over and over again.

Often, but not necessarily, it will consist of three syllables or portions of the word separated to the rhythm of two quarter notes and then a half note, or two quick beats and a slow beat. (Musical accompaniment in the form of Queen's "We Will Rock You" is optional.) Note, however, that this trope refers to the crowd chanting together, and the number of beats or syllables does not matter.

In some ways similar to a crowd chanted repeated version of that often quoted "This Is Sparta" from 300, and is a cousin to the collective gasp. Similar to the Slow Clap. Related to Audience Participation Song.

Examples of Crowd Chant include:

Anime and Manga

  • "It's not cricket! It's not cricket!" in Black Butler is the audience reaction to Ciel's unsportsmanlike (though at that time rules-legal) cricket tactic.

Fan Works

Film

  • In the film Hook, the lost boys chanted together "Ru-Fi-O" during a fight between Rufio and Peter Pan to show their support for fellow Lost Boy Rufio.
  • The Green Lantern movie: "We! Are! The corps!"
  • Immortalized in The Mighty Ducks with the chant of "Quack! Quack! Quack!"
  • Robin Hood: Men in Tights "All right, guys, let's give him the chop! Ooooh oooh oohhhhhhh Oh, oh, oohhhhh~"
  • Rudy

Literature

Live-Action TV

  • Stephen Colbert often leads his audience in chants of "U.S.A!" or "I was right!" in this rhythm. And, of course, the show usually starts with enthusiastic chants of "Ste-phen!"
  • Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!
    • The audience of Whose Line Is It Anyway shouted "Jer-ry" when he appeared on the show. They'll often take the role of the cheering audience when the cast gives them cues.
  • How I Met Your Mother: Barney proves to Robin that the United States is better than Canada by starting a "USA" chant in the bar. Robin tries to do it with Canada and gets blank stares.
  • Battlestar Galactica: So Say We All!
  • Doctor Who has the entire world all chanting "Doctor" at once.

Professional Wrestling

  • A staple in wrestling, due to ECW popularizing their signature chants at other shows:
    • "E-C-DUB! E-C-DUB!"
    • Upon a particularly awesome moment: "HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!"
    • When cheering a Badass wrestler: "He's/she's hardcore!"
    • When jeering a WWE-style power wrestler without much talent: "YOU CAN'T WRESTLE!"
      • And when said wrestler tries to prove them wrong and busts out actual talent: "SAME OLD SHIT!" or "YOU STILL SUCK!"
    • Smarks pointing out mistakes are prone to telling wrestlers "YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!"
    • Following the Falls Count Anywhere nature of ECW: "CAN'T SEE SHIT! CAN'T SEE SHIT!"
  • CHIKARA fans, being from the same mold as ECW fans, bowdlerize many of the above chants. ("HOLY POOP!" "YOU SCREWED UP!")
  • Goooooooold-Berrrrrg! Goooooooold-Berrrrrg!, which WCW actually piped in.
  • WWE has popularized a few:
    • The dueling chants of "LET'S GO [WRESTLER]!"/"[WRESTLER] SUCKS!". John Cena has turned his into an Ascended Meme.

I want all the ladies and kids to chant "Let's go Cena!", and all the dudes over 20 to chant "Cena sucks!"

    • You know your audience is unhappy when they chant "BOOOORING! BOOOOORING!"

Video Games

Web Comics

  • Domain Tnemrot has numerous cases of the crowd cheering their enthusiasm for someone to deal a deathblow.

Western Animation

  • From The Simpsons: "Where's My Burrito?! Where's My Burrito?!" Not to mention a certain pachyderm.

Real Life

  • The official unofficial crowd chant of the United States of America in any sporting event whatsoever is "U-S-A! U-S-A!" which got its start during the 1980 Olympics (and the "Miracle on Ice" in particular) and has since spread to basically everything, but still is most often heard during the Olympics.
  • During Barack Obama's U.S. presidential campaign, his supporters would often chant, "Yes We Can!"
  • When Shigeru Miyamoto showed up at the Nintendo World Store in the autumn of 2005, from the outdoor crowd below, the chants included "Donk-ey Kong! Donk-ey Kong!", "Mar-i-O! Mar-i-O!" and "You are God! You are God!"
  • Soccer crowds often do this.
  • Australian Cricket crowds chant "You're going home in the back of a divvy van" when someone gets themselves escorted out of the ground by police.
  • Sports crowds, in general. Some popular ones:
    • MVP! MVP! MVP!
    • THESE REFS SUCK! THESE REFS SUCK! THESE REFS SUCK!
    • LET'S GO, (TEAM!) LET'S GO, (TEAM!) LET'S GO, (TEAM!)
    • DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!
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