How to Act a Fool as Taught by the Spice Girls

Growing up with the Spice Girls taught us ‘90s children plenty of valuable lessons about patience (as you waited to build your S-P-I-C-E with those lollipop stickers) and feminism. However, if you were socialized by watching Spice Girls music videos alone, you may not have developed the best of manners. Being totally frank, you probably would not have been fit to function in society at all. As a child, you might not have caught on that the Spice Girls' music videos were filled with tons of socially awkward behavior. In the event that there was such a thing as a "Spice School for Girls" the entire class would graduate with a concentration in "RUDE!" with a minor in "Raised by Wolves."

Sure, you and your '90s BFF lived by the Spice creed. In their amazing outfits, Ginger, Sporty, Baby, Posh, and Scary could do no wrong in your book. Plenty of their activity were all fun and spontaneity — the embodiment of girl power's brash & carefree abandon. Today's girl bands can learn a lot from these OG's. But, if translated into the public sphere, much of the behavior in their music videos would garner you a reputation for being either very difficult or certifiably insane. Just take a quick moment to remember that the Spice Girls did things like walk into moving traffic, ding-dong ditch, tie up strangers, and steal the vestments of clergy people in their videos. This is textbook "how to act a fool."

Waiting around every corner, there was a humorless old British crone to be bothered by the liveliness of youth. Really though, these biddies were probably the Spice Girls' mental concoctions of people who didn’t want to be woken up in the morning by impromptu bubblegum pop serenades. Here are all the socially inappropriate things that the Spice Girls did in their videos, from extreme faux pas to potentially fatal.

Not waiting for a table/Un-stealthily crashing dinner parties/Stealing religious garments

Just imagine what this scene from "Wannabe" would look like IRL. Five grown women ambush some strange children with a song, bust into an upscale restaurant and make a mess out of the maître d's paperwork, and have a general party of not keeping their hands to themselves. Just wait for your table, guys. Then, Sporty Spice deems it totally necessary to do back-handsprings on a banquet table of a private party. If you look up, "How not to crash a party" in the dictionary, all of these acts would be cited. All of this activity is capped off by Ginger stealing the hat of a priest. Not cool.

Standing in moving traffic

A message to little girls everywhere. No matter what you saw in the "2 Become 1" video, standing in moving traffic doesn't look like a laser light show. It looks like fatal injuries and paralysis. Do not try this at home.

Disturbing the neighbors

The fab five wake up the entire neighborhood in the video for "Stop" by giving an impromptu street concert that apparently nobody wants. Oh yeah, and they knock on one another's doors without waiting to say "hi" at all. I mean, I knew you were coming over, but you could at least look me in the eye and acknowledge my presence.

Kidnapping good samaritans

In "Say You'll Be There," the ladies are badass and ready for combat. However, they choose to unleash their skills on an undeserving party. Some nice guy pulls over to give them all a ride out of the desert. How do they repay him? By tying him to the roof of his car, of course. No good deed goes unpunished.

There you have it, folks: a Spice Girl's guide to losing friends and alienating everyone. That is, except for your four other friends who share that hobby.

Image: Virgin Records