- Cheerleading has had a spurt of popularity due to "Cheer" a popular Netflix documentary, about a college team's dramatic cheerleading season in Navarro, Texas.
- There are about 4.5 million cheerleaders spread across 70 countries, but with the majority in America. Despite the popularity, there are still misconceptions about what cheerleading is.
- There are two distinct types. There's sideline cheering, where teams dance and use pompoms to support teams, and then there's competitive cheering.
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Cheerleading is having a moment.
What began with a man yelling, and for several decades was a male-only past time, became dominated by women by the 1940s and 1950s. In that era, stereotypes of wholesome women standing on the sidelines supporting men flourished. They've been hard to shake.
In the 1970s and 1980s, cheerleading changed again. This time it was due to sports leagues, like the NFL and the NBA, deciding to use women cheerleaders rather than high school girls, and by kitting them out in revealing outfits.
There are now about 4.5 million practicing cheerleaders, mostly in America, but spread across 70 countries.
Cheerleading can be divided into two types - sideline cheering, which includes the cheerleaders who support high school and professional sports teams, and competitive cheering. Competitive cheering involves performances that go for several minutes and are filled with constant stunts. There are no pompoms.
Recently, cheerleading has had a spurt of popularity because of the Netflix documentary "Cheer," which is about a college team's dramatic cheerleading season in Navarro, Texas.
Here's how cheerleading has evolved over the last century.