I’m going to make a kind of random connection here that I don’t think was intentional but is kind of interesting to me.

OK, so do you all remember waaaay back in “Lars and the Cool Kids” when they’re trying to figure out what to do with the moss and they need to keep humans away from it so Pearl produces that police tape (with a very showy dance which probably has some ties to a Pearl being meant for show) and is very excited at finding a ‘solution’ to the problem. Her reasoning being that police tape is meant to warn away humans so when humans see the police tape, they’ll just walk away and not investigate further

But aside from just being a silly alien misunderstanding of how humans operate (people do avoid police tape, but not everyone does and they’re less likely to do so when they’re just tied around rocks), we can also see this as kind of ‘Gem logic’. Gems are more or less “rule-driven robots” (when Connie says she’s “not some rule-driven robot” in “Nightmare Hospital”, one of the Cluster Gems burst out from behind the curtain. As a narrative device, this usually indicates the thing that popped out IS what was just described) and even though the Crystal Gems have more autonomy and are more individualized, it does seem like they struggle with this idea. Following ‘rules’ is innate in their ‘programming’ and they’re essentially rocks, something that isn’t exactly known for easily changing.

If humans operated like Gems, then some kind of police tap warning them away would, without fail, deter them from going somewhere. Because it seems Gems, in their ‘natural’ state, will be compelled to obey the commands of someone in authority, even moreso than humans do. Of course. humans are prone to rebelling, and that’s exactly what happens in the episode. The Cool Kids see the police tape and just go “I’m above the law!” and walk right through.

Now you might be thinking “Well, the Crystal Gems don’t just follow the rules. They defy Gem authority and follow their own path, or at least try very hard to, just like the Cool Kids did”. And you’re right! So it’s pretty interesting, then, that for whatever reason the Cool Kids have been designed to deliberately ‘mirror’ the Crystal Gems and that the show has even gone out of its way to pair them up to make sure you notice their similarities

and anyway, I just thought this was interesting. The notable thing about the Cool Kids in “Lars and the Cool Kids” is that you think they’re going to be elitist jerks, but they end up actually being very chill dorks and accepting of Steven, because he’s just being himself, but more critical of Lars’ attempts to suck up to them (although Lars does eventually become friends with them)

So, in a way, the Crystal Gems are the Gem version of Cool Kids. They probably seem elitist and self-important from the outside, but their entire viewpoint is just allowing people to be whoever they want to be regardless of what Gem society wants them to be (and, y’know, also not want Gems to destroy the Earth).