There are a handful of occasions in every high school year when the coolest kids are singled out for special praise at the expense of everyone else. We coronate the popular at Homecoming time and then again at the prom. At some point in between, we vote on the senior superlatives so that the class yearbook can forever preserve such important honors as the class’ best looking couple and most creative dressers. Otherwise, twenty years down the road, you might forget who was the single most desirable piece of ass in school, and that would be a tragedy.
Though it probably seems like a great credit to be named the Best or Most Likely person in your grade, earning a superlative can end up having devastating consequences on your life. They’re voted on by a bunch of dumb high school kids, after all, who don’t have the slightest clue what it really takes to be, for example, the Most Likely to Succeed. The poor bastard who wins that award is likely to feel the weight of his peers’ expectations the rest of his life. When he ends up a corporate whore in some random middle-management job, he’s liable to feel that he’s somehow let down the people who were counting on him to lead an extraordinary life. Conversely, if he really does have the skills needed to say…cure cancer, winning such a seemingly significant award at such a young age may adversely effect his work ethic by convincing him that he is predestined to achieve greatness. Fucking kids.
One way to dramatically curb the general envy and sense of desirability that accompany superlatives would be to award a new round of them at class reunions. Once teenagers discover that winning Most Athletic in the 12th grade only makes them a frontrunner for the 10th reunion’s Most Surprising Appearance award when they show up chubby, they may think twice about lobbying for the prize. Once all the formerly gifted students are firmly lodged in the gears of corporate dronery with little discernable upward mobility, perhaps the class can agree at the 20th reunion that the 38 year old grocery store clerk who owns her own condo and has never been divorced may actually be the Most Likely to Succeed of them all.
Adopting this suggestion would change superlatives from a timeless, irrefutable statement of fact to a motivational tool for both the awarded and passed over alike. In other words: win win.
Better luck next time.
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I assume you were named “Most Likely to Write a Satirical Manifesto about a Dehumanized Society on the Road to Perdition”? You’re in good company. Theodore Kaczynksi won that award in his high school as well…