I–and, no doubt, most of the other 11th graders in the Annapolis area–have been inundated with schoolwork, plagued by thoughts of being rejected from every college in America and even some in Uganda, swamped with review for the Advanced Placement test, distracted by Facebook, bombarded with extra-curricular activities, and been preoccupied with making memes.

WHAT THE HELL ARE MEMES?

Good question! Memes (singular: meme) are a product of our generation the way rock and roll was a product of the baby boomers; the way tie-dye was a product of the hippies; the way tucking t-shirts into jeans was a product of the generation that inhabited the nineties (for which no one has bothered to come up with a name).

Memes are the product of every teenager’s desire for self-expression, sarcasm, and humor, combined with the pervasiveness of technology and this generation’s unique, slightly quirky culture, stemming from the fact that geeks are becoming slightly more mainstream.

Memes can take many digital forms–music can become a meme, especially if it’s as hilariously bad as Rebecca Black’s Friday, pictures, if they’re funny enough, can become memes, even misspellings of words “moar,” “teh,” etc, can become memes.

The one thing that binds memes together–they’re spreadable. And unlike rock music or beat poetry, anyone, with little to no talent whatsoever, can create a meme, share an existing meme, or even modify it and make it their own. They’re our own little inside jokes, yet everyone’s in on them, constantly adding and modifying and spreading and playing a part in the big viral party. Social media can vault the most obscure or ridiculous ideas to relative fame in a matter of days or even hours, and, impressionable as we are, we will repeat and glorify the phenomenon (the meme) until (soon after) we are collectively bored of it.

Thanks for the sociology lesson. So what the hell is a meme?

Someone creates something out of the mainstream, quirky, often crude, yet somehow relatable, and their peers spread it. Think of them as large scale bathroom stall drawings.  They’re always meant to be humorous, even if the humor is far-out, disgusting, or sometimes completely inscrutable. They’re often sarcastic, poking fun at hipsters or stoners or teachers. They’re often champions of the nerds (unsurprising, since they started as an Internet fad).

Generally speaking, memes are anything viral. A funny video, a la Friday or I Love Cats So Much, is shared so much via Facebook that it becomes part of the cultural lexicon. These videos are almost never good; if they are, it’s almost always by accident. Perhaps the key component for a successful meme is irony or sarcasm. Some (Nyan Cat) are simply inexplicable and are loved just for their weirdness. My Little Pony has somehow vaulted into popularity as a meme due to the legions of 20-year-old stoners (“bronies”) who find the children’s TV show ironic and cool.

Once they are incorporated into the lexicon, they are modified and parodied ad infinitum (for instance, someone might sneak Friday quotes into their everyday speech). Many are commercialized and turned into t-shirts, mugs, even iPhone apps.

Another, more specific connotation of “memes” (one that allows for more personal interaction, allowing someone to contribute to the hilarity without having to come up with something as original as Nyan Cat) is simply the Internet-age version of the doodled comic or funny photo caption. Meme-makers will simply caption a picture (which often relates to an inside joke) with an ironic phrase and hope enough people “like” it. Anyone with a computer and a quip can be an instant humorist.

Memes like this run the gamut from Condescending Wonka (which uses a photo of Gene Wilder to mock the self-absorbed and ignorant) and Joseph Ducreux (where one translates rap lyrics to high society 18th century English) to Dolan Duck (a crude and pointless comic featuring poorly drawn Disney characters speaking in misspelled English and killing each other).

That sounds pretty dumb. What does any of this have to do with Annapolis?

Glad you asked.

Teens in Annapolis, like everywhere else in the world, have been caught up in the crazy world of memes–and with good reason. As off the wall as it is, it’s unique, it’s definitive of our generation, and by golly it can be funny sometimes. And now, kids in the area are not only making school-specific memes, but rising to fame on hsmemes.com. Local schools like Annapolis High, Spalding, Broadneck, and Severn all have a presence here. I’m the founder of Key School’s hsmemes page, which I’m proud to say ranks 21st in the country for the volume of quips we post about our school with a sneering Willy Wonka as a backdrop. (You wouldn’t understand.) Private schools in Baltimore do even better–Park, Roland Park, Bryn Mawr, and Gilman have all cracked the Top 10 in the country at one point or another, with Gilman even occupying the top spot for a day or two. Yeah–Maryland is good at this!

No doubt any reader over 25 is shaking their head and failing to understand this quirky little fad. That’s OK–your parents didn’t understand rock n’ roll either. But yeah, this is what social media is busy doing when it’s not triggering revolutions in the Middle East. This is what we do when we’re not sailing or playing lacrosse or hanging out at Westfield. This is bathroom stall drawings writ large, brought to you courtesy of generation x.

And the funny thing is…we’re going to be running the country one day!

Stay cool! And check out some memes. Some of the humor might be obscure but people of all ages can enjoy some of the Condescending Wonka ones.

Best,

Related articles

• 10 Hilarious Memes Brought to Life on Twitter(mashable.com)

  ---

• Memetics 101(theharvestherald.wordpress.com)

  ---

• The rise of memes(theheidihoffman.wordpress.com)

  ---

How wonderful last Friday was for us, then. To be in a state that recognized the issue and was as willing as we were to stand up for the rights of individual people to define their definition of marriage was glorious indeed. Our House of Delegates gave us hope and inspiration.

It’s fantastic, really, that this is the one true issue that young people can rally around. Sure, there are some detractors–and there always will be–but even many young people who self-identify as Republicans are willing to wave the rainbow flag. Why? It’s simple. Nothing could be more appealing to teenagers than forbidden love. Our hormones are running high and marriage and romance have been put on a pedestal; sex is prized to the umpteenth degree. Why would we want this opportunity–love and marriage and all the things we fantasize about–to be denied to our peers of a different orientation?

But it’s more than simply sticking up for forbidden love. We are, arguably, the first generation that has been hyper-aware of the problem. Of course civil rights movements have been going on for decades to highlight the rights of the LGBT community, but social media has made it more possible for activist organizations to form,  for LGBT-rights champions such as Lady Gaga to spread their messages, and, more importantly, to spread the horrible news about the rash of suicides that unified and strengthened the gay-rights community.

And this is what’s really made our generation so strong in support of LGBT causes–as I said, pro-gay organizations and sentiment have been pervasive for decades. But the dark side of anti-gay sentiment has come to light glaringly for us with the rash of suicides due to homosexuality-induced bullying that launched, among other things, the “it gets better” project. Our generation has unilaterally taken a stand against anti-homosexual hate speech, rejecting and squelching derogatory terms for LGBT people, and fighting back against Rick Santorum and his Falwellian cronies on the right with our vast internet networks.

The passage of this gay marriage bill is a positive reminder for young people, not only that equality will always be a central virtue, but that our activism and efforts pay off. Amidst complaints that our generation is too apolitical, we have taken a refreshingly strong and activist position on this issue, and I can only hope that our successes here propel us to activism in other spheres.

So I’d like to thank the House of Delegates on behalf of the youth of Maryland. What you did was brave, it was right, it was accepting, it was beautiful. We applaud you.

It’s great to be part of a generation that is so dedicated to equality. I’m glad the older generation recognizes it too.

I want to extend a special kudos to delegate Bob Costa of South County, who represents the area in which I live. Having looked at Mr. Costa’s voting record, he and I agree on few things–but he took a courageous and principled stand on gay marriage, in both committee and full session, saying that even though he had personal and religious issues with gay marriage, it wasn’t the government’s place to be preaching religious doctrine, and that he had been elected to serve the needs of all his constituents and not to pick fights about his personal ideology. That is brave, principled, and forward-thinking politics–and it is a beacon to all young people, a representation of what a leader should be and do. So, Delegate Costa, my warmest thanks to you. If for some reason you find yourself with a bigoted primary opponent next cycle, you can count on my support.

Whether you agree with gay marriage or not, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with efforts to curb the anti-gay (or any other kind of) bullying that has led to numerous suicides and even murders across America. Too many of these have already happened, and I would hate for another one to occur, much less one in our great county. The It Gets Better Project is dedicated to helping kids in need and spreading awareness about the problem.

Thanks for reading. It’s days like these that make me proud to be a Marylander.

Best,

Related articles

• Gay Rights Advocates: Marriage Equality In New Jersey Will Take Time (newyork.cbslocal.com)
• How Republicans Changed Me from Independent to Democrat Part One: Gay Rights (4ddad.wordpress.com)
• New Jersey Gay Marriage Bill Lands On Chris Christie’s Desk, Governor Promises “Swift Veto” (inquisitr.com)

Sign the petition!

Every American history class, including mine, learns about the Dred Scott case and Chief Justice Roger Taney. Roger Taney was a bigoted so-and-so who used his position as the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice to issue one of the most embarrassing and dehumanizing rulings in our country’s history, which contributed significantly to the tensions that led up to the Civil War. Taney, who wrote the majority opinion for the infamous Dred Scott case, stated that African Americans were not protected as citizens under the Constitution and thus had no rights as citizens. He was a racist, a moron, responsible for possibly the worst Supreme Court decision in history, and we have a statue of him in front of the State House.

If you take a stroll downtown, from the State House to the Naval Academy, you can see wonderful pieces of history. We commemorate Kunta Kinte with his wonderful statue down at the harbor, we commemorate several of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and preserve their houses as historical landmarks, we commemorate African-American history with the Banneker Douglass museum.

We should not be commemorating Roger Taney.

Obviously the State of Maryland means no harm and harbors no racist intentions by displaying Taney’s statue. There is certainly no shortage of statues commemorating African Americans and civil rights in Annapolis– those of Thurgood Marshall and Kunta Kinte are good examples. But while we do not suppose the State of Maryland to be racist, we know for a fact that Roger Taney was. In this day and age, it is inappropriate to display a statue of a man who used his position to successfully classify an entire racial group as unworthy of citizenship and stripped them of their Constitutional protections. Doing so is akin to displaying a statue of, say, Joe McCarthy, or John Wilkes Booth.

Maybe I’m just young and too eager to uproot existing structures, but the fact remains that Roger Taney was really racist, and the Dred Scott decision was about as terrible as it gets. He said, in his ruling, that Dred Scott could not be considered a citizen or receive Constitutional protection because, at the time the Constitution was written, blacks were ”regarded as beings of an inferior order” with “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

I don’t want a statue of this man in front of our State House.

I don’t care if he’s an important part of our history. I don’t care if he’s one of the highest-ranking, most influential people ever to come out of the State of Maryland. He’s a terrible representation of our state, and he does not deserve a statue in his image–especially not in front of our state house. He represents bigotry, closed-mindedness, abuse and misuse of power, and general nastiness–none of which are things I want commemorated on the grounds of our legislature.

Don’t you think so too?

History is history, and of course it needs to be taught, good and bad. But it’s completely inappropriate to just throw up a statue of one of the most infamous people in American history–just like you won’t see any statues of Hitler or Saddam cropping up in Germany and Iraq any time soon. Obviously Taney did not commit genocide on the scale of a Hitler or Saddam, but he used his power to marginalize a racial group and was generally disgusting. Kunta Kinte and Thurgood Marshall deserve their statues. He does not.

To that end, I’ve started a grassroots petition asking the State of Maryland to remove the statue. You can read and sign it here: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-governor-of-md-remove-roger-taneys-statue-from-in-front-of-the-state-house

Please, if you’re an Annapolitan or a visitor from afar, sign and share. This is important. Roger Taney was a bigot and should be immortalized for his terrible Dred Scott decision and justification thereof, but he should not be immortalized with a statue in front of the state house.

This is 2012, a year for change. Let’s start it off right by taking a stand against the mistakes we’ve made in the past.

Best,

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney is the all-American candidate. His smile and demeanor represent the friendliness and brotherhood that our country tries to embody. His broad shoulders represent the strength that has always characterized our military. His name represents baseball, our national pastime. His hair represents the natural beauty of our homeland. And his flip-flopping and inability to decide his positions on many issues represents the workings of our government.

Yes, let’s vote for the candidate who can’t ever make up his mind! I wonder how he decides between boxers and briefs in the morning.

Many people see him as the best candidate because he’s arguably running against six political cartoons. Then again, you could argue that he is one himself–he’s shied away from so many of his positions as governor of Massachusetts that you half expect him to come out any day and say that he’s now a woman.

Even so, he comes across as poised, rational, eloquent, and competent. As luck would have it, these are the attributes that don’t matter in the GOP primary, leaving Mitt playing second fiddle to a belligerent and alarmingly popular Newt Gingrich. Instead, the one thing that does keep Mitt polling strongly in the teens is his Commander-in-Chief-esque demeanor.

It’s true–Mitt looks presidential. His tanned skin and dreamy hair are arguably his best assets. Despite their conservative social policies, I’m still convinced that he and one other candidate are conspiring to turn the whole country gay, that other candidate being…

Michelle Bachmann

Michelle Bachmann is like a Sunday-school teacher with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Foaming at the mouth with holier-than-thou rhetoric from the tea party, fundamentalist Christian, and just-plain-angry camps, she’s ready to take on the world with all of three terms in the House of Representatives. Which, to be fair, is more than Obama had. Obama also knew the difference between John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy.

Bachmann can fire up a base, but so can a lighter and a can of gasoline. The worry is that she’s too hot-tempered and vapid to be president—which is often written off as sexism, but if you look at the relatively little amount of criticism, especially about their intelligence, that women like Kathleen Sibelius and Condoleezza Rice have faced, it’s not sexism—it’s simply discrimination against dumb people.

But while we’re on the topic of sexism, Bachmann has made headlines for her early comments about the importance of being submissive to one’s husband—so he must be worth taking a look at. He runs a Christian health clinic that, it’s been revealed, provides offensive pray-the-gay-away treatments—terrible, horrible, and absolutely unacceptable. The only good thing about a Bachmann presidency is that she’d be able to save money by using her hefty husband as the missile defense shield. He will shield the country with his man breasts.

Bachmann also made headlines for her signing of a controversial marriage pledge stating that, among other things, she will affirm as President that marriage is between one male human and one female human. But when you look at her marriage, you see that the Bachmanns believe something a little more specific—that marriage is between one crazy bigot and one fat bigot.

Bachmann, thank God, has tumbled down to irrelevancy in the latest batch of GOP polls, but is trying to mount a comeback in Iowa–which would be a good plan, except for the fact that it is also the plan of Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Ron Paul.

But it’s all irrelevant–these last few columns of postulating, that is. All I wanted was a chance to poke some good-natured fun at a stage full of crazy people. Campaigns are so volatile and unpredictable–already we’ve seen the demise of milquetoast governor Tim Pawlenty, abrasive billionaire Donald Trump, professional comedian conservative firebrand Sarah Palin, and Herman Cain, the gospel-quoting pseudo-rapist himself–that it’s nearly impossible to predict a winner this early in the contest.

With that said, I have a theory on an individual with an inside shot at the Republican nomination…someone that no one is really expecting. He had a major rally before being taken down–for good, some thought–this summer, but I predict he’ll be back again and be ready to face Obama come November.

From the Classroom’s official prediction for the 2012 Republican Presidential Nominee is:

TOM MARVALO RIDDLE

otherwise known as VOLDEMORT

Happy holidays, all! I’ll be back soon with a column commenting on the frenzy regarding my school’s purpose of an old golf course in Annapolis Roads…and another that brings to light a pressing downtown issue of which many of us may be unaware.

Be well,

Ron Paul

Ron Paul is a very principled man, and is admired for his dedication on both sides of the aisle. Fortunately, he’s not just a man of principle–he’s also a man of ideas. Unfortunately, his ideas are the kind of ideas that made your mother send your grandfather to Shady Sunsets Minimum-Security Retirement Prison.

Ron Paul’s approach to government is to cut like a goth kid. As far as he’s concerned, we can take care of ourselves. Taxes are oppressive and an insult to the people. Social security is oppressive and an insult to the people. Firefighters are oppressive and an insult to the people. If we elect him president, he will, as promised, cut, cut, cut. Cut the drug war. Cut the department of education. Cut social security. Cut Medicare. Cut welfare. Cut defense. Cut the cabinet. Cut air. We don’t need a government takeover of medicine, we don’t need a roof on the Capitol, we don’t need food. Self-sufficiency! We need to learn to pay our own bills and eat our own organs for sustenance.

But even though some would argue that the old guy’s a few senators short of a filibuster, his passion and integrity have him in high single digits in most early polls. His years of experience as a congressman has to count for something—but I think most of his support comes from two things—the fact that his name is the shortest one on the ballot, making him the default choice for anyone who doesn’t like fancy book-readin’, and the fact that he’s promised repeatedly to legalize marijuana.

Yes, let’s vote for the guy who seems unnaturally obsessed with weed! What a smart idea! He would definitely make the best president!

Still, he’s tied for the top tier of candidates in Iowa, which is a result of a concerted effort to revamp his campaign from the 5th-place Iowa bomb it was in 2008. It’s become more populist and less wonky; “Americans for Ron Paul” instead of “Ron Paul for Ron Paul”.

Rick Perry

Rick Perry is angry. By God, he’s angry. Ain’t no cowpoke angrier than Rick Perry in these parts, no sir.

But he’s yet to articulate what he’s actually going to DO about it, short of throwing Ben Bernanke out the window. In fact, that is just about  the only thing he’s been able to articulate,  between his interesting New Hampshire speech and his “name three agencies” flub at the recent debate.

He’s the theoretical tea party darling–a lot of fire in his belly, but no way to put out the fire in the stock market. He knows darn well what he doesn’t want to do, but, doesn’t quite know what he does want to do, except throw Ben Bernanke out the window and cut an indefinite number of agencies. Two? Three? Five? EPA?

With a successful record as governor of Texas and solid conservative credentials, Rick Perry should have had the nomination locked up. Not so—he’s got his tactics mixed up. Turns out, neither threatening the chairman of the federal reserve, or anyone really, nor the inability to articulate your position on anything helps you win presidential elections. He’s thinking of “bribing supreme court justices”. Besides, Perry’s not perceived as especially electable. His tactless gaffes and questionable intellect are one thing, his ardent and vicious conservatism and evangelical Christian exuberance may not make him a favorite of independent voters in states not named Texas.

For instance, the giant statewide prayer meeting he held in mid-August will undoubtedly come back to bite him. Not many independent voters like the idea of religion being forced upon the populace. Maybe going around telling people that Jesus loves them and wants you to come to him is called evangelism and considered normal in Texas. Where I come from, it’s called sexual harassment.

Coming soon, the final 2 candidates are vetted and reviewed!

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum is the kid in 8th-grade sex-Ed who asked the teacher what a condom was. He’s got a bevy of experience as a successful fiscally conservative legislator…but even while jobless rates are at crisis levels and the economy is still performing below Mozambique’s, Santorum firmly believes that America’s biggest threat is…gays and Muslims?

The former Senator’s dogged and naive insistence on running a campaign centered around his Christian dogma when Americans around the country are losing their houses makes me want to grab his cheeks and say “Oh, you’re such a big boy, aren’t you, running for President all by yourself! Isn’t that adorable?” Gay marriage may have been a pressing matter back in 2004, but right now Santorum’s bigotry is not just inflammatory–it’s irrelevant. Unless he can pray the recession away, he’s even crazier than Ron Paul.

Religion is a wonderful thing when it’s not being used as a device to impose one’s will on others, and candidates like Jon Huntsman show us that it’s possible to believe in religion as a personal moral compass and not a way of running the country. But Rick Santorum’s 1950s mindset won’t work in 2012. I’m sorry, but his idea of reducing the number of people looking for jobs is forbidding women from working outside the home, and I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with the two candidates on his VP shortlist, with the Pope being Italian and Jesus being dead. Thankfully, his poll numbers are nestled in the dreadful 1%-to-irrelevant range as he fails to pick up any demographic group at all except, of course, his incredible showing among people with the last name “Falwell”.

Herman Cain

Herman Cain has two default facial expressions: angry and angrier. When he smiles, he looks like he’s passing a kidney stone. I suppose this robotic demeanor is fitting, because he’s spoken about running the country like his successful pizza business–which should work out really well, because the lives and well-being of three hundred million people are about the same thing as a pizza pie. Among the changes may make:

• Changing the title of governor to “Manager” and lieutenant governor to “Assistant Manager”
• Giving taxpayers a punch card entitling them to submit nine tax returns and have the tenth paid free
• Outsource Congress to China in order to save on employee pay
• When someone calls 911, they’ll hear “Please hold. A customer service representative will be with you shortly”

Herman Cain attracted supporters at first for his intensity, rhetorical skill, and balance-the-budget-at-all-costs philosophy…but as the campaign rolled on, he made racist gaffes and out-of-touch statements, and voters had practically begun to see dollar signs in his eyes and smoke coming him out of his ears, making him about as electable as Donald Duck. Then, suddenly, his passionate speaking style and folksy conservative rhetoric began to connect with voters. He shot up in the polls, past Rick Perry, past Mitt Romney, and then oops, sexual harassment scandal. We’ve yet to see whether this will do significant damage to his standing as a frontrunner, but I have to say, if I wanted to elect a president who will keep us from starting World War Three, I would elect someone who could be left alone with Hu Jintao’s wife for five minutes. And then, of course, there’s still some debate on whether–harassment aside–he’s actually qualified to lead a nation. Some would say he has upside in that he’s never before been a politician. I say that’s a downside–the real upside to a Cain presidency is the potential appointment of a Secretary of Pizza.

Stick around for more comments on the 2012 races, coming soon!

Obviously his failure to entirely repair a decimated economy within four years is disappointing to all of us. But whether it’s actual disappointment in the man himself, or just the inevitable disappointment that follows unbridled optimism, like the kind you feel after learning that Superman isn’t real, is up to each voter, I suppose.

But before my generation (and all those who supported our President) decides to rescind our support, we need to take a look at the other options on the table; and on this, too many people are uneducated. I’ve seen the field described as “Romny and Parry [sic and sic]” and heard the winner be projected as “that Mormon guy”…so needless to say, it’s time for a rundown of the candidates. I’ll go through them two by two, like Noah’s Ark, and we’ll see who might best weather the storm and face the prospect of leading our country.

I’d estimate that there are more Republicans running for President than there are currently attending college. Some of them have a good chance of winning, while some of them don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.

Speaking of snowballs, Newt Gingrich’s haircut:

Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich is undoubtedly the nerd of the Republican Party. Not the nice kind of nerd that helps you edit your social studies papers—he’s the type of nerd that uses his knowledge of angles and mirrors to make a periscope so that he can look up girls’ skirts.

I suppose an upside to a Gingrich presidency would be that his approach to policy, however abhorrent his opinions, would be thoughtful and well-informed. The downside would be that his approach to selecting cabinet members would involve drawing names of recent Playboy models from a five-million-dollar hat. And while I’m sure Tiffany Fallon knows plenty about trains and tunnels, I don’t think that makes her qualified to be Secretary of Transportation.

While he’s got a brain the size of Canada, he has the integrity of a celery stick—and, combined with his expensive tastes and lustful ways, he’s guaranteed to be a train wreck as President, unless every single American buys stock in the tabloid industry on the eve of his swearing-in. One thing’s for sure, despite what he says about the deficit, his spending on food in the White House would be larger than that of any other presidential wannabe, unless you count Ron Paul’s “special brownies”.

Despite his policy acumen, he can’t seem to get any more than 6-10 percent in the polls, which, coincidentally, is the percentage of the national budget that would be spent at Tiffany’s under his administration.

Jon Huntsman

When it comes to the Republican primary, Jon Huntsman is undoubtedly the smartest guy in the room. He understands that it’s important to curb global warming (because he can’t get re-elected if we all drown), he understands that granting civil unions to gay couples is a necessary step towards equality (which has earned him the endorsement of all 4 gay Republicans), and he understands that when you question the opinions of the smartest scientists in the world, you look kind of dumb.

He just doesn’t understand how American politics works. Huntsman, for some reason, expects to win the election by saying what he believes and being honest. This strategy has got him polling at about 1% nationwide. Next thing we know he might show up in Washington actually expecting Congress to pass something!

For some reason, he doesn’t make too much noise about being an Ambassador to China AND the governor of Utah, but he has a lot to say about the fact that he rides a motorcycle. Which is weird, because I feel like when people go to the polls to vote, they’re normally thinking about The West Wing, not Sons of Anarchy.

Lately, he’s been criticizing his Republican opponents for being ignorant, which is like calling out arsenic for making people sick, but still, it’s a step. It’s clear he thinks he’s a cut above the other losers in the GOP field—but voters, meanwhile, think he’s a cut under “other” and “none of the above”. If he can’t beat “none of the above”, he can’t beat an actual candidate. Well, maybe Michelle Bachmann.

Stay tuned next week for MORE CANDIDATES!

Colleges love to tout their selectivity—a low selectivity percentage is like a prized trophy made from the tears of high school seniors. And of course they have every right to do that—who doesn’t want the best of the best at their institution? It’s certainly not done out of malice on their part—but it creates a world of pressure for applicants. After all, let’s remember that the highly selective colleges admit a lower percentage of applicants than the United States Congress and lunch counters in 1960s Birmingham.

So of course, every student who wants to be admitted to a highly selective (or even somewhat selective) institution is trembling at the prospect of being judged by a group of strangers, compared to a group of students with SAT scores twice yours, and evaluated for your ability to contribute to an institution of advanced scholarship and research while you’re still in the process of learning how to do your own laundry.

So we think: how do we set ourselves apart from the pack? And soon, three clear ways to make you sexy to colleges appear, each more daunting than the last:

Have a Parent Give a Million Dollars to the School: Self-explanatory. Nine hundred grand will do if you’re in a pinch.

Have an Oprah Interview for a Life Story: A friend of mine recently complained that she had nothing to write her essay about, having been an upper-middle-class white girl with a relatively easy life—and it’s true; those with hassle-free lives will (ironically enough) have much more trouble writing their college essays than someone who immigrated from war-torn Sudan or lost an ear or had a father who died in a wheat thresher. As life struggles go, my most insurmountable ones involve my parents buying the wrong brand of orange juice.

DO ALL THE THINGS EVER: This is the heart of the issue, and the real effect of these crazy admissions rates. There’s the idea that one needs to be superlative, transcendental, an elite mega-student to get into college. And of course colleges say they’re looking for people who are eager to learn and who are leaders, but without the ability to stare deeply into your soul, how can they possibly know? Desperate to climb to the top of the applicant pool, high achievers today are attempting to rise to even greater heights, which any guy named Icarus can tell you is a pretty foolish idea. The mantra: “are today’s teens overstimulated?”  is repeated by clueless wannabe child psychologists across the Internet’s parenting blogs, but anyone applying to a highly selective university could tell you that it’s not a question—not even close. It’s a cycle of one-upsmanship and attempting to do as many things as possible, engaging in upwards of a dozen extracurriculars, some of which you might not even like, but any of which might draw the coveted eye of a college admissions officer. Who’s taking the hardest classes, who’s getting the best grades, who’s in the most prestigious clubs—all of this is shared pretentiously among the upper rungs of high school juniors and seniors, passed off as friendly and curious banter—and sometimes it is—but often there’s an undertone, just a hint, of paranoia and desperation as we realize that these are, in fact, the people we’ll be competing for that admissions spot with. This brings on a barrage of high expectations; sleep deprivation, and constant engagement in this thing or that thing or the other thing that might just be the tipping point that gets you into The School. That’s not to say none of us are attached to the things we do—we all have some activities that we truly are doing because we want to—but when someone says “Yeah, I’m doing it for the college apps,” even when they accompany it with that “oh-don’t-I-work-so-hard-but-I’m-really-a-chill-guy-colleges-don’t-you-want-my-body” grin and wink, you know they’re only kind of kidding.

Let me be clear that I’m not asking colleges to be less selective. How would scientists that study sleep-deprivation in high school students find work otherwise? But in a world where everything is faster and more demanding because of the prevalence of technology…our lives are moving faster and are more demanding as well, and while the status quo is in place for a reason, people ought to know of its effects. In a world where a B is apocalyptic and a dozen clubs aren’t enough, colleges might at least feel compelled to include stress balls with their over-glossed brochures. Every little bit helps.

Also, if my generation is going to work our butts off like no generation ever before to get into places like Yale, they better not let in any more people like the Bush Twins.

We’ve talked a little about how college shoehorns itself into the lives of high school freshmen and on, but at some point, we begin to realize that we need to do more than chuck brochures into the wastebasket if we want to be admitted. The research begins—paging through the dense info packets colleges have sent, checking the Internet for the scoops and inside info on your favorite colleges. The most available and most-cited college ranking source, one that students are especially wont to target for straight-rankings, is the US News and World Report College Rankings, which look like this:

US News and World Report On Why You Will Never Get Into College Ever

Rankings:

1. School with 3% acceptance rate
2. School with 4% acceptance rate
3. Another school with 3% acceptance rate
4. School with 6% acceptance rate
5. School that you’ve never heard of but, upon researching, find that it has a 2% acceptance rate
6. School that a human being might have a respectable chance of getting into
7. Yet another school with a 3% acceptance rate.

All the way down to…

700: That school you thought was good and always told your parents’ friends you were considering; now you feel dumb.

800: That college your really smart older friend went to. God, you’re never getting into any college.

5,000,000: Your safety school.

Of course, it should be noted that there are “rankings slaves”, those people who religiously follow the rankings, for whom life has no greater purpose than getting into the #1 school. Then, of course, there are people on the opposite end of the spectrum (the antonym of “rankings slave” is “hipster”), and most college applicants fall somewhere in the middle.

But at some point, reading and re-reading the college’s Wikipedia page fails to be enough. We’ve got to see the college in action before you commit to living there for the next four years. So we get out a road map, and whatever our college spiritual guide is (for rankings slaves, the US News and World Report, for hipsters, Pabst Blue Ribbon, for everyone else, their older friends who are already in college) and start planning out a list of our own.  For the rankings slaves, the list of colleges to visit will be easy:

Yale

Yale

Yale

Yale

Yale

But for the rest of us, it’s a tough job by any means. We know the colleges we’re interested in, but maybe we know enough about the one in Alaska to apply without visiting. Or do we? And then of course there’s the awkward song-and-dance that occurs when our parents want us to visit their alma mater and we have no interest whatsoever in going.

Eventually, the list gets hammered out. Maybe we’re double-checking our first-choice schools, maybe we’re feeling out some colleges we haven’t heard much about, maybe we’re figuring out which “reach” schools are actually reasonable for us and which are just pretentious. And off we go, whether it’s a flight to Oregon or a drive to the University of Maryland.

The college tours I go on are all inevitably similar. My parents and I are offered coffee, then ushered into a room where we are greeted by an enthusiastic pitchman (or woman) who uses words like “unique” and “distinguished” and “dedicated faculty”. They radiate friendliness while maintaining a debonair “We don’t let just everyone in here, you know” aura. We’re given glossy brochures and informed about the student-faculty ratio. A helicopter parent prods their student to ask about the pre-med program. The session wraps up after an hour and one or two of the most attractive students split us up into groups to take on campus tours. They smile and talk about the time they did that crazy thing that you won’t do at any other college and their amazing biology teacher and we feel so welcome we might as well be visiting the Care Bears.

On the walking tours, they show us the state-of-the-art this and the newly renovated that and the perfectly manicured lawns, but that’s not the point—we want to get a glimpse of the student life. Generally, this teaches us two things:

The first is that people are happy here. Which is good.

The second is a mathematical ratio that goes like this:

Percentage of attractive students in photos on website : Percentage of attractive students actually on campus = 50:3

But even if there are fewer hot bodies than promised, the students and admission staff are such trained pitchman that we can’t not like the school, even if it’s not one of those special ones we fall in love with.

Which will make the process all the more agonizing, I’m sure, when I start to submit my college applications next year.

Decisions, decisions.

I signed away my email and home addresses to any college that wanted them as soon as I registered for the PSAT…which is basically the privacy equivalent of saying “Yeah, I’ll leave my kids with that Catholic priest!”

The only positive aspect of allowing colleges to send me all the email updates they want is its impact on the American economy—more jobs for the gnomes that power my spam filter. But for every email I get from Yale or Brown or Princeton, I get fifty from the University of Evansville, filled with misplaced commas and bragging about their 300:1 student-faculty ratio.

There’s some communication that I’ve felt lucky to receive. Kenyon and University of Chicago, for instance, have sent offbeat, entertaining brochures that are more than just the standard lists of how many people went on to get doctoral degrees and join law firms and have hotter wives. And whenever I’m lucky enough to receive an info packet, not just a one-sheet of facts I already read on Wikipedia, I enjoy the information inside.

But other than the obvious things (proper punctuation, seriously. University of Evansville’s emails go directly to my ‘deleted’ folder now), there are three things colleges do with their marketing process that alienate prospective applicants almost entirely. Not quite entirely, of course—our parents have convinced us of the urban legend that if we don’t go to college, our extremities will fall off. But I digress—how can colleges address the problems that cause thousands of college brochures to be collecting dust on kitchen counters across America?

Too formulaic:

“Students at [University] are [Changing the world/challenging themselves/eating only from Quiznos] in a [community/setting/hellhole] that thrives off of a truly [diverse/intellectual/stoned] student body, where [challenges/opportunities/your hot TA] are actively pursued, and support from [faculty/peer mentors/Dr. Phil] is readily available. Every day, students find themselves making [a difference/new friends/babies]. Community! Diversity! Academic Rigor! Athletics! Et Cetera! I encourage you to [consider/strongly consider/we will drive down and beg you to consider us if we have to] applying to [University].

The above is pretty much EVERY COLLEGE LETTER. Every time anyone gets one of these, it is accompanied with an overwhelming feeling of ennui. We KNOW what your student-to-faculty ratio is! You already displayed it fifty times on your website. And I’m honestly thrilled that you have 4,000 undergraduates. Gosh, I would sure hate it if you had 4,050. Or 3,950. I’d never consider any other college.

Please, put a new spin on the formula—or at least go in-depth and show the applicant what makes your school so special. Buzzwords are for political posturing. This is higher education.

Too much:

The amount of letters anyone gets in a week is enough to feed a starving child in Gambia. Every college sends mail, sometimes multiple pieces thereof. When there’s such a deluge appearing on your doorstep, teenagers will do what teenagers do and watch YouTube videos as fact sheet after fact sheet go unopened. Colleges need to exercise restraint here—less is more. We don’t hate the arrival of college letters—but if your favorite magazine was delivered three times a day, would you still be excited about its arrival? And further, would you read it from cover to cover?

Too desperate:

Perhaps the most annoying thing about college e-mails (this is rarely a problem with letters) is the sheer persistence of some admissions officers.

“Fish, check out [College]!”

At this point they sound fairly sane, but unfortunately I am busy and have a mountain of other email, so I don’t check out [College] for the moment.

Two days later:

“Am I reaching Fish? Because you haven’t responded or anything and I just wanted to make sure this is your correct email address.”

[College] is starting to sound like a clingy ex-girlfriend. Already I have mentally removed it from my list.

“It would be really awesome to hear from you, Fish. I’d like that very much. If you could just check us out, that would be great. I love you.”

[College] continues to sound like a clingy ex-girlfriend. I begin sleeping with a can of mace under my pillow and make sure to avoid the entire state in which [College] is located.

“Fiiiiish, why haven’t you responded? I NEED YOU…I WANT YOUR BIG, THROBBING BRAIN INSIDE OF MEEEEEEE”

Obviously the above is not a verbatim quote…but by the fourth or fifth email trying to cajole me: “Fish, your response is requested”, I can’t possibly take them seriously. No college wants me that badly. Just like with romance, clinginess and following me like a puppy are keys to failure.

And if University of Evansville shows up outside of my window, holding a boom box above their head and playing “our song”, I will drop my college letters on them. All five thousand.

Stay in school,