The Lariat Blog: Most Likely To Be Annoyed

BY KAYLA LOKEINSKY

During a time when seniors should be focused on the daunting task of preparing for their lives after high school, most were waiting with bated breath for an answer to the most vital, life-changing, groundbreaking question of their high school career:

Who, among their class, will win this year’s senior superlatives?

Yes Cowboys, the time of superlatives is upon us. At high schools around the country, the competition is growing fiercer by the day as seniors yearn to know who will be forever immortalized in the pages of the yearbook as Most Talented, Best Looking, and Most Likely to Succeed. It’s deadly serious business, and there can only be one winner. However, the cutthroat competition for superlative nominations has taken a turn for the obnoxious. From Facebook groups to countless campaigns, students are taking the idea of winning a superlative far to seriously.

Originally, senior superlatives were created to honor members of senior class for their achievements, citizenship and personalities. However, now these awards are not only superficial, focusing on who has the “Best Body” or the “Best Eyes”, but they also cause a huge uproar among the student body.

For weeks at CCHS, students could barely focus on their schoolwork as the talk of who to vote for started to arise. On voting day, after nearly a week of campaigns and dozens of facebook event invitations, there was pandemonium in every senior class, where the process took nearly the entire period as debates on who should win and who shouldn’t were heard throughout the halls. However, after the ballots were cast, and all was said and done, seniors still missed the entire point of superlatives.

Superlatives are not about harassing your peers for votes, or campaigning for something that you don’t even deserve. If you don’t know what an “Unsung Hero” is, then don’t run for it. If you don’t do anything creative, don’t ask people to vote for you as “Most Artistic.” Winning a superlative means that your fellow students feel that you deserve it, not that you forced everyone to vote for you.

Also, winning a superlative is not all it’s cracked up to be. In fact,many see it as a curse later in life. In a poll done by the Wall Street Journal, of the people who were voted “Most Likely to Succeed” in high school, about one-third of them hate it later in life.

When voting for superlatives, seniors should remember that it isn’t about fighting for votes, or creating facebook groups, or forcing others to nominate you. They’re about honoring the students who really deserve a chance to be immortalized in the yearbook for their high school achievements.