SparkLife » Senior Superlatives (Are Ridiculous)

Senior Superlatives (Are Ridiculous)

Posted November 3, 2009

On the off-chance you don't have them, let us explain: superlatives are those inane predictions or smoochy titles seniors confer on each other (through voting) before they graduate. If you have a really small graduating class, this may sound like a great idea, because almost everyone will get named something, and you'll get to go home knowing you at least had the Most Consistently Even Tan.

The larger the class, though, the less likely anyone is to actually get one, which makes the whole experience seem suspiciously negative. Some schools make up for this by adding even more superlatives, really specific ones, but the risk is that you still don't get Best Oboe Player even though you're the only oboe player, and you graduate feeling defeated, believing your dreams of oboe stardom now seem so tawdry. When this happens, you may feel like you got a non-award for being the worst.

So yes, the downside is that superlatives come bundled with what's left of that unending popularity contest, but the upside is that by the time you're getting this empirical list of the Cutest Whatevers, you are out the door. If you get lost in the shuffle, it doesn't even matter; now you're off to whole new opportunities, or at least whole new shuffles to go get lost in.

But then there are the other possibilities. You may well win something unabashedly positive—in which case you're probably the type of person who doesn't need the encouragement of that Most Likely to be President of the Moon plaque, anyway, since you already have oodles of accolades.

Alternatively, you may wind up with a few votes in one of those "possibly an insult" categories. Some of them mean essentially nothing, like Most Random. Others may be a bona fide insult, like Worst Driver, but you know you were voted that because your best friends made it a point to tell everyone, "Tina always freaks out if she has to parallel park, ha ha!" Or, "One time she backed into that reservoir in front of the police station! After she crashed into that truck full of hens! Ha ha! But yeah, don't get in a car with Tina." Even baffling or borderline-insulting superlatives mean that people knew you, and that's something.

And if you don't get anything, look to the future. Specifically the moment in the future when you roll up to your high school reunion in a solid gold Benz and shout out the window, "Take that, high school, I bought this car with oboe money."

Are you gunning for a senior superlative?