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Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t, Part 1

In my senior yearbook, my graduating class and I didn’t get a nice chunk of blank space to say whatever we wanted beside our gorgeous head shots. Instead, all the upperclassmen had their photos in the front of the book accompanied by their names, and then there was an extra section all the way in the back where there were some seniors’ baby/childhood photos beside the Class Will. Whose idea was this nonsense layout?! I have also always hated Class Wills, because they never seemed to make any sense to me: “I will you this memory! I will you this abstract concept!” (All this uproar from the chick who gave away things like “Love” and “Sunshine” and “The Grim Reaper” drawn on index cards during a rousing game of Gambling for Trinkets.)

I shunned the forced Class Will in favor of a quote from a Glenn Ligon painting that gave me the good creepies at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Here is my childhood photo, and here is the quote (in a slightly exaggerated font):

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

One of my friends was like, “People are going to read that and think you’re dead.” Well, no one-page “In Memoriam” page in the yearbook for me—I lived through it to tell this tale! Unlike the senior I came across in one of the ’90s yearbooks—he apparently died during Senior Week, right after graduation. He’s stuck in high school forever, dead, and all he gets is a crappy yearbook layout page. Another class had three dead seniors. That’s a bit much.

My grandma had stockpiled yearbooks from the ’60s through the ’80s, having always known at least one kid from the neighborhood in each one. These were super fun to flip through, even though I recognized no one—at the time. (At last, I divulge that this was actually how I picked my dentist in Pennsylvania—I recognized her name from the ’78 yearbook.)

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

I liked reading their self-penned mini biographies, which gave a lot of insight to who they were, or at least how they wanted to come across. I also enjoyed looking at all the pictures and playing the game “Who’s the Hottest Dude?” All the boys were really cute in the class of 1970-something. Way cuter than the mid-‘90s guys. The class superlatives are also a hoot. For example, one class’s Best Looking had his eyes closed for the picture, and Ms. Vo-Tech wore a kitty sweater. What I especially loved was a senior picture of a chick in leather jacket and holding a tiny kitty. I still maintain that Tetra should’ve posed for her engagement photos like that.

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

As you may have guessed from reading the Produce High web comic, I’ve always been interested in high school, period. Not my own high school days, mind you. But the dynamic of the culture there, how things get decided, lines in the sand get drawn, and they have NO bearing on actual reality whatsoever. The same group of people is growing up together at the same time in this odd bubble for twelve years, for better or worse, and once it’s over, it’s gone forever. No one from that bubble will ever have an experience similar to that ever again, which is why what happens to those from your graduating class matters in some respect, regardless of who your friends were. To a degree, we all care about each other. It’s actually quite fascinating.

But let’s get back to the seniors’ parting words: Some blurbs were really weird and creative and WTF-inducing. Occasionally, they even rhymed. And so they had to be extra-preserved for all posterity—by me! Here, a few gems, characterized by the fine cast of Produce High. (Click the image to be taken to depicted comic!)

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

A bathroom-dwelling Ann Landers shacking up with a certain dark-haired five-foot-four hunk of man working at Ponderosa is the next 50 Shades of Poop.

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

The WEEBLES clearly hijacked this kid’s yearbook bio.

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

She means weed.

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

me rn tbh

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

You can make blatant references to going to Bone Town in the yearbook??!

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

You don’t sound too sure

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

We appreciate your frank and honest candor, sir

You forgot to attribute that quote to Ghandi.

You forgot to attribute that quote to Ghandi.

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

I think what this angsty teen was trying to say was “I’m turning into a specter before your very eyes and I’m going to haunt you.”

Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t @ HappiMessMedia.com #yearbook

Further evidence a Class Will makes no sense.

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