11AliveOnMySide: Fairburn, Georgia teen accepted into 53 colleges with $1.5M in scholarships earned
After writing about the chica that notched 155 acceptances and $6M in scholarships, #TRYHARDs like this one just seem so pale in comparison to write about. Which really sucks for them, because being a student with a 4.0 GPA and hoovering up 50+ college acceptances really is something to be proud of, but I guess this is what happens when #TRYHARD culture has become the thing it’s become, and gives a glimpse to why #TRYHARDs #TRYHARD.
As important as education is, to those in the #TRYHARDing game, attention and notoriety seems to matter just a little bit more. What with all the insufferable humblebragging, the photoshoots and general look-at-me behavior by all those that #TRYHARD, it’s apparent that the actual education at the end of the journey is secondary to the two seconds of internet notoriety that comes with being the best of the best when it comes to #TRYHARDing and accumulating as many college acceptances as possible while more than likely, not having to pay a cent in application fees.
Which is a shame, because a lot of the stories of the people who become #TRYHARDs are really fascinating and inspiring up until the point where they decide to do what they do because they want the attention. Like this one chica from close to where I used to live, which was a pretty desolate wasteland back then, and is seemingly worse now, has still managed to emerge from the muck and be a student with a 4.0 GPA, volleyball player, and somehow has the tenacity to be working two jobs, really is the embodiment of hard work.
But at some point in her journey, it was decided to become a #TRYHARD, and the question becomes if the grades, the extracurriculars, and the jobs, are they for the purpose of building character and necessity, or are they the purpose for padding a personal resume to feed into the next stage of life to where additional #TRYHARDing is all that life is going to be until they’re anonymous adults who hate their lives and wonder what their formative teenage years went.
I can’t remember who said it between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but one of them had a story about when they were young and in high school, and they were being touted as future megastars and can’t-miss prospects, they were reminded that as great as they think they were, inevitably there would always be someone out there who was working harder, and was probably better than you were. And as inevitable as greatness finding greatness is, Bird and Magic eventually encountered each other at the college ranks, a rivalry was born, carrying into the NBA, and the debate still lives on whom of the two was the better player.
And as impressive as 53 and $1.5M should be, in the grand spectrum of things, just up the street from where this #TRYHARD was doing her thing, she probably wasn’t aware of a queen bee #TRYHARDingn way harder than she was en route to her 155 and $6M. And there is no debate on whom of the two was the bigger #TRYHARD.
As I said before, it’s going to be a real hard act to follow, and I almost don’t want to waste my time writing about lesser #TRYHARDs unless a real noteworthy #TRYHARD comes along, but we’ll see how time permits in the coming months of #TRYHARDSZN2025.
