A Student Memorial
When we were passing around Ms. Crisci’s yearbook photo in ToK, I noticed it came from a website for her high school graduating class. Now that college applications are building up and the dreadful day we graduate is getting closer, one of these website things sounds really good right now. Apparently, their webmaster has my ip on a blacklist, so I had to look at it through a proxy. They’ve got yearbook photos, a blog, obituaries, a forum, photos, and some other stuff. Yearbook photos, I understand. But it looks like they inputted them one at a time into WordPress or something. They must have had a really small graduating class. I don’t suppose our class is close enough or small enough to do that, but we’re not so favorable to tedious work either. Blogs are usually great, except for stuff like this. See, blogs are either for news or narcissism. Both of these are better handled with social networking and instant messaging and emails1. It doesn’t make sense to use a blog for this. Instead, a site like this should be a memorial2. It’s to commemorate a group of people who grew up, somewhat in the vicinity of each other. No blog. Obituaries.. that’s simply depressing. I hope nobody from our class is picked off any time soon3. A forum is likewise useless. It just isn’t the correct media for this sort of thing. Photos don’t belong here either. Well, this website looks like it hasn’t been changed in a year. So what really could go on a class memorial website? See, the class website appeals to the human need for security. None of us want to believe that soon this group of students will leave nothing behind. That’s why we do class projects like the horseshoe and the awning, and powerpoints and yearbooks. It’s not like our class is greatly interwoven or tightly knit. It’s not like its students share anything in common other than their birth year and their hometown. But this is something we’ve got to have: a mustangs2012.com. It should be a great endeavor in user experience design and unconventional layout. It should be future-proof and built to stand for decades. It should involve the greatest number of people possible, all contributing content: pictures, writing, semantic documents. It should grow subdomains like trees grow leaves. Subdomains for IB4. Subdomains for memorable class periods. Subdomains for teachers and clubs and social circles. You know what, there is so much talent and greatness in our grade that needs to be expressed. It needs a memorial sculpture set in stone, if not for our bonds, then for our vanity. This is our last year to make this possible. If we can get a diverse team of brilliant people, we can make something happen.5
- Oh god, I’m gonna have to join a social network, aren’t I.. ↩︎
- I know we’re not dead yet. But memory nonetheless. ↩︎
- Just thought of a horror movie synopsis. Students in their class discover their teacher’s class website on which there is an obituary for her. Next day, things continue as normal, until one idiot kid brings up the disparity. Another unrelated one: A boy grows up with his doctors, parents, and family thinking that he is blind. He cannot see properly and wears the typical opaque glasses of the blind. However, nobody is aware that he, in fact, does not have typical blindness. Instead, he sees the true nature of people in a grotesque and fantastic way that others and he himself mistake for blindness. ↩︎
- How cool is ib.mustangs2012.com?! ↩︎
- I can’t post the link to Ms. Crisci’s class website here. I think that would be inappropriate. It’s probably on Facebook though or something.. ↩︎