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Other countries are pretty obsessed with it too… Japan comes to mind. I think its because in HS you’ve got a real social network that isn’t built on exploiting eachother - or at least it doesn’t HAVE to be by design.
It’s a self-contained institution with a clear progression between levels an natural end-point and a seperation from other spheres of life. Once you leave the educational system you enter a system where time and space function entirely different. Creeping neoliberalism eroding ever further any semblance of separation of spheres and time. Work is never done there are no conclusions.
My classmates all thought they were gonna get super rich (because of the stupid fucking entrepreneur project where the chud teacher said if she could rent out an inflatable castle for hundreds of dollars at birthday parties then you can be a billionaire) and live in mansions. Anyone who wasn’t a trust fund baby now works soul sucking bullshit corporate jobs.
High school is the last glimpse at being connected with all of your local peers at a personal level for most Americans. Sure it sucks ass for many kids because our society is poisonous to grow up in, but once most people leave high school there just simply aren’t community structures that the people are encouraged to participate in, and so many people’s social networks fall to a few close friends, family, and coworkers. I truly believe a lot of work needs to be done on the front of building community relations before we’re gonna have the kind of success we’re going for. I think the societal anguish produced by ‘individualist’ conditioning on us as social creatures really fucks us up, and once we’re out of the one community we’ve ever really known (the school systems, if kids are lucky enough to feel connected to anyone in them) we spend the rest of our lives striving for individualist “success” and physically yearning for nothing but more meaningful connections.
something something Mark Fisher said basically this in Capitalist Realism regarding adaptability and jobs that require people to move around for a living rather than building community, Heat reference
I’m in college right now, and I always get depressed thinking of how many adults I know that just don’t really have friends. Especially middle-aged people I know like cousins/siblings. They’re so focused on work and kids that they have no time. I think a lot of people with to go back to when they socialized with people who weren’t just coworkers or their family.
For me this is obvious from life experience. Any time in my adult life that I’ve been a part of a small group that needed to accomplish a common, fulfilling goal and is together for a decent amount of time, the bonds I’ve formed in those situations are so strong and on a base level it just feels good to be in a group of people and solve problems.
It’s also an easy lazy media trope because High School is the last universal experience that we have as a society, though college is getting there.
Eh, college was getting more alienating and individualized before COVID. As academia continues along the “business model” students have become less involved on campus and with eachother. People know its a scam to get a scrap of paper so you can get a job with healthcare. If you can manage to do some actual learning in college that isn’t “Worker Training” good for you, but that experience has been fading. Even socializing on colleges has been commodified into “networking” for your eventual career.
i think it’s because for many americans, life doesn’t get better after.
This is also the reason Japanese people are preoccupied with high school.
Food and logging provided for you
Lumberjack High was a great time in my life
