Wednesday, September 30, 2015 // The Statement 7B Personal Statement: Being average by Michael Flynn, Daily Arts Writer choice, Colin Gunckel, assistant professor of american culture and screen arts and cultures, sees taste as a mode of class distinction — much like what sociologist Pierre Bordieu elaborated on in “Distinction: A Social Critique in the Judgement of Taste.” Like Bordieu, Gunkel believes these preferences are generated arbitrarily, and are empty signifiers of status. He noted in an e-mail, “The category (of hipster) is associated with having a superficial relationship to consumption. Going to the ‘hot’ new restaurant or bar that everyone is talking about, going to the art show you read about on the cover of the weekly, listening to whatever they read about on whatever website, dressing like your friends, I am average. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of average as an adjective is thus: “Of the usual or ordinary standard, level or quantity.” That doesn’t seem like a terrible thing to be. But for so many people in this generation (and in any generation), that is a dirty word. “Average” is the one thing most people dread to be. People want to be exceptional. People want to make the most money, make the biggest difference and be the best friend, partner, student and citizen they can possibly be. This aversion to average-ness is not innate, except in some particularly narcissistic cases, but rather the product of external forces. Parents tell their children that their abilities are exceptional, and all but guarantee that they will do great things with their lives. The University of Michigan continues this rhetoric, telling tens of thousands of young people that they are the “leaders and best,” that they will go on to change the world and be successful. After all, if they got into U of M, they can’t possibly be average, right? For a long time, I thought that was I. I thought I was a person of exceptional ability, that I was guaranteed a bright, successful future. I like to think I’m a reasonably grounded individual, but I went through a large chunk of my life with an inflated sense of my own contribution to society, without much objective proof of that belief. I went to Campolindo High School, a public school in California with a reputation for sending its students to elite colleges. I spent my four years there as a high-functioning slacker, in academics and in life. I took AP classes, but didn’t put an exceptional amount of effort into them. I played sports, but didn’t stick with any of them for very long and never made varsity. I played guitar, but never joined the school band, and didn’t stay in any of the bands I joined for much longer than a year. I graduated from Campolindo with a solid but unexceptional GPA and an extracurricular resume that didn’t show any focus. Somehow, this (and probably also legacy status, thanks Dad) got me into the University of Michigan. I wasn’t a harder worker than many of my peers in high school, but somehow I got into an elite university. The illusion of my own exceptional ability and drive carried on. When I finally arrived at Michigan, I began to realize that I wasn’t prepared for the workload that an elite university requires. I continued to procrastinate. I continued to cram for tests and write papers the night before they were due. The same strategies that had worked for me in high school were beginning to crack. And I let them continue to crack. I was not galvanized into action. I was complacent. Looking back on it, I could have easily done something about it, but I had no intrinsic desire to do so. I never had any real intrinsic desire to succeed academically. The reason I worked reasonably hard in school was out of fear of disappointing my parents. My father, in particular, placed a great deal of weight on academic success. It wasn’t until sophomore year that I had a moment of clarity. I was procrastinating on homework by Googling recent Class of ’14 graduates that I knew to see what they were up to. One of them had a website with a link to her resume, and as I looked through it, I realized that this was a truly exceptional student, with a near-perfect GPA, leadership positions in student organizations and work experience. The realization of how far removed I was to that level of commitment and success hit me like a brick. The illusion of my own exceptional ability was shattered. From that simple realization came a feeling I hadn’t felt before: a strong desire to work hard, not for anyone else but myself. I felt that I could do so much better than I had done, and I resolved to do so. I resolved to leave average behind and begin the journey to becoming excellent. Since then, I’ve made some progress toward that goal, though not as much as I would have liked. I’ve raised my GPA, if only marginally. I’ve volunteered and pursued extracurricular activities, even achieving leadership positions in some of them. I haven’t stopped faltering and making mistakes, but I’ve become better at recognizing those mistakes and keeping myself from making them again. Perhaps the most significant effect of my epiphany is my newfound feeling that, while it’s not how I’d like to remain, being average at the time of life that I’m in isn’t a terrible thing. Barring the unforeseen, I have many more years to learn, to grow, to find areas I excel in. And what better place to be young and average than the University of Michigan? Just by virtue of attending this University, I am exposed to new perspectives and accrue meaningful experiences. I will take interesting classes and pursue activities that I love. I will gather skills that will help me survive in the real world, regardless of how well I do academically. I hope to continue improve as a human, and I hope to truly excel in something someday. But for now, I am average. And for the time of life that I’m in, average is quite all right. ILLUSTRATION BY CHERYLL VICTUELLES living in the right neighborhood — people are suddenly into paying $20 for the privilege of eating artisanal toast, because that’s what’s trending. In other words, people associate hipsters with having no kind of original, meaningful or personal relationship to culture.” Indeed, to Gunckel, as well as a set of left-leaning intellectuals, the mythic aura of authenticity surrounding the hipster masks the real damage: “I think the close association of the hipster with the creative economy obscures the detrimental economic shifts that gentrification is having in certain cities. Equating this demographic with ‘hipness’ is a way of foregrounding that supposed dimension of the category, without owning up to their privilege and the role many of us — hipster or otherwise — may have in gentrification.” Abandoning the territory of mainstream consumerism, hipsters are free to wander wherever they please, led only by a cultivated taste, a deep wallet, and, yes, the rigid norms of a class structure. Perhaps our Ann Arbor hipster is really just our existentialist tastemaker, choosing to choose in the daunting face of late-capitalist society. Sartre condemned man to freedom, but for the hipster set loose in the culinary garden of Ann Arbor, this is a delightful possibility.