This was all the cat's idea.
Out there, in the wilds of Schenectady, there is a kid who is fighting the good fight: the agonizing oppression of the student yearbook. Every year, kids are forced to take the same pained pose, a slight tilt in the head, a faraway gaze, a cloudy blue background.
This year, 16-year old Draven Rodriguez says no to those limitations. He wants to be remembered in the yearbook the way he is in real life: holding his cat Mr Bigglesworth and surrounded by lasers.
As he told the Daily Gazette, “I don’t want to go in the yearbook with the generic ‘I-look-like-everyone-else’ photo. I wanted a ‘He looks great. Only he would try that’ photo.”
To ensure his immortalization as the only one who would try it, Rodriguez started a pre-emptive petition to persuade the powers that be at Schenectady High School to include his photo before they hand down an official "no."
According to his petition, "This is my photo that should be going into the yearbook, but we know how finicky the school systems can be. I'm hoping that with enough signatures, my school simply can't turn this down."
He was hoping for 500 signatures, but as of this publication he has already gotten 1,300, and that number is still climbing.
Despite the public approval, the school district has already issued an informal response, and it is pretty much a no.
As school district spokeswoman Karen Corona told The Gazette, "That will not appear in the portrait section. There are other places in the yearbook where those photos can be placed. It doesn’t mean the photo won’t be in the yearbook. It just means it won’t be in the section where the more professional photos are."
I have to admit, I support their decision.
As much as I think his picture rocks, support freedom of expression, and fully understand the desire to fuck shit up and subvert the system (I wont give examples of my commitment to this here for legal reasons), I can't help but feel like this kid is missing out on the point of the yearbook portrait. What is a yearbook if not the representation of what school really is: a standardized institution. One look at the millions of YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and Snapchat accounts will tell us, freedom of expression is not what is lacking in society. Maybe the yearbook should represent the homogeneity the school system stands for — Standardized tests! Standardized dress codes! Standardized photos! They have already allowed for other places in the yearbook where this photo could live. In a world where self expression already reigns supreme, why not let the portrait section offer the only difference it can — standardization.
When The Gazette informed him of the school district's decision, Draven played the cool customer, saying "I can work with that. I’m not trying to make any statement."
He created a backup to use just in case.
That's great. As Orson Welles once said, "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."
Anyone can add cats and lasers, so in the spirit of letting the limitations challenge his art, here is the backup Rodriguez produced for them to use instead:
Close enough.
(by Myka Fox)