The politics of yearbook signing
While the yearbook chronicles any given year in Aragon history, it is the back pages that many people covet. In those last few blank pages, there is a treasure trove of personal memories, hilarious laughs, and way too many “HAGS!” The last few pages hold the signatures, the fun, sometimes tearful end of the year ritual that has created a fascinating array of politics.
“[When somebody I barely know] comes up to me and asks me to sign their yearbook, I’ll normally just [write] ‘Have a great summer!’ or ‘I hope to get to know you better next year!’ ”, says freshman Paige Kotowitz. “It really matters how much you know the person. I think it’s nicer if the sign with more than their name though; it’s more personal. I don’t really care how many people sign my yearbook; it doesn’t really matter.”
Senior Katayoon Anoushiravani says, “I try to get quality signatures. I don’t care how many people sign it… I’d like them to write a paragraph, not just sign it.”
“When I’m signing people yearbooks, I try to go for quality, not quantity. I really don’t care how many yearbooks I sign. I want the ones I do sign to be genuine though,” Anoushiravani says. When asked if being a senior heightens the need to leave your mark, and get your yearbook layered in signatures, Anoushiravani replies, “No. [The yearbook] really doesn’t matter to me that much to me.”
Sophomore Ian Barrie’s only criteria for the messages in his yearbook are that, “They have to be something meaningful that will be hilarious in thirty years, because that’s really what a yearbook’s for.” When it comes to signing Barrie says, “I only try to sign my friends, or somebody that’s close to me anyway. If I don’t really know you and you ask me to sign your yearbook, I honestly don’t want to sign it, because you’re just trying to get as many signatures as possible.”
With the end of school right around the bend, Aragon students must prepare themselves for the oddly political endeavor of Yearbook signing.
