Middle School Champions

Adolescent hilarity

[wenchyfloozymoo]

[fuckyeahcomicsbaby]

IT Workers Share the Most Idiotic Things Non-Techies Have Told Them

[kodiak-attack-deactivated202103]

i remember one dude that came in last week that tried to convince me that his optical drive was his hard drive

[dudeinthestacks]

This is everyday in my class.

[kasael-deactivated20250929]

tumblr meme culture is really just a form of neo dadaism

[kasael-deactivated20250929]

I’d like to clarify:

dada was a largely european art movement that took place after wwi. this time and place is not a coincidence. let me explain. 

dada art made no sense. the artists who made dada lived in a world in which nothing made sense - in which conventional logic led to the senselessness of a world war. so, making art that made no sense, making - well, you can’t really call it art, so making ANTI-art that rejected the conventions that brought about that atrocity in the first place - it made total sense. (if that makes any sense.)

so the artists did weird things. new things! putting things that were already made together and calling it sculpture, cutting up bits of pictures and putting them together and calling that something to frame - this site has some nice examples.

but from my perspective - there’s serious intellectual continuity between the absurdity of attaching a bunch of tacks to the bottom of an iron, rendering it useless, and say…. bath bomb posts. Put a fucking macbook in a bath. it’s useless now. Nobody fucking cares anymore. you want something funny? you want a punchline? gun. that’s your punchline. Take it. I am laughing

in a way it could be a method of venting some of the frustration and hopelessness and dissatisfaction that tumblr’s userbase (largely, disenfranchised millennials) feels in the modern day. I can’t really speak for anyone else, but… at least from a US perspective, there’s plenty to be disillusioned about. growing up in a constant state of questionably justified war, income inequality, an economic recession caused by the actions of a handful of wealthy fucks who didn’t even get properly punished, growing awareness of police brutality, being called lazy and self-absorbed by the generations that gave us these problems in the first place… I can’t help but think that these factors (and more) could produce a similar mindset to the one that precipitated the first dada movement. 

so of COURSE we make nonsense jokes. it’s a coping mechanism for a world which doesn’t make any sense.

related: this isn’t by tumblr but I have to plug UCLA’s atrocity of a virtual gallery once more. it really needs to be experienced, but… it’s definitely also millennial neo dada. from the presentation (like an unplayable video game) to the content (THE DOGS HAVE ARRIVED), it is exactly what I am talking about. it is a fucking shitpost. and it’s high art, too! I love this

tl;dr: my generation is fed up with this bullshit, and the best way that we can express that is by shitposting. alternatively, dada was an early precursor to modern shitposting and we should all thank duchamp for signing a fucking urinal

[kasael-deactivated20250929]

a dear friend has given a perfect update to some of my phrasing, courtesy of their word replace extension:

you see this? this is exactly what I’m fucking talking about. the thing that I’m talking about is:

[gayasscommie-deactivated2017090]

I’d also say that while Dadaism was obsessed with the technological aspects of Modernity, of newspapers, of industrial mechanics and factory made clocks, neo-dadaism (of which shitposting but also the increasingly broad reach of the New Aesthetic and net aesthetics) is obsessed with the technological aspects of our time, or at the beginning of our time.

As just a comparison, the Clock in Absurdist and Dadaist art is both a symbol of the uplifting beginning of industrial relations (as one of the first complicated machines made by manufacturers, as the symbol of mankind’s ability to triumph and analyze nature and better ourselves) and as the deified symbol of horrific modernity (of demarcated time, labor hours, the oppression of the working class via managerial time), Neo-Dadaism/Absurdism has a similar relationship with early computers, which both symbolizes the utopian attitudes which we entered the digital age with, and the horrifying period we live in now, where the Digital is ever present and semi-deified.

[sam-keeper]

My favorite dada satire is probably from Georges Grosz who takes the kind of robotic modernist tube people of folks like Leger:

and turns them into these mindlessly patriotic broken automatons chanting rote phrases:

And it’s so so funny to me that there’s all kinds of Gen X artists out there creating art about the millennials on their damn cellumar phones who think they’re the inheritors of this aesthetic but really it’s people who use the Madden gif generator to shitpost because they’re taking the technology meant for a coherent purpose for a particular narrative and they’re breaking it and turning it back on itself.

[mizulyn]

I think you might be onto something…

x

Aside from color palettes and materials used, I see literally zero difference.

[blackwoolncrown]

This is one of the top 3 best posts I’ve ever seen on tumblr and I’ve been here for years.

[play-dolls]

Love

[fringnubs-deactivated20160831]

[mustangsally78]

STATUS: DAY MADE.

[bebeocho]

o

[aint-that-kind-of-blog-bruv]

This post has been on my mind constantly for ages.

[siquetumismo]

[turntoturnover-deactivated20250]

oh my fuckning

[iopele]

UNMUTE THIS

[ugly-ducck-deactivated20150930]

[bblackgoldd]

Freakin adorable

[milas-universe]

“This is how we dooooo it”

[blackymiles]

Carefree black youth.

[chinaija]

Still.

[drankinwatahmelin]

Whyyyyy isnt this longer???

[reverendrowdy]

There’s like 2-3 parts to this

[baetology]

Where they at?!

[highonmelanin-deactivated201601]

YES, IT’S BACK ON MY DASH.

[sungawddess-deactivated20180923]

Aw this is so cute!! I love it

[50shadesofdope]

awesome

[sonicthechipmunk]

It’s back! I love this, man

[jayharvest]

Dope!!!

[will-x-vi]

“wooh KARATEEEE!!”

[middleschoolchamps]

Okay, friends

Probably preaching to the choir here, but bear with me.

Kid I tutor is in an APUSH class at a prestigious private school in the Cities, has self-diagnosed with dyslexia (his mom refuses to get him tested), and tells me he’s struggling to write.

He wrote his first paper this week, and it’s pretty good in its own right, definitely not as bad as he thinks it is. I ask him about his fear of handing in his paper this week, and he tells me that his teachers have told him they expect college level work.

Me: Did they show you what college level work looks like?

Him: No.

Me: Do they allow re-writes?

Him: No.

Me: Do they teach writing in class?

Him: No.

Me: So they expect you to walk into class as a fifteen year old writing at a college level even though they have never given you an example of what they’re looking for, and they won’t let you re-write it so you can never fix your mistakes.

Him: ...Yep.

Why 👏 are 👏we 👏demanding 👏that 👏students 👏walk 👏into 👏our 👏classes 👏with 👏the 👏knowledge 👏we’re 👏supposed 👏to 👏teach 👏them👏

Why 👏do 👏we 👏refuse 👏to 👏give 👏students 👏an 👏opportunity👏 to 👏learn 👏through 👏corrections 👏and 👏revisions👏

Why👏 are 👏we👏 pushing 👏away 👏teaching 👏moments 👏with 👏both 👏hands 👏when 👏we 👏are 👏literal 👏teachers 👏

[theartofangirling]

some memes I made to express my current frustrations with academia feel free to add your own

[whitepeopletwitter]

A strong contender for tweet of the year, already.

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

a collection of underrated tweets, part 3

(the series)

[middleschoolchamps]

Watching sixth graders realize

That they actually have to do their work is a little like watching a birth, a little like watching a death.

[middleschoolchamps]

Eighth grader: Ms M, who’s your favorite student?

Me: Good Lord, are we starting that already?

Eighth grader: That’s the thing about me: I never stopped.

[windycityteacher-deactivated202]

Before we applaud TIME magazine…

Let’s remember how they felt about us a mere four years ago…

They helped create, or at the very least perpetuate, this culture. This cover came off the heels of the Chicago Teacher’s Union strike that propelled the organization to the national stage, and gave a framework for the #Red4Ed strikes this past year.

TIME knew exactly what it was doing. Now, they want to act shocked that none of us can make ends meet.

[mkay-thats-cool-too]

Both of these are valid problems. It is nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher, but it’s also nearly impossible to keep a good one. Bad teachers, once they reach tenure, are almost untouchable. I had a teacher who would stop class to cry about boyfriend drama, went into an extreme amount of detail in a story involving her peeing into a cup, would go into the band classroom (we were choir) and tell them how much better we were and how awful they were until they cried, accused me of sucking dick in the bathroom when I was 3 minutes late to class (I was 14), threatened to sue a student for defamation because she posted how awful the teacher was on Facebook, had an entire “choir concert” revolve around her and her jazz band, stole solos from the children so she could show off, and caused a class wide strike where we all skipped and went down to the counciling office to demand something was done about her. It took 3 years for her to get fired, and they still couldn’t have done it if she hadn’t illegally taken a student’s money for after school coaching.

However, a few of our best teachers got laid off every year. If they were brand new to the district, the chances of them being rehired was slim to none. Not only that, but my amazing Spanish teacher lived in a studio apartment with a futon bed, and desk. She ate on the floor. She’d been with the district for 5 years or so. My other Spanish teacher was a bartender on the side and still lived with her parents. I took an interior design class where we got to renovate a teacher’s room. (There were a list of teachers that actually wanted a room designed, we got a budget and everything, it was a really cool project) and I was supposed to renovate a kid’s room. It was so small that her bed nearly didn’t fit. It may as well have been a closet.

Both of these are valid problems.

[windycityteacher-deactivated202]

Except no, they aren’t.

I could cite numerous sources that discuss how strong unions (ones that protect those nasty evil teachers) actually do more to push bad teachers out of the profession, and raise high school graduation rates. Those same sources talk about how states that went “right to work” kept bad teachers on longer. On a personal note, in urban districts across the nation, there is essentially no such thing as tenure. It just gives you an extra year of disciplinary action before you’re removed. (Chicago Public Schools is like this…fyi.) 

Setting all of that evidence aside for a brief moment, your argument is purely anecdotal, and doesn’t factor in your particular school administration, your district, or your state’s policies. Your perspective is narrow and doesn’t account for a lot. While I am truly, deeply, sorry that an educator betrayed your trust and was less than kind, there’s a lot missing from this story of the choir teacher who tormented you and was impossible to fire. 

But that’s okay, let’s set aside all of THAT for a brief moment, what you’re doing, by claiming both perspectives “are valid problems” and have an equal merit (despite the fact that one of them is a lie perpetrated by those who wish to privatize and monetize public education), you make teachers’ lives harder. Why pay teachers a living wage if most of them are terrible and impossible to fire? This argument is not “two sides of the same coin,” one is a blatant falsehood, and one is the everyday reality of educators across the nation.

I’m going to include this commenter in the same vein:

Ultimately, arguments like this always boil down to “because I had a teacher who was mean to me, they all should starve.” 

And that’s kind of bullshit.  

-WCT

[advanced-procrastination]

I felt the correlation between pay and teacher retention was particularly important: tenured vs non-tenured teacher firing rates is approximately level whether the union has collective bargaining powers or not, but unionized areas with collective bargaining actually let go more of their un-tenured staff to get rid of bad teachers before they receive tenure, and high-quality teachers are much more likely to leave when they are not paid a competitive salary. Who gets paid more? Unionized teachers, by 5-10% more.

So unions actually raise the rate at which bad teachers are fired, and high salaries help retain good teachers. Non-unionized districts lose more high-quality teachers who know they’re worth more than they’re getting, lowering the average quality of teachers in the district.

UNIONS ARE GOOD FOR TEACHER QUALITY.

[insomniac-arrest]

late night cashiers at 24-hour convenience stores are the holders of our greatest secrets and most intimate selves

[insomniac-arrest]

not my mom, not my partner, not God himself has seen me no-make up in line to buy a choco-pop and panty liners while on the brink of a heart felt meltdown

no one has given me the empty stare of complete indifference that fills my anxious nerves with relief

there is nothing like the sweet freedom of complete nihilism experienced at a 7/11 at 2am, God lives in church, the randomness of the unfeeling universe lives at aisle 9 of CVS 

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

what a fabulous and also philosophically horrifying tumblr post, thank you so much

[middleschoolchamps]

Look who finally reset her password

[middleschoolchamps]

Ex Machina

Sixth grader: Ms M, can you use a person as a source?

Me: Yeah! Of course? Who is it?

Sixth grader: ...Alexa

[middleschoolchamps]

Can someone hook me up with a sloth?

Eighth grader in the middle of a jigsaw activity

[middleschoolchamps]

Some people transcend noun types