Friday ushered in another round of media discussion about David Hogg’s rejection from several California colleges, which is a really dumb conversation that we’ve been having all week.
During a morning interview with the teen activist, CNN’s Alyson Camerota marveled at the unknowable phenomenon, wondering “what kind of dumbass colleges don’t want you?”
I don’t care who started it, I don’t care what you think of Hogg, and I don’t even care that our news cycle regularly gets snagged on inane stories. Can we please just all agree there is no national news value to a kid whose applications were sent in long before he rose to prominence getting rejected from a few schools?
I mean, who doesn’t? If you only apply to schools where you can easily get in, you’re probably not being ambitious enough.
If higher education websites want to contemplate whether anyone with a 4.2 GPA and 1,270 SAT score deserves to get rejected from the colleges that rejected Hogg, let them. If TMZ wants to score some clicks off the story, let them. But please stop wasting time in the the national news cycle on it.
The news media is beginning to treat Hogg the way the entertainment media treats the Kardashians, turning every development in his life into a headline. And frankly I’m not looking forward to the day when we all have to read a New York Times article about where he buys his salads, question on CNN “what kind of dumbass Sweetgreen runs out of avocados?” and then waste more time debating whether his answer was inspirational or sanctimonious.
