Your graduation status update is a telling indicator into the type of person you’re going to become

Graduating from university is a lot like finishing a marathon, and it’s not because of the long journey that’s strengthened you mentally but weakened you physically, or because you pissed in the street while strangers handed you drinks. No, it’s because the majority of those that do it are the types of people who live off social validation like some narcissistic isotope of oxygen.

And it’s easy to see why: you paid tens of thousands for the promise of employment and a bright future, yet all you got was a hug from a crusty old woman and a piece of paper. Where’s your payoff? In terms of organised rackets, modern universities put Italian crime families to shame.

So what do you do with this? Where’s the reward? Obviously, the answer’s to spread the word on Facebook, using likes as a quick-fix plaster over the gaping wound of looming unemployment.

That observation’s not going to put me on the shortlist for a Pulitzer any time soon, but I think there’s something much deeper to be found within these verbal ejaculations and subconscious outcries for external validation.

I’m sure there’s many analogies one could use to describe mediocrity, but fuck me if I can’t think of anything more perfect than a 2.1 from Sheffield. Desperately cramming verbs such as “scooped” into a status about your dissertation is just adding more fuel to the distinctly average fire.

On Saturday nights this guy doesn’t just get “drunk”, he gets “absolutely twatfaced :P” before his mates stick him in goal for their powerleague game. Intensely middle of the road, their mix of Topman-cum-ASOS wardrobe seasoned with a little Primark will help them fit in with their colleagues at Deloitte, but they’ll still find themselves on one of the lower rungs of the social ladder. Think Family Guy box sets, Ed Sheeran, and Saturday nights at Nando’s.

46 likes? Consider yourself background noise.

It takes a while to decrypt this one, but afterwards it’s glaringly obvious. The giveaway being the swift self-comment underneath the initial status – they didn’t underachieve and miss out on a first, they chose to get a 2.1 because they were having such a bloody good time and sinking so many bloody shots. Still clinging onto the idea that likes mean anything, they spent their day liking everyone else’s statuses purely for those 70 likes- just like how they spent Freshers’ week friend-requesting everyone they met on their phone.

The natural extension of pretending to enjoy doing things they don’t actually want to do for three years, they’ll move to London (which you’ll find out about by a similarly witty status) to live in the smallest room of a house of four (yet still pay equal rent) and whatever’s left of their sense of self will fit perfectly into the recruitment industry. Within the next forty years, they’ll propose to their girlfriend of four years in front of the Eiffel tower, honeymoon in Fiji, have 2.4 children and send them to the same university they went to. And thus, the cycle repeats.

Want to guess what kind of haircut this guy has? What sort of nights they go to? What they order at a bar? The takeaway here is how little they properly cared about university, and yet got that cracking 2.1 anyway. Although the trackie Bs and the archbishop of banterbury t shirt give the illusion of laziness, this man hit the books right after celebrating steak and blowjob day. And boy did he need to.

You get the slight feeling that he’s already hit his peak, and that he’s never destined to be anything more than a leaf in the wind. He’s screamed nonchalance in your face, that university for him was purely a social club, and that when asked what he studied at uni he’d reply “shagging”.

A strong job in sales awaits and they’re as close as the human form gets to living for the weekend. Eventually they’ll find their weekends spent alternating between training seminars and going to the rugby — if the wife still lets them.

That all being said, those four exclamation marks sandwiched together do hint at signs of a very 21st century gender identity crisis. One to watch.

Before you read their graduation status, the only reminder you got about their existence was their incessant liking of I fucking love science posts. Not so much a chip on their shoulder as a huge potato, their social ostracism would be justified if they’d bagged a first, but their addiction to reddit took care of that dream. For now, it’s a move back to their market town to enjoy Xbox Live and Sunday dinners cooked by mum, with it going only two ways from here: either living proof that not every cloud has a silver lining, or the biggest surprise at your 20 year reunion.

At first glance we see an innocent bambi-like creature, for whom entering the real world will be the most traumatic thing in their entire life – cushioned only by instagram posts and oh-my-god-that-just-happened statuses. Should that be the case, the soon-to-follow graduation photo will be met with comments by friends saying how they’re “Literally in love with this photo” and how she’s “Actually a goddess” (and then continue to bitch about her to everyone else), and the world will keep turning.

But then you see that it’s PPE, and a first, and that quiet sense of discomfort washes over you. This is how people like her do it- the wolf in sheep’s clothing of the university world and finally people are starting to clock it. This sort of casual disarming is how they betray their generation and rule the world.

Posts will decrease in frequency as they both get more concerned about their publicly viewable image and that they simply don’t need your validation anymore. Their photos now belong to the newspapers, not the newsfeed. But trust me, you’re going to want to keep posting annual ‘happy birthday’ messages to their wall, just incase you ever find yourself in diplomatic hot water.

So there’s this Greek tale about a guy called Icarus, and in it, he goe…

I’m sorry, I can’t finish. Fish in barrels and all. Well done on graduating — really. I just hope that one day, you don’t need emoji-comments from your friends underneath a photo of your breakfast in order for you to enjoy it.

Mainly so it won’t appear on my fucking newsfeed.