Senior Superlatives: years of tradition and jokes made in the senior class. But can it cause scandal and controversy? As much as some might think senior superlatives are fun and a good tradition, others find them offensive and think they should be discontinued.

Even though I love the idea of senior superlatives, they cause more harm than good. When the senior superlative Google form comes out, it’s all that seniors talk about which causes people to gossip. It creates words of envy and jealousy between classmates. Getting nominated for a superlative can be very shocking and unexpected; some might not want their new title. People may nominate others as a joke, or some will do it out of spite.

Additionally, students who thought they would have won a superlative might be disappointed when they didn’t. For example, the superlative of best smile is a compliment to the winners, but it pits students against each other for their looks. Teenagers already have to compete so much through beauty standards, and having to compete against looks for a yearbook nomination introduces an additional toxic competition.

When it comes to who wins each category, it is very targeted towards popular students and there is little diversity in who gets chosen.

“Only certain people get chosen for them, so I felt like there was no point in me voting,” senior Nina Kwitowski said.

Students feeling like their votes don’t matter makes them not want to participate, leading to even more skewed answers towards the more popular students.

Within recent years, the rules for superlatives have changed from choosing one boy and one girl to just two students. This was done to make all students feel welcomed and included in participating in the superlative competition.

The majority of students love senior superlatives because they bring joy and laughter when looking at who won.

“I enjoy them. I think they are fun and I love how we get to vote on them. I definitely think we should keep doing them,” senior Nick Zampardi said.

Although senior superlatives are a fun school tradition, they come at the expense of students’ feelings. It may seem like such an important tradition to some, but in reality, most high schools don’t do it, including almost every private school in this area.