For as long as the wind has blown, the birds have chirped, the stars have twinkled, for as long as time itself has passed, the yappers have yapped. Many have despised them, seeing them as obnoxious voids of time and patience. But at a school as pretentious as ours, yapping is not merely an irritant, but an artform. In Bismarck’s words, we have made “rapid progress in the art of using many words to say nothing at all.” Today, we honor the disciples of yap who have come to dominate our classrooms. Recognizing the nature of these creatures who belch out words reeking of ego as they scuttle between clubs and contests scrounging for trophies, we have chosen to recognize them through the only medium that guarantees their fixation: an awards ceremony.

Before moving to the esteemed and respectable medalists, we feel we ought to bestow a singular honorable mention on the most predominant school of yap. Like the common cold, though this art of yap seems ubiquitous, it is also the least irritable. That is to say, the school of yap in question is the school of Word Count Yap. These yappers yap simply to fulfill a word count or earn participation points in a socratic seminar. Their efficacy is beyond doubt. Stumbling through a mountain of prepositional phrases and unnecessarily lengthy grammatical constructions has a singular power to cause one’s eyes to glaze over, and being forced to sit through someone rewording the previous speaker’s comments often inspires rumination about the discomfort of the chairs. But their yap is coerced, lacking the organic power of a yapper who yaps for the sake of yapping. For this shortcoming, in good conscience we could not compare them to the true artists receiving medals.

After much deliberation, we have decided to award the bronze medal of yap to our school’s intellectuals. However, this honor is special and selective. The honor is only intended only for a select few. Many teachers and students achieve long-windedness, and although it is admirable to communicate a message in a manner that is circuitous, repetitive, and drawn out beyond belief, they still manage to communicate coherent thoughts. But a true Academic Yapper says absolutely nothing in as many words as possible. Those who accomplish the feat of Academic Yap do so while utilizing the verbosity of academia, managing to achieve two linguistic feats at once. Attempting to unravel their jargon-laden diatribes, their listeners stumble through a labyrinth of pretentious language to find a center not only devoid of a minotaur, but of anything at all.

Though the time-wasting abilities of the participation point earners and the frustration induced by the intellectuals is impressive, their gifts pale in comparison to the sheer rage evoked by our silver medalists: the Self-Deprecating Yappers. These yappers have managed to expand their craft into a fundamental component of social relationships: the exchange of relatability and sympathy that accompanies complaining. Self-deprecating yappers break into these channels in novel ways, flooding them with an astounding degree of incessant whining about their hardships and inadequacies, the majority of which are grossly exaggerated inconveniences or minor errors, from a self-inflicted poor sleep schedule to receiving a B on a test. “God I’m so tired writing this at 3 AM, I could really use a nap, and I just got a B on my math test. How am I going to get into Harvard if I got a B on my math test? Why am I wasting my time writing this stupid article when I’m such a bad writer?” They manage to turn nothingness into a constant deluge of personal struggle, begging for the attention and reassurance of others. Despite often receiving nothing but the rolling of eyes in response, these yappers are resilient in their craft. They will inform anyone within earshot how bad they have it and how little they value themselves, making all of us their unwilling audience. 

At last, we come to the coveted recipient of the coveted gold medal of yap: the Narcissistic Yappers. Through a series of verbal gymnastics, these yappers consistently manage to make every single thing about them. It seems shocking to imagine that a self-important high schooler could suggest their personal life is critical to understanding ancient texts or global wars, but the Narcissistic Yappers manage to achieve what some thought to be impossible. Their anecdotes are lengthy and irrelevant beyond belief, their in-class questions center around situations so unique and specific to them that a rational person would struggle to understand why it couldn’t have been asked in private. But such a person fails to appreciate the artistic merit of their yap. There is no logic, no purpose behind their words, only an obscene revelry in the unholy light of their own ego. Narcissism forms the backbone of Maggie Walker yap, and its practitioners are so formidable as to be universally renowned for their self-centered drivel. This very newspaper owes much of its content to the Narcissistic Yappers, finding itself stuffed with editorials and alleged reporting which primarily serve as an attempt to elevate the author themselves. In our classrooms, we are given near-daily performances of Narcissistic Yap, and each inspires a special kind of fury. Though we are clearly more skilled than any innocent reader, we are but humble amateurs in the art of the yap, but we bow at the feet of these masters, enthralled by the terrifying perfection of their craft that is all universal as time itself.

Unfortunately, no art is without its critics. Many feel that yapping should be reviled rather than praised and may be surprised at our decision to honor the yappers of Maggie Walker. But these thoughts are those of naive idealists. The yappers will always have the upper hand, because no consequences exist for the suffering they inflict upon others and thus have no external incentive to change. It is in the nature of a yapper to yap, and no amount of social criticism or convincing arguments will ever alter that. As Winston Churchill put it, “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.”