What happened to “Most Likely to Succeed”?
Exiting seniors at elite Stuyvesant HS have added a spicy category to “best-dressed” or “brightest” — classmates I’d like to “tap.”
Students in the school’s Class of 2010 were encouraged to create displays listing classmates they considered the sexiest under such headings as “I’d tap that,” “hotties” and “loves.” The lists were showcased last week in a second-floor atrium.
Kids at the downtown Manhattan school, the city’s premiere public high, also came up with original list headings like “biddies” — which one girl defines as “totally platonic girl crushes” — and lists that referred to the “bootay”s and “hips” of individual kids.
A senior-run Facebook page on the Class of 2010’s “crush lists” says the definition of “I’d tap that” — slang for wanting to have sex with someone — is “self-explanatory.”
“These are for people you think are very attractive and would want to . . .” it said, leaving the sentence unfinished.
While the tradition of posting crush lists goes back more than a decade at Stuyvesant, this year’s overtly sexual lists struck some students as out of whack.
“I wanted to make mine more creative, and I didn’t want to say, ‘I’d tap that,’ ” said 17-year-old Ali Greenberg, who instead drew boys’ names and hearts under the headings “crushes,” “hotties” and “cool peeps.”
“It’s a little bit awkward to say, ‘I’d tap that,’ about a boy you like,” she added.
Students said the annual lists have the support of the administration, which allowed the displays to be posted in the school Friday.
After Friday, the lists — a confessional release of four years of pent-up desire or affection, sometimes even for teachers — were posted online for students to access.
“The administration doesn’t seem to care at all. I think everyone finds it amusing — and it’s completely harmless,” said Adam Macomb, an 18-year-old senior who didn’t participate this year in part because he doesn’t “kiss and tell.”
“Of course, there are always a couple of people who get offended,” he added. “But that happens with everything.”
Principal Stanley Teitel didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
Many students and teachers defended the crush lists as a playful senior farewell, but others said administrators should do away with the R-rated undertones.
“The ‘I’d tap that’ category, I would definitely get rid of that,” said one teacher, who did not want to be identified. “To me, that’s what social-networking sites like MySpace and Twitter are for. High school is not the place for that.”