Several thousand HSC students are currently fighting with News Corp. Happy Friday, y’all!





As you may or may not be aware, the HSC has kicked off for 2016 how it always does: with English papers 1 & 2.



As you may *not* be aware, there’s a Facebook group called the ‘HSC Discussion Group 2016‘ where almost 60,000 students go to talk shit about the HSC. Like all Facebooks, there’s better posts and worse posts and very in-between posts. Mostly, it’s a way for 60k stressed 17 and 18-year-olds to vent in a way those of us who graduated before 2006 could not.



Enter: News Corp.



*DUN DUN*

News.com.au published an article today telling “these kids” to suck it up, stop whingeing, and just do their HSC.

According to the piece, the author trolled through the Facebook group for an hour and then decided to rip a few individuals to shreds on Australia’s most read news website.

For example, here’s what she wrote about ‘The Whinger‘:



“One girl wrote a lengthy essay suggesting to the Board of Studies that HSC students should be provided with free counselling for having to endure the ‘wrath of the HSC’, an extra hour to complete the paper and the requirement that all HSC teachers sit the exam themselves before teaching the course.



“Might I suggest that if you believe the Board of Studies should be providing free counselling for the ‘wrath of the HSC’ you may as well lock that therapist in for a standing appointment, because life outside school is going to be a real wake up call.

Surely we’ve been through this enough to realise the HSC is difficult. It’s supposed to be, it’s an exam. I doubt there’d be a single person who wouldn’t have wanted more time, but even if the Board of Studies granted an extra three hours people would still be complaining.



“Oh, and everyone who teaches HSC subjects HAS taken the exam. That’s how they ended up in the privileged position of teaching someone who thinks they’re the only one who’s ever been through it. Lucky them.”

The article makes a true (if superfluous) point about how all of us who’ve graduated high school had to suffer the HSC, but missed the equally true point that we almost definitely whinged about it non-fucking-stop – we just didn’t have Facebook groups and memes. Let he/she who is without whinge cast the first sledge, amirite? I think Madonna said that.



Following the article’s publication, the Facebook started roasting the journalist with varying levels of savagery. Here’s one of the nicer ones:

Honestly, having now spent 20 minutes in the Facebook page myself, it’s hard to keep up with the sheer volume of them coming through. How do you people study?

Amongst the literal hundreds of memes is this articulate response from Joshua Ung:



He starts by quoting the journalist: “It’s HSC time and I’ve never been happier to not be involved…because of the Facebook groups”. Then he writes: “Well Rachel no one asked you to come here and snoop around. This is a discussion group made for 17-18 year old students who are currently sitting their HSC, not for some bored woman who is about to have a mid-life crisis and nothing better to do with her life. You critique our way of handling the stress and pressures of the HSC, but once again, it is our group, and we have different ways to coping with high stress in comparison to you. We students use the discussion group to cope with our academic problems through the use of humour (LOTS OF HUMOUR!), and it helps us forget the bad results and the constant pressure arising from the expectations from our family and peers. Essentially, the discussion group is an outlet for our troubles.



“Now. You complain that about a girl writing a whole essay who is supposedly ‘whinging’ about Paper 1, yet you contradict yourself by writing an article just as long complaining about other people complaining. Secondly, leave the “failed stuntman” alone, it was hilarious, and i’m pretty sure that almost everyone laughed at that photo, he did what all of us wanted to do but didn’t have the balls too. “The cheaters” are probably not even cheaters, they are most likely taking the piss out of the occasion.



“Now the most significant part of our page… “The pathetic trolls”. These “pathetic trolls” aren’t even trolls. These are just the normal memes posted by normal students, unless you’re Kelvin Chen, who is a god among students. And if you find these memes ‘offensive’, and you can’t handle the banter then get the fuck out of our group. The memes have always included a slight sense of ridicule and rudeness, and that is what makes them funny.”

An extremely weird ride from start to finish.

I’m currently being trolled by 17 year olds for this… https://t.co/bA3K5NiA2Q — Rachel Corbett (@RachelCorbett) October 14, 2016

Enjoy your weekends, folks! And good luck HSC students, it’ll be over real fucking quick and then this’ll all just be a distant nightmare.

Photo: Idk