When all signs of our civilization have been wiped out by a nuclear winter, our buildings buried under millions of weathered copies of People and piles of discarded crop tops, a lone, post-apocalyptic adventurer and his trusty dog will happen upon an etching. Scratched desperately on the side of what was once a combination Pizza Hut-Taco Bell, the ragged survivor will slowly press his fingers against four, unexplained letters: “Y O L O.” History books will commemorate the phrase, enveloping it in a shroud of mystery as the last clue to a culture lost.
The phrase, so pervasive in the modern subconscious, came to a Texas high schooler who realized the futility of a standardized test he was in the middle of taking. Kyron Birdine, a junior at Arlington High School, paused in the middle of his STAAR test, one that wouldn’t affect his status in college admissions, had no bearing on his high school performance, and was ultimately meaningless in greater society. “Why must I be subjected to such trivial forms of quantifying my knowledge?” Birdine thought, probably.