Honor roll
| “ | HONOR ROLL MY ASS | ” |
| Vivian Gee, Audiobooks | ||
The fact he was on the honor roll in high school is something Chris often brings up in hopes of proving that he isn't stupid. He also occasionally mentions that he made the Dean's list at Piedmont Virginia Community College, and for the same reason. Despite his best efforts, though, it seems like the rest of the world still isn't convinced.
Chris on the honor roll
Chris has trumpeted his honor-roll status in a number of his documents and videos.
- In Sub-Episode 1, Chris drops the Honor Roll line in a post-script to his unsolicited follow-up email to Hanna. Because the girl who just trolled your heart down to 15% will flip for you if you're on the Honor Roll.
- In his e-mails to Shigeru Miyamoto, he apparently thought making the honor roll would impress a world-renowned game designer.
- Likewise, he mentioned the honor roll early in his e-mail exchanges with Blanca.
- The honor roll gets a shout-out in the lyrics to "A-U-T-I-S-M" by Christian and the Hedgehog Boys.
- Chris's Wikipedia biography prominently mentioned the honor roll.
- In his Asperger's rant, Chris cited making the honor roll as one of many ways in which he overcame the obstacles presented by his autism.
- In his first public plea for understanding on YouTube, Chris mentioned the honor roll in passing.
- In CWC Update 29 July 2009, he bragged about his "honor roll points" as one of the many qualities that apparently set him apart from Liquid Chris.
- In response, Liquid Chris picked up the honor-roll catchphrase himself, using it in one of their arguments over the phone.
Chris made the honor roll?
Based on Chris's graduation pictures in both high school and college, he is wearing a sash that generally indicates graduating with honors. This only means so much without additional context, though. Depending on his school's standards for who winds up on the honor roll, it may not represent that impressive an achievement, especially if Chris was able to rack up the required grade point average with remedial course work instead of normal classes. In some schools, the only requirement is a minimum GPA, so anyone with a GPA of, say, 3.5, is on the honor roll, even if every single course was a remedial course.
On the other hand, it's not completely out of the question to consider that Chris might have been able to get decent grades in school. His emotional and social issues have always made judging his actual intelligence a little tricky.
Chris's basic cognitive functions work fine, as the 2004 psychiatric survey confirmed, and in some respects he seems to be no less intellectually capable than many ordinary people. He has a reasonable facility with computers and technology, for instance. At the same time, his laziness, naïveté, egotism and raging hormones have obviously led him to ever-increasing depths of self-destructively foolish behavior. The Miyamoto saga offers an interesting example of this paradox: Chris was bright enough to eventually work out that the e-mails he received from "Miyamoto" came from an easily-spoofed domain...but then if it weren't for his ego, he would have realized that Nintendo would never be interested in his shitty knockoff character in the first place.
So, is Chris too stupid to have made the honor roll? Maybe. Is Chris too gullible, monstrously arrogant, and led about by his duck to function in real life? Definitely.