Best Yearbook Quote Ever!

Everybody remembers their high school yearbook, especially during their senior year. There’s nothing like the rows of completely uniform senior pictures, with the guys in tuxes and the girls in those odd gowns. And who can forget the pressure to come up with the perfect senior quote?

The ideal senior quote doesn’t come easy to anyone. How do you sum up your entire adolescent existence in such a limited space? Do you go with something profound, or do you reach for humor? Do you give a shout out to your best buds and risk leaving someone out? Do you go sentimental, or do you remind everyone that it’s time to party?

Rising seniors, the search for cleverness has now come to an end. You can forget about topping the best yearbook quote ever, which comes to us from San Jose, California.

Eight girls at Presentation High School, an all-girls Catholic school, decided to have a little fun and band together to create the ultimate yearbook quote. Alexandra, Angela, Angelica, Elizabeth, Emily, Isabella, Madeline and Vi Nguyen, bound together by those two great equalizers: alphabetical order and whatever that gown thing is called, went with one or two words each to send a message to the world: “We know what you’re thinking, and no, we’re not related.”

The girls, who have had classes together all four years of high school, initially thought of using a famous quote before they hit on the idea of toying with people’s assumptions. Isabella Nguyen, the ringleader behind the stunt, told the local paper, “People always ask if we’re cousins or something.” They never dreamed that social media would blow the quote up to an international sensation known as “Nguyen-sanity.”

“As soon as it hit Facebook, it just blew up from there,” said Isabella Nguyen. “I’m still in a daze.”

A photo of the page registered more than 1.1 million views on image-sharing site Imgur. A blog item on the Huffington Post wondered if it might be the best yearbook quote ever. The United Kingdom’s Daily Mail posted an item about the stunt. And a camera crew from “Inside Edition” came to the school Friday to interview them.

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Barbara Purdy, who’s been the school’s yearbook adviser for 11 years, said she’s never seen anything like the brouhaha that’s taken place over the quote. “It was kind of humorous, and there wasn’t anything offensive about it,” she said. “The way that’s it’s taken off has been a real surprise.”

These girls came up with something remarkable and clever, and they’re enjoying a little bit of positive notoriety for it. Sometimes those 15 minutes of fame come about in the best way. I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking my senior quote paled by comparison.