YouTube college rejection videos are more hopeful than you'd expect

College-bound vloggers are increasingly uploading "college decision reveal" videos to YouTube. But what if there's no decision to reveal?

As Emilia Petrarca at The Cut reported on Tuesday, most of these videos are made by vloggers with significant followings, and they're intended for followers who want real updates on their favorite YouTubers' lives. Usually, they follow an elimination format, with the creator discarding labeled cupcakes or cookies until only their school of choice remains.

But, as anyone who has applied for anything is aware, you don't always get your first choice. Naturally, this has created a sub-genre of the college reveal video: the college rejection video.

College rejection videos have been around for a few years (acceptance videos have, too) but they're a far more interesting watch than their counterparts. In an acceptance video, the plot hinges on which college the YouTuber will attend, which -- unless you are a superfan of either the YouTuber or a particular college -- is not particularly compelling.

But a rejection video, like its sister genre, the breakup video, is a look into the vlogger's life that feels much more voyeuristic. Why? It's about rejection, something we all recognize as bad. Something connected to shame. Something we would probably not want to broadcast to the world. Vloggers do it, though -- it's their job.

Several creators do address how uncomfortable the subject is for them to discuss. "At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to make this video," Emma Monden says in a video called "I got rejected from my dream school." (She was rejected from USC, of Olivia Jade fame.) That's a common enough platitude on YouTube, but Monden seems both genuinely upset and aware of the subject's gravity -- especially for a lot of her young viewers.

"It's a little bit personal and a little bit difficult for me to talk about," she says. "But I decided to go ahead and make [the video] just so you guys could know about my personal experience ... even if you aren't going through it right now, chances are you'll experience it sometime down the line."

Another vlogger, Tiffany Ferguson, made a video in 2017 to announce that all her applications to transfer colleges had been rejected. "My GPA's been, like, a 3.9," she says in the video. "I've been working and doing so much shit ... since I was 16. I've done an internship. I feel like I'm a pretty good student."

"I'm feeling very overwhelmed and upset and deeply worried about my future," she says later, her voice sardonically cheery. Still, she maintains that she'll figure it all out -- and find a way to finish her degree -- eventually.

Similarly, even the discouraged Monden's message is one of fundamental optimism. "Even the most amazing students get rejected from colleges," she says in her video. (She also invokes, earnestly, the phrase "shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you'll land among the stars," which rules.)

In her piece, Petrarca wrote that watching these videos "hurtle [her] back to a time" when college applications felt like the be-all, end-all of existence. Now, armed with a few years of hindsight, she realizes how much she had ahead of her.

Although their emotional turmoil is much fresher than Petrarca's, rejection videos still contain small nuggets of this wisdom. Are the vloggers faking silver linings for the camera? Maybe. Still, in an age where the airbrushed lives on social media are still a huge source of anxiety for kids, it's refreshing to see young YouTubers telling their fans they've failed -- and that it's still going to be OK.

As Monden notes in her video, many of her fans are much younger than her. Maybe college isn't even on their minds yet. But in a few years, when they face the taxing admissions process themselves, perhaps they'll remember their hero's extremely loud optimism and take comfort.

If there's one thing I remember from being 18, it's that I could've used a little perspective.