I Am Better Than Your Kids Read online

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  Gallery Books

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2011 by George Ouzounian

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address, Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Gallery Books hardcover edition November 2011

  GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-1-4391-8286-4 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-4391-8287-1 (ebook)

  To the only person I know who’s had two books dedicated to him: Me.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: Special Cars from Special Kids

  Chapter 2: Unintentional Hitler

  Chapter 3: What Would Your Superpower Be?

  Chapter 4: Developmentally Challenged Developments

  Chapter 5: Bowls to Throw Up In

  Chapter 6: Alien Drawings

  Chapter 7: Animals or ROBOTS?

  Chapter 8: Animals Fucking

  Chapter 9: Your Favorite Holiday

  Chapter 10: Drawing Your Family

  Chapter 11: “Jokes”

  Chapter 12: Shitty Inventions

  Chapter 13: Cool Tree

  Chapter 14: Nice Boner!

  Chapter 15: Who’s Your Hero?

  Chapter 16: I Have a Dream . . . That Only Ten People Should Die This Year

  Chapter 17: Drawings of Teachers and Parents

  Chapter 18: Things That Scare You

  Chapter 19: Dear Teacher, I’m Sorry You Wasted Your Time

  Chapter 20: Pictures of Kids

  Chapter 21: Batman: The Raped Crusader

  Chapter 22: Ages 1–6: The Formative Years

  Chapter 23: Ages 7–14: The Aftermath

  Chapter 24: What You Want to Be When You Grow Up

  Chapter 25: Creepy Clowns

  Chapter 26: Your Dream Pet

  Chapter 27: Not Picasso

  Chapter 28: Your Roller Coaster Sucks the LD!

  Chapter 29: Queer for a Day

  Chapter 30: The Biggest Problem in the World Today

  Chapter 31: The Most Beautiful Person or Thing in the World

  Chapter 32: My Favorite Mouth

  Chapter 33: Books by Kids, for Shredders

  Chapter 34: Dear Pen Pal, My Sister Is a Cat

  Chapter 35: Sexism, Drugs, AIDS and Crib Death

  Chapter 36: Celebrities

  Chapter 37: Jerkbook

  Chapter 38: Unintentional Bukkake

  Chapter 39: Child Prodigies or COCKSURE IDIOTS?

  Chapter 40: Hi, I’m Painted with Crap

  Chapter 41: Draw Your Favorite Food

  Chapter 42: Young Maddox

  Chapter 43: Cooking With Minors

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  “These are the drawings of little 6—8 year olds! Of course they can’t draw better than you, they’re kids! What’s your fucking problem?”

  —Anonymous hater

  Several years ago, I was waiting in a coworker’s cubicle when I noticed the drawings she had on display, and I told her they sucked. She gasped and said, “They were made by my four-year-old nephew!” So I elaborated, “Well, your nephew sucks at drawing.” I decided then that kids had gotten a free pass for far too long. So on my website, I proceeded to grade a handful of children’s art, along with some pointed, but fair, criticism.

  The response was overwhelming.

  By the end of the month, more than 6 million people had read it, and tens of millions more have read it since. Ever wonder where all those emails that your friends forward to you come from? I happen to know, because I am one of the unsung geniuses whose work becomes the bastard child of Gmail accounts across the web. The email forward in which I graded crappy children’s artwork, titled “I am better than your kids,” went viral in 2002 and was the first introduction most people had to my writing. It circulated to the point where some of my friends unknowingly forwarded it to me, asking why I couldn’t write anything that brilliant. I also received thousands of emails per day from supportive grade school teachers, who said I’d given them voice, as well as from a few U.S. Department of Defense officials, who probably should have been doing something better with their time. The article had become a phenomenon.

  Then came the backlash.

  I got hundreds of thousands of emails, some of which criticized me for grading the children harshly. I was accused of ageism—someone who discriminates based on age. The most common criticism I received was, “How dare you criticize kids? They’re children! Of course they can’t draw as well as you can, asshole!”

  The irony is that, I’m actually not being ageist. By using the same standard to judge a child’s art as I would an adult’s, I’m treating them with equality. If a kid wants to impress me, he has to draw something awesome, just like an adult would. Kids don’t get a free pass just for being kids. In fact, the only way to treat kids fairly is to expect the same standards of excellence as you would anyone else.

  Good Job

  The two most dangerous words in the English language are: “good job.” It’s a quick little lie that parents tell their kids to encourage them to keep trying. Parents are afraid that if they tell their kids the truth, they’ll get discouraged and stop drawing. So what? More kids need to be discouraged. Since when is every kid supposed to be able to draw? Think about your own life for a moment. Of all the people you know, how many of them are artists, professionally? How many of them do something even tangentially related to art? For most people, that number is zero. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fine artists (including painters, sculptors, and illustrators) held about 23,600 jobs in 2008. With the U.S. Census Bureau estimating 307 million people in the US in 2009, only .008% are artists. You probably don’t know any artists. Statistically speaking, nobody does.

  Somewhere between the time parents first gush undue praise and college, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. At a certain point, no amount of encouragement will make someone any better at art. That’s when something wonderful happens to these kids: they realize that they suck. Just as no amount of encouragement alone can make someone an airline pilot, mechanical engineer, or heart surgeon, kids come to realize they’re not actually artists.

  So why art? Why is this the one discipline that parents feel necessary to push upon their kids? Why not mechanical engineering? Why do you never see parents handing a kid some graph paper, a calculator, and a copy of Newton’s Principia? Oh, I know! Because encouraging kids to keep trying something they suck at—or aren’t interested in—is a waste of time.

  The only exceptions to this rule are reading, writing, and arithmetic. These skills are necessary for communication and understanding of all higher levels of education that succeed them. Visual art is
not. Painting and drawing are forms of expression, and disingenuous support gives the child a disincentive to become better. Creators who can endure critics are the only ones who deserve to be creators. That is, anyone whose resolve is too weak to weather criticism of his or her art, shouldn’t be creating art. I’ve read tens of thousands of emails criticizing me over the years, for everything from my writing, grammar, style, penis size, clothing, hygiene, friends (or lack thereof), family and my receding hairline, to my sexual prowess and orientation (I’ve been accused of being a “gay faggot,” performing fellatio, and being a virgin all in the same paragraph). I’ve heard it all. And yet, I still create, because it’s what I love to do. I don’t need anyone to pat me on the ass and say “good job” to keep writing. In fact, both of my parents have begged me to stop. My mom even prayed that I would get cancer before going on my last book tour. She hoped that my book would fail, I’d go bankrupt, and that my writing career would end in disaster. Ironically, nothing could have encouraged me more to succeed, because my success is the biggest “fuck you” to my mom, my high school teachers, the writing department at the University of Utah, and everyone who’s ever discouraged me in life. By not criticizing kids, you’re depriving them of the opportunity to become truly great, like me.

  What’s worse is that all this superfluous praise is making the world a duller place. The phrase “good job” is the reason we don’t have any more Mozarts or Beethovens today. Mozart’s father never coddled him with heaps of praise when he didn’t deserve it, and that hard-earned praise was part of what motivated Mozart to constantly push harder and to make some of the most enduring music the world has ever heard. In fact, I’m not sure even Mozart’s father pushed hard enough. Sure his music is great, but let’s face it: Mozart could have done more with his life. He died penniless, had few mourners, and was unceremoniously tossed in an unmarked grave. While musically a genius, he was a fuckup who mismanaged his money and liked shit jokes. He had no business sense, and he wasn’t able to sell himself—or his music—to any appreciable degree for any significant amount of time. It was only in death that he gained notoriety, and scholars today still struggle to explain away and contextualize his fixation on scatological humor. Historians can’t come to terms with the fact that Mozart was kind of a fuckup, which is why there’s an entire Wikipedia page devoted to Mozart’s scatological jokes and what higher meaning they may have. Sometimes a shit joke is just a shit joke.

  So you’re welcome. By holding kids to a higher standard, I’m making the world a better place. Although many of the names in this book have been changed to keep the children anonymous, some were kept the same, as it is my sincere hope that at least a few kids recognize their artwork and try harder next time. The last thing this world needs is more cocksure idiots who think they’re producing great works of art because their parents did them the disservice of encouragement.

  Jon, age 8

  Ding ding! Here comes the shitmobile.

  I’ve never seen a fire truck that needed to be shaved. I would rather be burned to death than be saved by this hairy piece of shit.

  F

  Robert, age 5

  Finally, a car with both an arcade and a prison! Back when cars had just arcades in them, there was no place to lock up kids who got out of line.

  F+

  Lane, age 4

  I created a list of pros and cons for this car:

  Pros:

  Roomy

  Cons:

  Wagon wheels

  Only one door

  The hinges on the door are on the outside.

  Entire rear end seems to emit exhaust.

  F

  Jacob, age 6

  You can’t just put wheels on anything and call it a car, Jacob. The booster car is a car in the same way a rocket ship with wheels is a car. It has wheels, but that’s where the similarities end. Also, the “booster car” probably isn’t street legal.

  Can you imagine this piece of shit in traffic?

  F

  Lance, age 5

  You have “The flame,” a car with flames in front, on top, in the back, and on the side. Then you have the “Bad boys,” not to be confused with “evil guy.” The difference? The bad boys apparently shoot bubbles, while evil guy has a machine gun. It’s a battle to the death! Winner takes nothing and everyone’s stupid.

  F

  Osmond, age 5

  I realized that this picture was upside down after I put it in the book and left it that way because it looks about the same right side up.

  F

  Matthew, age 5

  The assignment was to draw your dream car, and you decided to draw yourself in a high-speed police chase. Way to dream big, Matthew! I’m confident you can achieve your goals if you drop out, knock someone up, and rob a liquor store.

  F

  Gabe, age 4

  I’m glad you labeled the oil spout on your car, Gabe. That way the engineers who work on it can be sure to put the intake valve right above the flame-thrower exhaust. Here’s a pro tip though: if you want to name your car “Killer,” choose any color of paper other than pink.

  F

  Eduardo, age 6

  It was only a matter of time before some misguided kid drew the Ed Hardy “Love Kills Slowly” slogan on a war machine. This critique isn’t for the artwork so much as the logo—which was drawn perfectly. It’s easily the worst part of this drawing, which is saying something considering the kid drew himself as a ski-masked, machine-gun-toting terrorist.

  F

  Michael, age 5

  This car is impractical. I mean, have you thought of the energy or space requirements of a mobile arcade and go-kart course? Let alone an entire playground, a swimming pool (with hot tub), a laser-tag room, a pizzeria, a beach, and a snow machine that can generate enough snow for you and your friends to have a snowball fight? No, of course you haven’t, because you are a stupid kid with no vision. Even if your design was possible, why would anyone make this? 90% of the reason people leave the house is to go to places that you’ve included in your car, so why would anyone ever leave? And for the few times you’d drive somewhere that had something not offered in your car, why would you want to haul all this shit with you? Think, Michael.

  F

  Jon, age 6

  When you call your car “Silver Bullet,” make it silver. It’s people like you who make “Virgin Cheerleader” websites with women who aren’t virgins, or cheerleaders. And it’s people like me who keep clicking.

  F

  Brad, age 10

  This is a great example of how tweaking a few innocuous details such as adding stitched “animal skins” and putting a raccoon tail on the antenna can turn a seemingly innocent cartoon vehicle like the one from The Flintstones, into an orgy-creep fuckfest on its way to Nightmareville, only stopping for face rape along the way.

  F

  Renee, age 6

  Good job, Renee, people will think your BMW looks especially prestigious with those flames and waves painted on the side.

  F

  Dirk, age 5

  This is breathtakingly stupid. And it’s not a car.

  F

  Nathan, age 5

  There are only two requirements to drawing a convertible car:

  1. that it’s a car

  2. that it’s a convertible

  You failed to meet 50% of the requirements.

  F

  JC, age 8

  “General, the enemy sent their war machine. WAIT! Is that a giant saw blade fixed to a long fishing pole in front? HOLY FUCK! This can mean only one thing: this is the navy Camerio 7,000!!!!!”—something nobody will ever say.

  F

  Travis, age 5

  Wait, this looks familiar . . . oh yeah, maybe because THE EXACT SAME DRAWING ONE PAGE AGO, YOU FUCKING CHEATING PIECE OF SHIT! Travis was sitting next to Nathan in class, and lo and behold, the two cars look almost identical, except this one’s shittier. Yes, you somehow took the shittiest drawing of a conv
ertible I’ve ever seen, and made it shittier. Yours has more detail, granted, but you also had more time to draw detail since you didn’t have to spend any time coming up with an original idea. Now you can add cheating to the list of things you suck at, right after drawing and not-pissing-me-off.

  F-

  Jean, age 7

  The sentence “My car can go fast, with stairs” is mind-boggling, because it either means that your car can go fast due to the fact that it has stairs or that your car goes fast and, incidentally, has stairs.

  F

  Corey, age 6

  Here’s how I imagine your pitch would go at NASA: “America needs to keep its edge in space, boys, which is why I’ve been hard at work on this new rocket ship. I went back to the drawing board and took our regular rocket and bent the shit out of the frame. Then I put thrusters on the back, the front, and behind the wings. And then I put thrusters off to the sides. Some people said that was enough, but you know what? I said fuck ‘some people’ and I threw some thrusters on the front of the wings! I call it ‘USA Space Ship!’ and it is my masterpiece. BAM! Make it happen, boys. I’m off to get my dick sucked by supermodels.”

  F

  Arnold, age 9