There are many frivolous tasks that a teenager must undertake in the great journey called life, but none are as suspenseful or challenging as finding a date to Senior Ball.
And none were as challenged as senior Aryan Patil.
“You know what they say, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” Patil said. “Some days I feel like it’s 101% for me.”
Patil runs a TikTok series with a fairly basic premise.
On several school days leading up to Senior Ball on March 13, Patil asked a different girl if they would attend the dance with him. And every day he asked someone, she brutally rejected him.
The rejections were accompanied by silly and unusual punishments after he was shot down. But what’s unusual is these punishments were devised by him and usually administered by one of Patil’s friends.
“I asked this one girl, she was like, no, and I knew that was coming right?” Patil said. “But then out of nowhere, I get pied. The camera man, he pies me. Some girl pies me and like, I’m just like, yeah. I’m like, after that, like, fools are looking at me hella weird.”
Other consequences included getting charged into, having milk poured on him, and getting knocked down by a blow from a backpack.
But all of these punishments were minor obstacles in the way of his goal, though. “Minor setbacks, for the major comeback,” as one famous man once said.
Patil’s start began at a lunch table, when he was inspired to “go down in the books for something,” as he said of his final year of high school. And like many past legends before him, it seems he has done just that.
He started a new series on his TikTok account, which he updated regularly.
While the posts were uploaded onto TikTok, Patil downloaded the videos and posted them on his Instagram story too, for more people to gaze upon his humiliation. Eight of these rejection videos were uploaed on TikTok.
“I mean, [Patil] is obviously the core of it, absolutely, just there to help coordinate other people’s efforts as well, and help upport him and his ideas and his genius,” cameraman Christian Plechaty, a senior, said.
Genius he is, as his work shows.
Plechaty has worked as Patil’s cameraman for all but the first episode, staying with him through the tribulations of each episode’s entrenching inquiry. His social knowledge of the campus and overall presence helped to make sure the videos work out.
On the outside, this ambitious task may seem like all fun and games, but it is a serious matter indeed. In fact, the beginning of the idea ended in despair.
“And I’m like, ‘Hey, do you want to go to ball with me? And she said, No.’ I was actually pretty, like, sad, you know.” Patil said. “So I like, got on my knees and scream, ‘No!’ And then guess who’s at the end of the hallway? It’s Mr. Ball, the best principal at Cal High.”
Patil described the situation about how worried Ball was, and even offering help to remedy his obvious distress.
“He was like, ‘Do you need help? You have to go to the Wellness Center?’” Patil said. “I told him, ‘No I’m good. Thank you.’ I thought I could thug it out, and I did. You know, I did thug it out, and I went for day two.”
This act of courage has certainly helped boost Patil into the books as his trials continued for weeks.
Not only has the endeavor been a task for Patil, but it has been a social connector, a shining beacon of hope for all to look forward to.
“I think it gives everyone something to like, enjoy as a school, and it brings people together laughing at [Aryan], that’s fun,” said sophomore Aryan Chaudhari, who makes an appearance at the start of the fourth video in the series.
The influence of his work, as all great pieces do, has extended it’s reach schoolwide, too.
“Honestly, I think like every day, people are like, waiting for a new like video to be posted by him. And like people, I feel like, watch out for it now,” senior Addison Stockwell said. “So I feel like a lot more people are like, looking around to see if, like, if he’s gonna do it.”
