An Islander Middle School student who was scheduled to start seventh grade this week refused to attend school after learning that he would be among the only students in the grade not wearing Apple AirPods.
Sources say that the student, whose name is being withheld to avoid stigmatizing his family, was notified Tuesday evening via the parent-to-child voice messaging app WhenIWasYourAge that he would not be receiving a set of AirPods. He quickly confirmed his anticipated social outcast status via Instagram, where a post of him not wearing the de rigueur $160 wireless earbuds received fewer than one hundred likes.
“I totally get it,” said IMS student Kylie George, who calls herself an “acquaintance but not really a friend” of the student. “You can sort of make excuses for not having AirPods when you’re in sixth grade, but by the time you’re in seventh grade, I mean, come on. It’s almost as pathetic as those kids who show up with last year’s backpack.”
“Hard as it is to believe, there are still parents who refuse to recognize that nothing is more important to a soon-to-be teenager than the acceptance of their peers,” said Mercer Island parenting expert Per Missive. “These are the same sort of adults who refuse to buy alcohol for their high-school-aged children.”
At press time, The Distorter was unable to confirm rumors that a GoFundMe campaign is being established to purchase the student AirPods of his own.
“While I feel bad for this boy, it honestly could have been so much worse,” said Madison Ashley, a student at Mercer Island High School. “When I was at IMS, they were still telling the story about the kid whose Microsoft parents sent him to school with a Zune.”