It’s said that you either control or are being controlled. Can it be possible that it all boils down to this principle, for a lack of a better term?
I still remember watching television as a young kid and being hypercritical of other kids in ads. I didn’t know they were acting, but what I did know was that they were obviously trying to make whatever toy appeal to me.
I never trusted ads. I never wanted what was publicised. The real mind manipulation for me was the next day at school when everyone had something to show or brag about. I didn’t necessarily have what everyone else had; I just wanted something interesting to share.
Even though I wasn’t conscious, I made a decision in the early phase of my life: I wanted to be the one making ads, not the one consuming them. Fast forward ten odd years, and I’m studying communication, advertising, and design.
It happened; I didn’t spec that out. I was already enrolled in a high school and, frankly, miserable. Even though it was a decent school, it wasn’t what I imagined or even what I picked. It was “recommended” by the counsel of teachers to my parents when I was about to finish my third year of middle school, which is the equivalent of 8th grade.
I wasn’t engaged in class; I didn’t study at home.
I was awkward, constantly rejected by my crushes, didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life yet, and was never considered smart. I was just a chubby kid who wanted to draw, eat pizza, and play with his friends.
That led the teachers to decide that I wasn't suited for a high school that prepares you for university (not that I had the financial means to go to university), and they advised my parents to enrol me in a professional school.
The traditional professional high schools in Italy are basically a one-way ticket for mediocrity and factory work. Nothing wrong with it; I respect all trades and crafts, but I didn’t see myself working in a factory.
“Why not?” you might ask. After all, my dad was a factory worker who made a name for himself in the company where he worked for over 30 years. He’s honest, hardworking, a caring family man, and my life role model. So why not follow in his footsteps?
I couldn’t; deep down, I knew that’s not what he wanted for me, even though he wanted me to get a Real Job™.
The 4:30 a.m. alarms to go to the factory, the long sessions at the sink at the end of the day where he would spend so long washing off the grease from his hands, and at the end of the month, the leaner shops.
Apart from drawing, my next passion was thinking with my heavy, clunky, and slow PC. Then why not find a school that could train me to work with computers? It made sense; it was logical. So, despite this school being a “technical” school and not professional, it seemed like a good fit on paper.
The reality was the complete opposite.
After a couple of months in, it was glaringly obvious that the school wasn’t right for me, and I wasn’t right for it. I could hear the voices of my middle school teachers giving me the biggest “told you so” ever verbalised.
I felt useless, defeated, and embarrassed.
The fact that I couldn’t make it in a technical school made me think, "If I’m this bad here, what would have happened at a lyceum?" A lyceum would have been my pick if teachers didn’t say otherwise—a lyceum of arts, to be specific. But obviously, I didn’t have it in me.
I wouldn’t put enough effort into studying. I wasn’t interested in studying; that was the real problem. No one took the time to seriously make me understand why it was so important. I only knew and heard it was important. Most professors were in a sort of transitional state, with the exception of a couple who were devoted to the subject and the teaching.
Who knows why, but I always did well in subjects run by those professors.
I managed to finish the first year—it was a struggle—I hated it, and it hated me. I could not see how I was going to do another four years of that. So, the idea of dropping out started entering my mind.
During the summer break, as I was working a seasonal job, I started discussing my idea with some friends. A good friend of mine suggested I go and check out his school before making a final decision. He thought it could have been a great fit for me, especially because of my passion for art and drawing. As much as I hate giving him credit, boy was he right!
School season starts back. I gave myself another term; if I couldn’t improve or make much of the technical school, I would have “pulled the trigger” and changed schools. Not completing the year would have meant having to repeat the second year of high school at the new school. In Italy, repeating a year comes with all the imaginable stigmas, and it’s something that will haunt you in perpetuity. I had nothing to lose at that point; repeating a year would have still been less catastrophic than dropping out.
Dropping out of high school would have been straight-up career suicide.
The new term progresses, I’m putting more effort in, I’m trying a little harder, and my grades are generally acceptable. I had sufficient grades in almost all subjects but physics and English.
You need to know that I despised English so much. I didn’t want to learn it; I wasn’t interested in studying it, and I couldn’t care less. “Ma l’inglese non mi serve a niente!” I would arrogantly and blindly say, not knowing that the subject would haunt me for many more years and lead me to make my most life-changing decision.
The other thing that didn’t help is that I wasn’t exactly in my English professor’s good books, who openly told me at the end of the term that she wouldn’t support me and would have done anything to make me fail the year.
“So that settles it”, I think. I’m off to the new school.
Sure, I was sad to leave my classmates behind, and sure, the new school was a longer commute, but I was eager to give it a shot.
Another summer of work goes by, and I start at the new school. Everything was different, from how the classes were distributed to the subjects that were being taught. Of course, you’d still have your staple subjects: history, math, etc., but you’d also have advertising and marketing, communication, psychology, history of arts, design, and photography.
Within the first week, I knew I was in the right place. I was surprised at how I flew through the first year; even more surprising was the fact that I had good grades.
Now, you’re probably thinking, “Of course you had better grades; you liked where you were, and you studied harder.”
But that isn’t the case. I barely opened a book in my first year.
So much so that I ended up going through the third, fourth, and fifth years and passing the final exam without even buying the textbooks.
My mum was equally glad and confused when the new year started, and I told her not to worry about buying books. On one hand, she was conflicted and obviously confused; on the other hand, that saved her about €1000.
Well, then how in the world was I able to get through high school without textbooks?
Am I a genius? Do I possess a superlative IQ?
No, not at all. I would just listen to the lesson.Who would have thought that if what the professor has to say interests you and you pay attention to it, you would absorb every single detail? That was my secret.
I was called by the teacher, and I would give them back those details that they shared with the class weeks prior. It was obvious that I spent hours studying that chapter, right? RIGHT…?
The professors didn’t know I didn’t own any books and that I used to carry an empty backpack with me.
Well, not totally empty; I had a notebook, technical pens, nice markers, and heaps of pencils (I always liked having the full range with me, from the finest H to the heaviest B).
Although most of my classmates knew, it made them absolutely mad. They would spend their afternoons studying to end up getting a C and be devastated, while I’d just improvise and end up with a B.
I didn’t have the best grades in the class overall, but I held my own. My best grades and work were in the subjects that involved design; I would get As consistently, and that’s what upped my overall score.
What can I say? I was in my element.
I loved learning things like the psychology of colors, fonts, shapes, and optical illusions. In my view, it wasn’t anything new; these were things I knew instinctively, but finally, someone was giving it a name and categorising everything with a clear methodology.
The more I learned about marketing, the more I started applying these techniques in my everyday life. Was I manipulating my teachers? Surely not. They would have seen right through me.
My potential really took off in the second year when we were introduced to lab time. “The lab” was a spacious room with a bunch of old computers in it. Sure, they were old, but still 10x more than what I had at home.
Because of my personal interest in PCs and software, I was light-years ahead of everyone else, and not only in my class. I would jump in whenever a classmate had IT issues and solve them before the IT specialist could come into the lab.
That sealed it for me. I knew my future career had to involve computers and design.
I was in flow.
For the first time, I was excelling at something. The more I learned about advertising, the more I discovered myself and understood how immune I was to it.
It also became obvious that I was in the minority in my class when it came to this understanding. Only a small percentage of my classmates (just me and two others) seemed to grasp the fundamentals. That’s when I became certain that I would pursue this path well beyond school. I had extra gear that not everyone possessed.
I loved my classmates, but I couldn’t help but think they seemed hopeless and slow to me.
Then one day, everything clicked. I think it was in year three or maybe four when I realised that despite attending the same school, I was absorbing the knowledge while they were merely consuming it. They were asleep. Sure, they would read about advertising, but they were still prey to it.
The division between creators and consumers was so evident now. After that, there was no coming back.
I knew which side I was on.