High School Teacher Reveals How His Freshmen Boys’ Career Aspirations Have Changed Since He Began Teaching 9 Years Ago
The pervasive influence of men like Elon Musk is evident even in the classroom.
Ground Picture | Shutterstock We're all familiar with the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As young children, responses range from princesses and superheroes to veterinarians and professional athletes. As kids get older, and start to seriously consider their future careers, their answers inevitably change.
One high school English teacher noticed a telling trend in his male students' responses to this common question.
The teacher said all of his freshman boys want to become billionaires.
“I’ve been teaching high school since 2016,” the teacher known as Mr. Mayonnaise on TikTok said. "More specifically, I’ve been teaching freshmen since 2016.”
Every year, counselors come into his classroom and ask his students about their career aspirations. "What do you wanna be when you grow up? How are you gonna accomplish that? What steps need to be taken? What schools do you want to apply to one day? All that stuff," he explained.
According to Mr. Mayonnaise, popular answers to these questions have changed drastically over the last eight-and-a-half years.
“Once upon a time, early in my career, I had so many kids who said they wanted to be firefighters or doctors or engineers,” he said wistfully. “And you know what I get a lot of now? I get a lot of 15-year-old boys who say they just wanna be billionaires.”
These teenagers’ desire to become rich is unsurprising given the media they are constantly exposed to.
The teacher wasn't entirely surprised given the impact of recent events. “If you look at the front row of the inauguration yesterday," he said, "this is who our 15-year-old boys are looking up to."
Mr. Mayonnaise was referring to the lineup of influential tech moguls who attended Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on January 20. According to the Associated Press, big names like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Elon Musk were all present.
Musk has a reported net worth of over $400 billion, making him the richest individual in the world. Bezos and Zuckerberg aren't too far behind with net worths in the $200 billion range.
It's truly no wonder young people see money as the end goal. Aside from these tech moguls, young boys especially have been inundated with media about rich men.
The most subscribed YouTube channel belongs to Mr. Beast aka Jimmy Donaldson. He allegedly has a net worth of $1 billion and frequently makes competition videos giving away large sums of money — although much of the prize pot likely comes from sponsorships.
Some content is far less positive than Donaldson's, however.
A YouGov study found Andrew Tate to be the most popular influencer among men. They reported that 84% of boys aged 13-15 have heard of Andrew Tate, the kickboxer turned red pill influencer who is currently facing charges related to human trafficking. In addition to his degrading and misogynistic views of women, Tate frequently flaunts his wealth.
Mr. Mayonnaise is not convinced that his students are capable of becoming billionaires.
Although his students desperately want to be rich, Mr. Mayonnaise isn’t sure they have the brains or motivation to make it.
“If I were to make a Venn diagram of the 15-year-old boys who wanna be billionaires and the 15-year-old boys who I can’t get to open page one of a book, it’d be a pretty perfect circle,” he concluded. “But maybe I’m reading too much into things.”
It’s likely that he isn’t.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.