on high-school clubs being a cult. a rant on elite clubs, ECs that think they are the shit

TLDR: extracurricular (ecs) activities are generally pretty good and a nice development for general Hanoi student body. but the elite, ridiculously selective clubs in some magnet schools arent's so ni

Side-notes:

Sorry for the insane inactivity, I wrote this piece 2 weeks before but was caught into the rotting process of summer so was just not ready yet to finish this piece. Over the last 1 month: I had a sinus surgery, a lot of getaway to my summer home, start packing and buying so much clothes, got ridiculously interested in the election again, battled with productivity guilt, and started using threads more religiously.

ALSO: this post was mostly a rant, no particular research, evidence, data just my take and my personal experiences with my own bloodline, close friendships, being knee-deep in these toxic clubs bs.

Personally, I see no problems with extracurricular clubs; my general position is that they contribute positively to society in primarily two ways:

1. These clubs mobilize Vietnamese youth and their resources toward many important, albeit repetitive, causes—which is ultimately beneficial. There are countless clubs involved in helping schools, organizing charity trips, and making donations to significant organizations. It’s commendable that more youths are showing interest in such activities. Even if there's a bit of redundancy with many clubs posting similar content on social media or having similar premises, their impact remains positive. They're still a net positive for many important scenes, including advocacy and developmental projects that need attention.

2. The second positive aspect I highlight is how these clubs help students build important, albeit somewhat market-oriented and capitalism-leaning, skills that better equip them for real life and jobs. This shift from traditional pedagogic learning and exam-focused approaches to a more active engagement with life is crucial. It teaches you to be more resourceful and adept, acquiring basic corporate skills and understanding issues that concern our parents. You learn to take meetings, feel empowered by promotions (even if they are generally symbolic), manage meeting minutes, utilize tools like Google Sheets, and organize or participate in interviews. You also learn to ask for funding, craft basic project proposals, and other skills that collectively encourage youths to take a more active role in their lives, preparing them more effectively for college. This development is altogether, general positive.

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However, my primary concerns revolve around the often cringeworthy and toxically competitive culture within the so-called "high-end" clubs in Vietnamese high schools.

A glimpse into this strange social phenomenon

Membership in these very high-end school clubs often requires being part of a very elite circle, having connections in big names across big cities, or possessing insider knowledge that only comes from already being in such a role. Here’s a glimpse into this strange social phenomenon that exists in these very selective highschool clubs in hanoi: It involves a series of ridiculously rigorous, months-long competitions full of endless suck-ups, interview rounds, and work trials, all to select the final 20 or so survivors who get a spot in a department of this project. But the ordeal doesn't end there. What follows is a period of ceaseless sycophancy and strategic politics, where manipulating social dynamics to demote some and promote others is commonplace, just so that everyone will love me and I will be made the core next year!

Traits such as being very pretty/handsome, having excessive wealth to help fund the projects or the meals, being overly generous, or being a skilled gossiper can give someone a significant advantage in the road towards the crown of being made a core. To attain a coveted position like Head of Content for a major project in Hanoi, for example, it might seem as simple as winning over a key individual (the pre-existing Head of Content), convincing them to see you as their best friend and then give you back the crown. This leads to months of pandering, where you must act subserviently to your "anh chị Core" suppress your real personality, and engage in cringe-worthy interactions to avoid seeming odd, etc.

Tracing the roots

But how did some weird bs like this can happen in the first place. In the end, it’s a damn highschool club, not some FAANG or Goldman Sachs internship that you need a returning offer from anyways. Why the insane hurdles of crazy corporate-like hierachies and politics, one may ask?

And literally the fricking hierarchies are so cringe and hard to watch!!!!!

At the core of these clubs lies a rigid hierarchical structure where power is concentrated at the top with the heads of departments or core members. New or lower-ranking members are expected to show utmost reverence to these leaders, treating them not just as mentors but as authoritative figures whose favor is crucial for their advancement. This literally mirrors a parental or even feudal lord dynamic, where the core members' approval and support are mandatory or else you get nothing in return. And weirdly, and cringe-ly, this reverence often morphs into outright sycophancy.

Members find themselves compelled to engage in continuous acts of flattery and absolute subservience. And note that, within these clubs, very few but noteworthy still, this behavior is not merely encouraged. It is institutionalized as a necessary strategy for survival and advancement within the club!!!!

The perceived entitlement and normalized arrogance within club operations can be traced to a couple of key factors, IMO:

1. Collective inflated sense of importance

Often, members of these clubs develop an exaggerated sense of the importance of their project or club. This may stem from a psychological need to justify the efforts and compromises made to gain entry into the club, even when beyond all those shiny PR posts, the project work for literally no significant cause. Weirdly, it's akin to how war veterans may view their involvement in conflict: they often need to see the war as a heroic and meaningful cause to justify the sacrifices, the trauma that they personally made.

Similarly, club members may construct a narrative of grandeur around their activities, convincing themselves of the paramount importance of their roles and the meaning of projects to cope with the demanding, cutthroat and “meaningless” nature of their involvement. I found this to be, in an unexplainable way, pretty similar to what I got out of the book Bullshit Jobs and the cycles of which those jobs are continuously perpetuated and exist LOL.

2. They got lucky because they have been there for pretty long

Some projects simply get lucky, becoming legacies due to their longevity and established reputation. As extracurricular activities have grown in popularity in Vietnam, these legacy projects attract more attention and tend to perpetuate their status through self-reinforcing metrics of importance like social media. This is often manifested in the accumulation of social media likes, shares, and interactions, which can bolster a superficial sense of significance and superiority deeply embedded within the club’s culture.

3. Sense of exclusivity, elitism

Once admitted, members often adopt an elitist attitude, distinguishing themselves from 'outsiders' and other non-members. This elitism is not just about being part of the club, rather it's about being part of a select group that has passed stringent criteria, that can proudly change their instagram name for an event, and passed the rounds over many other-hundred candidates.

It also boils down to the echo chamber that exist heavily within these clubs, where the same ideas and perspectives are continuously reinforced. The lack of external challenge fosters a culture where members' beliefs about the club's importance go unchallenged, uncontested and thus considered universal and paramount, which further amplifying the culture of arrogance!!!!!! . The internal reward structures of these clubs also only prioritize visibility and status over genuine contributions. Leadership positions and the most visible roles are coveted, with success often measured by one's rank within the club rather than the real-world impact or like meaningful contributions of their projects.

All that yapping to say, what are the consequences, the bad thing that these clubs insanely toxic culture breeds?

In student-led clubs and activities, where creativity, innovation, and passion should be at the forefront in addressing and bettering the community around them, the culture of arrogance and resistance to change among elite clubs in Hanoi leads to particularly harmful consequences.

Firstly, these organizations operate under an outdated premise that prioritizes repetitive working models, “tradition” and “obedience to core members” over fresh ideas. Such a model not only stifles the creative impulses of young minds, new members but also undermines the potential for genuine innovation and meaningful impact towards society. The supposed changes, often as superficial as updating a profile picture or club logo with each new generation, do not equate to meaningful progress. Instead, they perpetuate a facade of success and efficiency—mere cosmetic changes that wrap a fundamentally flawed and stagnant core.

Secondly, the lack of a robust system of checks and balances further exacerbates these issues. In any ideal organization, the ability for members to speak up, challenge the status quo, and suggest innovative solutions is crucial. However, in these clubs, the hierarchy is so rigid that it smothers any potential for such dialogue. Members find themselves unable to express new ideas or push for changes that could potentially revitalize the club’s activities and impact. This lack of internal critique means that not only are problems left unaddressed, but also that the same outdated methods are recycled, preventing any meaningful evolutio., changes, improvements. The result is a project that continues merely for the sake of tradition rather than purpose or impact.

Moreover, this culture leads to the squandering of valuable resources—time, skills, and energy of talented individuals who could otherwise contribute significantly to more dynamic and meaningful projects, or be more free in their own pursuits and their own activity. It's truly a loss when bright, capable people spend their time upholding and perpetuating these stagnant cycles. Many members of these clubs are talented enough to spearhead transformative projects or contribute significantly to meaningful causes. Instead, their energies are consumed in a system that values conformity over innovation. The opportunity cost is enormous—just think of what these individuals could achieve if their talents were directed toward fresher, more impactful ventures.

The impact of such a culture extends beyond the club walls itself. These clubs, projects, often seen as the gold standard for extracurricular activities, set a problematic example for others, the general ECs scenes. They promote a distorted view of what it means to be involved in societal and community projects, emphasizing exclusivity and surface-level success over genuine creativity and passion for the cause. As a result, other clubs may adopt these metrics, prioritizing appearances and social media reach over genuine creativity and a real passion for societal causes. This shift diverts the focus from the true essence of community involvement, which is to foster change, let the member do creative things and enrich society, and the community not just the superficial likes, shares and shallow involvement.

There's a frustrating pattern you see with these high-end clubs in Hanoi: so many of them are just recycling the same old themes. Think about the countless campaigns to "raise awareness" or boost social media metrics. It's as if there's a playbook for superficial engagement—post a lot, make some noise, and call it impact. But what’s often missing is a genuine push for deeper societal change. These activities aren’t fundamentally bad, but when they become the primary focus, they do little more than scratch the surface of the issues they claim to address.

This approach has a domino effect on the entire community’s landscape. Creativity and depth are sidelined, and everything becomes about how good you look online, not the real work you're doing on the ground. It’s like putting up a beautiful storefront with nothing substantial inside. The real loss here, though, isn’t just in the stale repetition of ideas, it’s in how the limited funding and external resources flows.

Sponsorship money and external funding are extremely coveted like “gold dust”—they’re incredibly valuable and incredibly scarce. Yet, they keep getting channeled into these high-profile clubs that excel at playing up their visibility, their likes, their age-old event that are of no particular impact. As a result, smaller, perhaps more innovative, smaller scale projects that are working on the ground to make a tangible difference in another area, issues find themselves struggling for a slice of the pie. These student-led projects could be pioneering new ways to tackle social issues or experimenting with groundbreaking solutions, but without adequate support, they’re left to fend for themselves.

The end result? A community that rewards you for how well you can sell an image, not for the substance or genuine creativity of your work. This is a complete miss for many students trying to understand what doing extracurricular activities, projects, and organizations is really about. It’s about the firsthand experience of contributing to something that has a tangible impact on the community, and broadly, on society. It’s about finding new friends, navigating the challenges of teamwork, and building skills. It's about cultivating a passion for a cause and developing a relentless thought in your head that you can indeed work hard, do good things, and contribute meaningfully to society in your own way. It might be about learning to suck up a bit, to make friends, and to sacrifice personal gains for the greater good—but it’s definitely not entirely about these things.

Concluding everything!!

I have witnessed the hassles my friend definitely went through. And a note to every freshman looking for a club to apply to: try to remember that you are your own person. Being club-less because a randomly 1-year-older peer decides to reject you because you're not as famous as your peers (true story) doesn't really hurt. Having the freedom to explore spaces, to build up your own projects that can better nurture your creativity, problem-solving skills, and help you feel meaningful, is SO important and much better. You have limited time in high school, so choose wisely the paths you want to delve into and focus your attention on. Just remember that the insanely stressful efforts you put into trying to help put up a weird, repetitive book event for this club could be channeled towards an interesting venture, a new project of your own.

And speaking from the experience of building a semi-successful student-led project, LearnThrive, I definitely learned so many things about education, people, myself, and the paths I want to trod down after high school. Choose your projects right, folks!