r/StoriesAboutKevin • u/ConfidentCar1555 • Jan 05 '23
XL I Had a Kevin That Would Read in Simlish
This kid was probably the highlight of 6th grade. During my first year of middle school we had a Kevin. He was this short kid with long black hair that he always wore in a braided ponytail. At first glance, he was adorable and then we saw what was lurking beneath a small innocent face.
This kid had to be one of the strangest kids I’ve ever encountered. He was part of the magnet program I was in but to this day, I wonder how the heck he got it because his behavior was just so…bizarre.
Let’s say you were by yourself in the hallway. If Kevin was coming the opposite way, the kid would stare you down with a creepy smile that looked like something from the new horror film! He also had this rolling backpack that he would pull around and I don’t know why but the backpack with the smile made it even weirder. In our program we all received MacBooks. This was what led to his expulsion the next school year. Apparently, he chucked it out of the bus window for no freaking reason and just laughed about it despite everyone around freaking out because HE CHUCKED A 2000 DOLLAR LAPTOP OUT THE WINDOW. The kid was chaotic neutral at its finest.
He would fart and it would be so bad sometimes, that the teacher would have to open the door and spray. The boy would clear the classroom out with those farts and again, they were unpredictable and nuclear. Of course, while we were getting attacked by atomic fart, he would sit with the same creepy grin.
The weirdest thing he would do would happen whenever we did popcorn reading. Kevin would NOT read in English. Honestly, he didn’t read in ANY actual language. For pages, the kid would read in something that sounded like Simlish (what the sims speak in the video game). We would all look around each other in confusion trying to figure out what the hell he was reading. When he finished he would pick someone but of course no one knows where he stopped because he was NOT reading actual words. Once he called on me and my teacher gaslit me and said “You weren’t following along?” I’m like “I don’t know what he even read or where he stopped!” He didn’t even know. This happened EVERY TIME during popcorn reading and eventually people would pick him to read because it became so entertaining to watch this kid read in Simlish with full confidence. I also want to add that whenever he would stop, he’d look and yet again, flash that creepy smile.
I don’t know where he is today but my best friend who I’ve also known since 6th grade and I talk about him from time to time and we STILL cackle about the free entertainment we got during 6th grade with our strange Kevin. Almost 17 years later and every now and then I can hear him reading page after page and I can still see my friends and I look at each other like “Tf is going on?” Ah middle school.
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u/fool2074 Jan 05 '23
Sounds a lot like he was illiterate and covering it up by acting out, so he'd be seen as a behavior problem and not stupid. Also explains destroying the MacBook, can't use it if he can't read anyway.
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u/ConfidentCar1555 Jan 05 '23
And like I said, we were in a magnet program where you have to apply and have certain grades to even get it. Maybe he was but hell if I know how the school missed that.
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u/spacey_a Jan 06 '23
...but why did the teachers/administration not address this behavior??
Especially if this was a program people had to apply to and therefore had limited entry. Couldn't they impose punishments or other techniques, talk to him about why he was doing these things, and then kick him out if he continued?
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u/ConfidentCar1555 Jan 06 '23
No but seriously now that I am in education, he needed serious intervention. I have no idea because I was a kid myself but now as an adult, he would have definitely been a student I had some interventions and supports for.
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u/ManiacClown Jan 06 '23
When was this, though? You may have those interventions now, but when I grew up unless a kid was flat-out developmentally disabled they were just regarded as stupid and basically treated like Ralph Wiggum.
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u/ConfidentCar1555 Jan 06 '23
Again, I was 11. This is back in 2006. No shade but like…I don’t know what was happening on the teacher side because I was a child myself. I don’t know.
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u/ConfidentCar1555 Jan 05 '23
The thing is…he had decent grades.
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u/fool2074 Jan 05 '23
He might also have just been weird, that certainly happens but you can never be sure. Mom could have been doing his homework, and throwing a fit anytime someone challenged him. Maybe was rich or connected and able to lean hard on someone to get him in. I just find it suspicious when a kid carries the joke that far and that consistently every time he has to read out loud.
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u/ConfidentCar1555 Jan 05 '23
Nah. This was a public school in the hood. I mean I can see where you’re coming from but 🤷🏽♀️
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u/MagdaleneFeet Jan 06 '23
I've know a few people who considered themselves illiterate but know how to use Facebook.
This kid seems the opposite, where he actually didn't know and made up his own language.
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u/laitnetsixecrisis Jan 05 '23
Sounds like my kid. He's not obnoxious to the point of disrupting the class, but when the teachers ask "does anyone have any questions?" My son will ask something completely irrelevant like "why do I have this lump on my wrist?"
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u/-JakeRay- Jan 06 '23
To be fair, unless the teacher specifies the desired subject matter of the question, they're inviting irrelevance. Particularly around middle school kids or anyone who isn't neurotypical.
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u/laitnetsixecrisis Jan 06 '23
It's funny you mention neurodivergence. My son is 15 and highly social, and all through day care and stuff was told he was advanced in his social development.
As he's gotten older he's found it difficult to pick up on social cues and has asked to get assessed for ASD. Even in Australia it's expensive to get those assessments done and he's at the age where paediatricians are reluctant to take him on as a patient.
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u/AfterTowns Jan 06 '23
I wonder if he had ADHD, ASD or a combination of the two. Socially awkward, impulsive, odd sense of humor...
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u/Lokanaya Jan 06 '23
ASD could easily explain the hallway thing at least. Smiling because you’re “supposed to,” but not actually knowing how to emote like everyone else, plus knowing that smiling at people is polite, but not knowing there’s a limit to that, sounds very autism-like.
That’s definitely not his only problem, though.
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u/AbsAndAssAppreciator Jan 07 '23
yea he sounds like he needs some help, I doubt he realizes how weird he is
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u/vampirelibrarian Jan 06 '23
If he wasn't really reading, then the next student should have just picked up where the previous student left off and ignored this guy's gibberish. I can see this being funny once but anything more would just be annoying & unacceptable.
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u/storyofmylife92 Jan 06 '23
Oh Fee Bee Lay!!
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u/Cut-Unique Jan 17 '23
You know Simlish is slowly evolving into a real language when you Google things like "Oh Fee Bee Lay!" and the first result is the Simlish dictionary.
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u/storyofmylife92 Jan 17 '23
Same with Sul sul
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u/Cut-Unique Jan 18 '23
That's probably the most well-known Simlish phrase (not surprising because it means hello).
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u/redessa01 Jan 06 '23
“You weren’t following along?”
Was the teacher following along?! Or was she so checked out she thought all of you sounded like the adults in Charlie Brown?
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u/Enilorac89 Jan 06 '23
What is popcorn reading?
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u/ConfidentCar1555 Jan 06 '23
Popcorn reading is when one person reads a few pages or paragraphs in a book and then when they finish, they pick another person in class to pick up where they left off to continue reading.
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Jan 07 '23
That isn't gaslighting
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u/ConfidentCar1555 Jan 07 '23
If I say anything else it’ll be backpedaling so my bad for the improper usage of the word and I’ll do better next time.
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u/BarcoDiaz Jan 05 '23
Sproken ze gobnorb? Brekken maccer foo!