After showing the whole school my “Hash’s Plan” video, I was relieved due to the crowd’s response, but fueled by the outcome. Although my friends and I filmed for two hours and edited for four, the judges of the Mr. Mepham competition still voted for me to win second place. Although I won second, apparently I won first in people’s hearts, as the high fives from random students and the countless times the video was played in each class the next day was truly an unforeseen reaction. Even with such positivity in the air, the looming rumors of the competition being staged so I couldn’t win first place only grew louder and louder as Mr. Mepham 2019 nominations came near. Many of my close friends and even teachers said I didn’t win for the sole reason of being a junior and not performing a dance live on stage.

I didn’t even care for the results of the competition this time around, but mainly wanted to experience the sense of community the last video brought with it. For this year’s “Hash’s Year” video, my friends and I started writing the lyrics and started filming before the official nominations came out. In total, it took over one month of filming, editing, brainstorming, and recording to make the video. In the last couple of days before the competition, my friends and I spent a total of twelve hours editing the footage and music while it took around three days of filming including one day in New York City. We even put some lyrics hinting at the rumors which were being spread for the past year. Thankfully, my friends’ and my collective effort paid off, for I won first place and was able to flaunt the Mr. Mepham crown in school the next day. But if I’m being honest, the true crown on my head was the student body’s perception of me. The next day in the halls, random students would bow their heads, and my closest teachers would refer to me as king when I would raise my hand. My dad, even a whole ten days after the competition, still proudly displays the livestream of the competition to anyone who enters my house.

The process of making the video was a gruesome effort. Instead of using Imovie to make the music video this year, we decided to up the video production a tad by using a program called Adobe Premiere Pro, a program typically used by YouTubers and other professional video editors. Although we had spent nearly a month planning, the editing of the video together started on the Sunday before the competition. Along with the help of Ziyad Gawish and Alex Kasper, our naive selves were ready to dive into a whole new world of video editing with zero experience. That day we didn’t get much done, but we learned how to crop some of the clips and put them in order. In the days that followed, our experience grew exponentially, as Alex started watching tutorials and even found out how to put in some special effects. On Tuesday however, the worst possible thing that could happen did; the whole video file was deleted. With the competition being just two days away, we didn’t have time to mourn or be frustrated, but instead I said, “Alright, let’s get to it again.” On the night before the competition, the crew and I spent a total of six hours straight in Alex’s bedroom refining small details, fixing the audio, and syncing the words with my lips. Although the limit for the talent was three minutes, I wanted to leave Mepham with something memorable. My video turned out being eight minutes long, and I didn’t care for the time restriction because, at the end of the day, this was “Hash’s Year.”

These past two videos have made my high school experience more than just a student spending six hours at a desk. It made me realize just how much influence I can really have on a community, and how much of an influence a community can have on me. This past week in the halls, my Pakistani background coupled with my love for comedy has made my friends draw comparisons of me to some celebrities. They haven’t been able to stop calling me Hasan from Hasan Minhaj or Kumail from Kumail Nanjiani, but one day, I hope there can be a brown boy like me in the halls being called Hash from Hashir Siddiqui. If I can have such a large influence on my school, why can’t I extend that influence to the world?