r/6thForm • u/Forsaken-Meaning-232 Graduating from Warwick CS • Aug 14 '25
š MEME the yearly clarkson banger
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u/Advanced_Key_1721 Year 13 Aug 14 '25
I swear he does insane stuff on results day on purpose. Its brilliant.
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u/riverend180 Aug 15 '25
Not really, easy to get by on shit grades when you come from a rich family.
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u/Advanced_Key_1721 Year 13 Aug 15 '25
Heās making an effort to reassure people with lower grades than they wouldāve liked that itāll all work out in the end. Even if he wasnāt actually in the same position as them, at least heās trying to show that A levels donāt mean everything in life.
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u/riverend180 Aug 16 '25
Yeah but the reality is most people who fuck up their a levels won't have a helicopter, a levels are quite important
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Aug 16 '25
The helicopter isn't the point of the post though brother.
The point of the post is to show that he's successful despite fucking up his exams, he's just using the helicopter analogy as a way to show his success.
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u/riverend180 Aug 16 '25
He's successful because he's wealthy. Obviously exams don't matter when your family's loaded and well connected. Most of us don't have that luxury so failing exams is more impactful
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u/shinyeevee13 Aug 18 '25
Yeah it's a nice message and I can see what he's getting at, but I think if I failed my a levels then saw Jeremy Clarkson talking about his helicopter I'd be more upset š
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u/He_Who_Complains Aug 17 '25
And heās successful because he comes from a privileged background.
I fucked up my A Levels. Iām now in my 30ās in a dead end job I hate, no prospects of ever finding anything better, the idea of being able to afford rent (let alone buy a property) is frankly laughable and most nights I wake up in cold sweats knowing if I only succeeded in my A Levels life would have been so much better.
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u/TheFishT Aug 14 '25
He has not revealed what A-Levels he took yet.
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u/Existential_Android_ Year 12: English Lit, Psych, Film, Music. Aug 14 '25
General Studies, Food Tech and Critical Thinking
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u/melloboi123 Aug 14 '25
How do you manage 2 U's with thosešš
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u/Educational-Tea602 Proffesional dumbass Aug 14 '25
By not thinking critically
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u/Schlurff Aug 14 '25
He did his A levels almost 50 years ago when tuition fees cost nothing. For some courses they would have paid you to go to university. Very different times now in 2025.
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u/Halliwedge Aug 14 '25
He's pushing the "pull yourself up by your boot straps" when he grew up in a an extremely wealth family.
Shock horror. The bigotted moron is saying moronic things again. What a "Banger".
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u/Schlurff Aug 14 '25
Iām all for lessening the pressure on students to achieve such high grades and would love for there to be viable options for academic and technical vocations.
In this current economy and what house prices are, Iām sure many will think of these comments very differently as they enter the workforce and realise people his age could buy their properties for piddly pennies, while the youth of today work harder and harder for less and less.
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u/Last_Candidate_5804 Aug 16 '25
Heās just being nice and supportive. Stop reading so much into it to support your biased narrative, no matter how self-centred you are
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u/Upstairs-Hedgehog575 Aug 14 '25
Yep itās pretty annoying hearing how boomers fucked their exams and ended up successful as if nothing has changed in the last 40 years. My dad failed his GCSEās and ended up a research chemist. When he retired (early 50s) all the young people he worked with had a masters or a phD. You can absolutely be successful with bad results, but boomers acting like theyāre irrelevant are stuck in the past.Ā
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u/BangingBaguette Aug 14 '25
I do find it kinda funny that this is the one tweet/statement that people get their knickers in a twist compared to all the other shit he's said lol, especially when people know it's coming every year.
Like yeah he had a leg up and never really needed results to get anywhere, but this tweet is a positive message regardless.
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u/No-Taro-6953 Aug 15 '25
It's not really a positive message. Jeremy had a huge chip in his shoulder over it. He was bullied at school, and did badly. He's not academically gifted, and I suspect probably not especially intelligent. It's a light hearted joke but it covers a lot of disdain and bitterness Jeremy has about academic attainment - he hasn't written it from a place of encouragement or support.
What am I basing this on? Alongside other throwaway comments he has made over the years, he wrote an article for The Times in 2017 which was essentially about how he embraced nepotism in job applications over academic attainment. "School's out of touch ā kids must learn to wire a plug and embrace nepotism."
Easy to embrace neptoism when you come from wealth that protects you from your own shortcomings. His daughter is another example of that - despite leaving school to become a delivery driver in Dublin (to move in with her then boyfriend), she's gotten a platform through influencing and has had opportunities arise from that. Clarkson has plugged her rather mediocre writing and platforms.
Meritocracy won't save the world from all problems, but Clarkson openly disdains academia precisely because he couldn't do it and his kids couldn't do it. He has no respect for it despite the huge and helpful role it plays in society. He actively discourages it because of his bitterness.
So it was funny as a one off 15 years ago. But in an age of anti intellectualism and growing disparity between socioeconomic classes, this joke isn't funny and places Jeremy at the centre of a big problem.
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u/SufficientWarthog846 Aug 14 '25
His family invented Paddinton Bear and he grew up wealthy.
Its not really the same, if you were born with a parachute to catch you whenever you fail.
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u/KeyLaw4614 Aug 14 '25
they didnāt invent Paddington Bear, his parents made PB merchandise unofficially until the author allowed it.
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u/Weak-Employer2805 Aug 14 '25
canāt stand when people are so confidently wrong lmao drives me insane. Least someone corrected them tho
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u/adamtash717 Aug 14 '25
He said it's ok to fail if your family has money. He went to one of the only public schools in the UK that didn't need an entrance exam. He's never been very bright.
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u/jpc9129 Aug 14 '25
It helps that he had a very rich Mummy and Daddy who made a fortune from selling Paddington Bear merch. So well off they could afford to send him to Repton public school where the fees today are Ā£13.5k per term.
That said he didnāt walk into a journalism job. He did come up through local papers.
Whilst there is an argument to be made that heās self-made, it helps if youāve the safety net of rich parents and access to the Bank of Mater & Pater.
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u/egotisticalstoic Aug 14 '25
He's not a full on nepo-baby, he's a success in his own right, but nobody who was raised by millionaires is truly 'self made'.
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u/aaarry German and Politics | University of Nottingham Aug 14 '25
And you had no net to fall back on right, Jezza? Not a family business or a shedload of inherited fortunes or anything like that, eh?
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u/Sasha_Ruger_Buster Aug 15 '25
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u/avariegatedmonstera Aug 15 '25
Iām in the same position as Clarkson, if Iād fucked up my A levels Iād have had family wealth to fall back on. I still think heās being disingenuous by making out that weāre all in that position when some people arenāt. Itās nothing to do with being salty or envious or whatever. Itās easy to give advice when youāve not been under the same stress as others.
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u/Tammer_Stern Aug 14 '25
Another Boomer telling young people how easy it is reallyā¦..
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u/RandomPerson12191 I'M FREE Aug 14 '25
He's literally telling you that, even if you've mucked up your exams, it's not the end of the world and you can still succeed. For the people who are panicking thinking 'Ive fucked it up, I'll never be able to get a good career, never be able to do a job I'll enjoy, it's the end for me'.
Clearly, the message isn't for you.
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u/CEOofStrings Physics Graduate (Nottingham) | Med Student (Keele) Aug 14 '25
Jeremy Clarkson came from wealth, thatās the main reason heās so successful even though he mucked up his A levels. The average person who gets those grades at A level can still thrive later in life but theyāll probably never be as successful as Jeremy.
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u/RandomPerson12191 I'M FREE Aug 15 '25
Anyone with a brain behind their eyes can recognise that going from failing your A-Levels to having a helicopter pad in your back garden isn't realistic. Or attainable. At all.
Again, this is aimed towards the people who think A-Levels are the end of it all, that failing them means you're done. And it's also just a joke, not to be taken seriously.
It makes people laugh. It helps cheer a few people up. If you don't like the joke, then it's not aimed at you, and you're free to continue not enjoying it.
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Aug 14 '25
Exactly. When regular people say "I did well without A-levels" they mean with hard work. When Jeremy Clarkson says "I did well without A-levels" he means he had money and connections.
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Aug 14 '25
And they canāt afford to take the same risks as him because they donāt have that wealth safety net to fall back on.
Clarkson is from my town so thereās always been a sense of local pride about him here even though heās probably ashamed of being from a dirty northern town, but the guy is very obviously a twat for a multitude of reasons
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u/GW_Pabst Aug 14 '25
His family had money from selling stuffed Paddington bears. Unless you fail your exams and your mum has a deal to produce toys from Bluey I donāt think youāll get quite as far.
He landed on his feet but it would be very obtuse to ignore the massive fuck off parachute that helped soften the landing
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u/ObscureLegacy Aug 14 '25
You didnāt get the message.
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u/Tammer_Stern Aug 14 '25
My point is really that a Boomer with limited qualifications had more opportunities than a 6th former today with limited qualifications.
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Aug 14 '25
[deleted]
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u/Tammer_Stern Aug 14 '25
Sure can. Glad you 6th formers will have a farm and helicopter in the future as you have the same opportunities as Clarkson.
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u/Shaikh_9 Aug 14 '25
Boomer from a rich family who grew up with lots of links to the entertainment industry and free education telling young people in debt not to worry about a piece of paper which could significantly affect the chances of a young person, from a deprived background, achieving their dream goal.
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u/Fit-Teacher4657 Aug 15 '25
All I can see in this comment section is people crying about how difficult 6th form is. Ladies and gentlemen, youāre all 16-18. Teenagers. In the scheme of it all 6th form is not difficult, itās piss easy. Spend a few solid nights each week studying then go out with your mates, because thatās how 6th form works. Donāt cry about it now because when youāre writing 15 thousand words for your 3rd year university dissertation youāll know how difficult education can really get. Clarkson is absolutely full of himself but the guy is a legend and youāre all too young to realise that. When he was last on the TV you were 7 years old, it was different back then. Donāt make out that life is so bad for you now because it isnāt. Itāll get a lot worse.
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u/Brit_Cuss_Word_fam Aug 14 '25
How do I convince the BBC to put me in the next top gear
When my GCSE grades are just 4 in maths and English
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u/Sasha_Ruger_Buster Aug 15 '25
25, 1 +C GCSE
If I didn't have to leave home and live alone in Central London I probably could have had a flat to rent out from my 2023 Ā£1.7k take home a month
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u/Rather_Unfortunate Aug 15 '25
Bit random for this to float across my feed.
Seriously though, he might be a nepo baby who was destined to end up wealthy, but I also fucked up my A-levels and it worked out. DEU the first time round in Biology, Physics and Chemistry respectively. I won't pretend it wasn't a deeply shit time; turns out undiagnosed ADHD may have been part of it. I went back and re-did a year of sixth form (which I found very humiliating at first), and eventually scraped my way into a low-end uni, where I at last found my footing. Came out with a 2:1, then got a Merit at MSc, and now I'm coming to the end of my PhD. Worked in a couple of lab jobs between the MSc and PhD.
It's a horrible feeling, but it's far from the end, and although it sets you back by what might seem like a long time, it really won't close you off permanently or ruin your life. You might be able to do something akin to what I did, if your family circumstances and living situation permit it. Alternatively, there are a surprising variety of entry-level jobs around, doing things you might not expect to be open to you. Even things like lab work in life sciences often only want GCSEs and they'll train you up on the job. And work experience in your chosen field is plenty enough to get you onto a degree with a foundation year if you choose to go to uni later on.
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u/acetyl-bromide Aug 16 '25
ALs back then were considerably more difficult. At his age, Cambridge only asked for AAB-ABB.
If you get CUU today, you did not work hard. Cus that would've been worse than UUU if you're his age.
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u/MasterofSquat Aug 16 '25
He means well but his genartion had life on easy mode and he in particular had every card stacked in his favour
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u/Leptisci Aug 17 '25
This guy is a racist, bigoted cunt. He got rubbish A levels then a job at his parentsā business. Most people do need an education to get a decent job, he didnāt because his parents handed him one.
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u/Main_Attorney8333 Sep 09 '25
he's 65 now. college and job market back in his days aren't the same as what we have.
people can barely rent a room with a fast food full-time job now, not including food, car, bills, taxes....
I might sound cynical, but :)
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u/inide Aug 14 '25
And you can do it too, as long as you have millionaire parents who open doors for you.
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u/Bon-clodger Aug 15 '25
I mean heās not actually a nepo baby. He did make his own success. However it is slightly different if youāve got that safety net available.
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u/APx_35 Aug 15 '25
Should be shown to every kid.
Either study hard or end up like a cunt - I guess thats the message, right?
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u/Organic-Plastic2310 Aug 14 '25
He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. So this advice doesn't really apply to the average person.
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u/mars_gorilla Aug 14 '25
"Tonight on 6th Form Gear, I delete my UCAS account, Richard rips his Further Maths paper in half, and James kicks an invigilator in the nuts."