Hugh Gallagher is an author and musician from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. He is best known for his satire, including his band Von Von Von, his award-winning satire on the college application essay, "3A Essay", and the novel ''

Teeth A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, t ...

''.

Early life and work

Gallagher was born in New York City and grew up in Pennsylvania. While in high school, he won Scholastic Press, Inc.'s national writing contest in 1990 with a

satiric Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or ...

personal

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

titled "3A Essay". The essay starts with "I am a dynamic figure", and contains many

humorous Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in th ...

hyperbolic Hyperbolic is an adjective describing something that resembles or pertains to a hyperbola (a curve), to hyperbole (an overstatement or exaggeration), or to hyperbolic geometry. The following phenomena are described as ''hyperbolic'' because they ...

statements of his accomplishments, ending with the line, "But I have not yet gone to

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

." The essay, which he did apparently submit to some colleges,Hugh Gallagher's 'College Essay'
/ref> has become an

urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

among high school students undergoing the college admissions process. It also became a popular

Internet phenomenon An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...

in the late 1990s. The essay was also recorded as a spoken-word piece by Gang of Seven Productions.Hugh Gallagher: Man of Many Talents — Alec Saunders .LOG
/ref> A line from this essay was adapted by Full Contact Origami for the company's name. Gallagher ultimately attended

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. While there, he released a spoken-word/comedy album under the name Hugh Brown Shu in 1992, entitled " Bomb the Womb."

Recent work

In 1998, Gallagher published his first novel, ''

''. Since 2002, he has performed live as Von Von Von, a pop star holdover from the 1980s who hails from Antwerp. Some of Gallagher/Von Von Von's work has been produced by Grandmaster Ratte' of

CULT OF THE DEAD COW Cult of the Dead Cow, also known as cDc or cDc Communications, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. The group maintains a weblog on its site, also titled "Cult of the Dead Cow". New media are rele ...

References

External links

Essay Text
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gallagher, Hugh Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American humorists American male novelists