Matthew McConaughey Trashes Participation Trophies: ‘We Want Everyone to Feel Really Great’

Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey denounced the idea of participation trophies, believing that they undercut genuine achievement.

The actor revealed his thoughts on modern society’s willingness to hand out awards and even raise GPAs above a 4.0 during an interview  with the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.

“I’m not into extra credit. I don’t like 4.2 GPAs,” he said. “That tells me, like, what happened? Then we’re not giving the right tests. If 4.0 was the pinnacle, that means not many people should be getting it, if anybody.”

“So now we’re getting 4.2s, 4.4s,” he added. “That tells me we’ve overleveraged the original task, or we’ve added amnesty or too many places to not have the real competence and merit at the task that you’re supposed to get, because, especially I think in the West, because we want everyone to feel really great. Participation trophies. 4.2 GPA.”

McConaughey added that people getting a 4.2 GPA would just be masking a 3.8, noting that the extra credit is “balanced with the debit of the actual … what we learn from it.”

The Dallas Buyers Club star recently made headlines for trademarking his famous Dazed & Confused catchphrase to ward off AI scammers.

“The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says that McConaughey has field for eight trademark applications covering his public persona including video, audio, and even his well-known catch phrase, ‘Alright, alright, alright.’ The application included audio clips, photos, and video of him simply staring straight at the camera,” Breitbart News reported.

“McConaughey hopes that the trademarks can prevent unauthorized use of his persona to lay claim to use of his image before someone else does,” it added.