What happened to the 'popular kids' from your high school?

[Anonymous]

My HS had a decently sized population of people who were pretty religious, including a decently sized LDS population that was relatively affluent. A lot of the women seem to have gone into either being photographers, interior decorators, or influencers.

[Anonymous]

All over the place. The football player I had a crush on played football at an Ivy, got into I-banking and is now at a high level at a hedge fund. Another of the popular kids died in their thirties of an overdose. Many of the cheerleaders are SAHM, though one is a successful influencer.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a rural area. Our high school drew from 5 small towns. Of the popular types, a lot stuck around just like their parents did. I know of one woman who has 3 kids with 3 different fathers from our graduating class of 120 people.

I haven't heard anything from anyone else. It seems a few married high school sweethearts and carried on the small town traditions. That's what makes them popular, their families have lived their for 3 generations now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Expensive private school, class of 1998. The "popular" clique aka the more naturally confident and often hard partying kids, have mostly normalized and are doing well. Some extremely well. The confidence in HS years can be a strong indicator of future success. For a few kids, that confidence did lead to unfortunate experimenting with drugs with not a happy outcome but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

The whole popular kids peaked in HS and became losers afterwards always reeked more of jealous stereotyping than reality.

And, no, I was not one of the "popular" kids, being more bookish, but am pragmatic and realistic.

This. It's cope and so cringe.

The popular kids in my 1991 private Alexandria HS have done extremely well, myslef included. I'm sitting in a 3M house in Great Falls right now and run a very succesful firm. My wife is a VP at a well known defense contractor. We are both still in excellent shape and way more attractive then our peers. We have one kid at an ivy and another entertaing options at the service academies.

I never bullied a single kid. I drew hate because I was smart, good looking, and a stellar athlete.

You were not popular if you drew hate.
The popular kids often had emotional maturity that’s beyond their age. They are not necessarily the best looking / football / cheerleader. They were loved by most therefore “popular”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Expensive private school, class of 1998. The "popular" clique aka the more naturally confident and often hard partying kids, have mostly normalized and are doing well. Some extremely well. The confidence in HS years can be a strong indicator of future success. For a few kids, that confidence did lead to unfortunate experimenting with drugs with not a happy outcome but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

The whole popular kids peaked in HS and became losers afterwards always reeked more of jealous stereotyping than reality.

And, no, I was not one of the "popular" kids, being more bookish, but am pragmatic and realistic.

This. It's cope and so cringe.

The popular kids in my 1991 private Alexandria HS have done extremely well, myslef included. I'm sitting in a 3M house in Great Falls right now and run a very succesful firm. My wife is a VP at a well known defense contractor. We are both still in excellent shape and way more attractive then our peers. We have one kid at an ivy and another entertaing options at the service academies.

I never bullied a single kid. I drew hate because I was smart, good looking, and a stellar athlete.

You were not popular if you drew hate.
The popular kids often had emotional maturity that’s beyond their age. They are not necessarily the best looking / football / cheerleader. They were loved by most therefore “popular”.

DP. Haha! No.

[Anonymous]

Corporate and high level sales type jobs for most of the popular and good looking kids. A few became doctors. Several of the popular girls married very well and never had to work beyond college. Some left our suburban Detroit town and never looked back - going to the coasts to seek out their dreams in Hollywood or NYC. One girl on the homecoming court skipped her UMA2 academic near-full ride scholarship and booked a one-way ticket to Paris. She was able to quickly snatch up modeling gigs and made her name on the runway and print - and is now quite successful on the corporate side of the house. She never once returned to her hometown in 26 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My high school was too big to have a single group of popular kids. I think most people are just out there living life?

That's my experience too. I'm not sure who I would single out to try to answer this- movie stereotypes just don't work in real life. The guy who got voted "Most Popular" for the yearbook was by all stereotypical movie-reference standards a band geek. The "most athletic" was a really skinny cross country runner. The captain of the football team is now a Naval officer. Half of the cheerleaders from our class are doctors or lawyers. Most people in our giant school didn't think of any one crowd as popular and didn't stick exclusively to just one group of friends.

[Anonymous]

They're all getting ready to retire from teaching in our same school district, or the one in the next town or two over. Most of the girls grew up to teach kindergarden, while the guys went the science/history teacher into school admin/principal route. The guys also coached basketball, track and baseball. I'm so glad I moved from that crappy town. Not that I'm some great success either, but at least I didn't have to send my kids to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My high school was too big to have a single group of popular kids. I think most people are just out there living life?

That's my experience too. I'm not sure who I would single out to try to answer this- movie stereotypes just don't work in real life. The guy who got voted "Most Popular" for the yearbook was by all stereotypical movie-reference standards a band geek. The "most athletic" was a really skinny cross country runner. The captain of the football team is now a Naval officer. Half of the cheerleaders from our class are doctors or lawyers. Most people in our giant school didn't think of any one crowd as popular and didn't stick exclusively to just one group of friends.

I had well over 1000 kids in my HS graduating class and agree - lots of different groups and the senior superlatives were a mix from all the groups. Some of them became semi-famous, some are working blue collar jobs and some have passed away.

[Anonymous]

Spicoli saved Brooke Shields from drowning and blew the reward money hiring rock band Van Halen to play at his birthday party.

[Anonymous]

I have no idea.

[Anonymous]

High school class of 400 students. There were a few groups of stereotypical “popular” kids. I was not friends with them though they seemed nice enough. I am still friends with some people from HS and so hear about these other people occasionally. But I don’t have any interest in what they are doing now.

Strange that anyone would be if those people were not your friends then.

[Anonymous]

Oh my…

[Anonymous]

I went to HS in Greenwich Ct. One or two of the most popular boys ended up in jail briefly or multiple times for drug offenses. Rich families, kids driving BMW's, absentee parents and good lawyers.

[Anonymous]

My fairly large public high school was in a second tier city. Most of the more popular kids seem to still live there and see each other some of the time. Most had families. A lot of teachers and other local economy type jobs. In my town the popular kids were not the most strong academically so it's about what I would expect. A smattering of divorces, health issues, early deaths. But that's going to happen to some percentage of any group.

I think they probably really enjoy their lives and love having friends they've known since childhood. Not my life to live, but seems fine.