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I honestly don't remember much about high school popularity. I remember being constantly stressed by the long days and the academic workload and how everyone -

by chipsy 17y ago

I honestly don't remember much about high school popularity. I remember being constantly stressed by the long days and the academic workload and how everyone - EVERYONE, teachers, parents, students - was expressing a uniform goal of "GET GOOD GRADES TO GET INTO A GOOD COLLEGE." I probably could have hung out with different groups than I did, I probably could have dated plenty of girls, but I just wasn't paying attention. High school was about hoping that the world would just leave me alone for a while. In the end, I got politely acceptable grades and got into a good enough college, where I proceeded to wish that college would just leave me alone for a while, but at least it was better than high school. But then I finished college, and entered the real world, and everything was simple again. Even the stressful parts.

pgbovine 17y ago
just out of curiosity, did you attend an academically-intense high school? if so, then perhaps people weren't as obsessed with popularity because there was so much competition to get the highest grades and into the best colleges. but i would imagine that even in an intense school, there would still be athletes, cheerleaders, etc. (maybe the effect of popularity isn't as pronounced, though)
- derefr 17y ago
  People need to rank others; they need a contest of some sort. A popularity contest is simply the broken positive feedback loop that's left when no valid comparison function can be found. In a school where everyone takes academics seriously, there's no need for popularity, because there's a working well-ordering already established (i.e. Through grades.) Note that, unlike having a low ranking in a popularity contest, having a low meritocratic ranking isn't that bad for you, socially; although people like to rank others, they don't particularly care about the ranks once they're established. This is why popularity contests make people behave badly: since there's positive feedback, your ranking can change severely without any effort on your part—and you then start caring again, to get it stabilized.

by chipsy 17y ago

pgbovine 17y ago

just out of curiosity, did you attend an academically-intense high school? if so, then perhaps people weren't as obsessed with popularity because there was so much competition to get the highest grades and into the best colleges. but i would imagine that even in an intense school, there would still be athletes, cheerleaders, etc. (maybe the effect of popularity isn't as pronounced, though)

derefr 17y ago
People need to rank others; they need a contest of some sort. A popularity contest is simply the broken positive feedback loop that's left when no valid comparison function can be found. In a school where everyone takes academics seriously, there's no need for popularity, because there's a working well-ordering already established (i.e. Through grades.) Note that, unlike having a low ranking in a popularity contest, having a low meritocratic ranking isn't that bad for you, socially; although people like to rank others, they don't particularly care about the ranks once they're established. This is why popularity contests make people behave badly: since there's positive feedback, your ranking can change severely without any effort on your part—and you then start caring again, to get it stabilized.