I mean, peer pressure is tough as a general rule. It's no different than the peer pressure associated with wearing the wrong kinds of clothes, being interested

I mean, peer pressure is tough as a general rule. It's no different than the peer pressure associated with wearing the wrong kinds of clothes, being interested in classically "dorky" stuff, etc. There's also an element of communication outside of school. Nowadays (and this is based off of what the kids I work with tell me, so YMMV) it seems that a lot of what students do after school is related to screens. Students talk to each other through Roblox, play Minecraft instead of board games, etc. It's hard to come up with an analogy because the "in" toy/subject from grade school varies widely by age. At least in my age range, an analogous type of pressure would be Pokemon cards. Talking about Pokemon and playing with the cards dominated most conversations, so not having them made it a lot harder to interact with your peers. This may be a US thing though, as I'm not super aware of how grade school social standing works in other countries.