In school, the majority of us knew popular students. And being popular does not automatically translate to being mean. Yes, some popular kids might be mean, but they can also be quite lovely. Also, some of these kids might be well-known because of how kind and enjoyable they are, making everyone want to be in their social circle. Others may be quite wealthy, which entails always owning expensive items, throwing extravagant parties, and sharing a lot of these things with their pals. And let's face it, kids and teens sometimes think these are the most important things in the world.
But it's always fascinating to see how these popular kids' lives really worked out. Do they have their feet on the ground or do they continue to do nothing while possessing everything? Or perhaps they were blessed by life, worked hard, and are now leading happy lives? A Reddit user asked online people to discuss their experiences with these popular students from their school. Let's just say that the stories range from sad to heartwarming.
More info: Reddit
One of my best friends was from the wrong side of the tracks, poor, had a mullet and wore Metallica shirts way before they broke into mainstream. He was extremely popular because he was crazy smart, very talented and driven. Everyone wanted to be his friend and he was very open about being nice to everyone. Many many parents were like “don’t hang out with that John Smith boy, he’s on [substances] and a bad influence” (He absolutely was not, it was the Satanic scare of the late 80s and 90s and he liked Metal Music) He worked his as off all his life and is now pretty damn wealthy with a house, wife and kids in California. When we chat it up on the phone he is the exact same person I grew up with. Crazy funny and extremely kind.The most popular class clown who drove teachers mad with his antics (to the greatesr enjoyment of the rest of us, seriously, this guy was legendary) went on to become a teacher.Most popular kid in our school was a guy named Josh. Insanely outgoing and friendly, he could befriend anyone he talked to within five seconds, and always did. Active athlete, was on the football team. Straight A student. Very devout church-goer. I didn't meet him until later in high school, where he was part of a Dungeons and Dragons game I joined. Always put on a great time role playing. While we didn't get close, we had a couple extraordinarily memorable times during our senior year of high school, very fun and meaningful times that stood out strongly to me then during a s****y part of my life and are still remembered fondly by me twenty years later. Josh was going places, and he'd make a difference somewhere. We lost touch after high school. Three years later he fell asleep behind the wheel of his truck and hit a tree. Died on impact. Found out through another friend who'd kept up with him, and we went to his funeral. I'd never seen a church so packed full of people for something like this, hundreds and hundreds of people. From our school, from his church, from all over life, the church was legitimately full. To this day, one of my few true lifelong regrets is letting my anxiety get the better of me when Josh's pastor asked people to come up to the mic and say something about Josh. I should've told everyone of our ludicrous all-nighter digging his truck out of the mud in a forest he'd gone mudding in after an evening school performance where we were all still in khakis and polos, finishing at three AM and somehow ending our bedraggled a**es at IHOP after getting it out. I should've told everyone how we found out our DnD GM was moving away on short notice, and we high-tailed it to his place after school and literally ran out of gas in that f*****g truck getting there, then flooded the engine refilling it from a Jerry can, stuck with our GM who didn't want anyone coming to say goodbye and ending up late in the evening laying in that truck bed talking about science and philosophy and religion, three teenage dudes waiting for that goddamn f*****g truck to get to a drivable condition so we could say goodbye to our friend properly before he disappeared from our lives. I'm nearing forty, and I still regret not saying how great of a guy he was to a short, scrawny, long-haired metalhead weirdo like I was in high school. Because he was. He was going to make a difference. I suppose, given all the people at his funeral, he still did.A girl friend of mine that I knew since kindergarten was appointed a California State Supreme Court Judge.He was our QB in highschool. Liked by everyone, handsome, did good in school, and was a humble person totally aware of his situation. Got married to a girl we went to school with, got a local job in a big local Industry, had a kid with her. I saw him at the gas station last time I was in town. He seems like he's doing well.My favorite is that the star wrestler, who was a bully, had a one night stand with the star cheerleader years later. It resulted in a pregnancy and she now complains on Facebook that he is a deadbeat dad.Small town.
**There are always exceptions**, but most kids who were 'popular' were friendly, outgoing, well dressed, and emotionally stable. That happened because they came from families with more money and better educated parents.
Those parents often provided better mentoring, ensured they went to college, and as a result the kids ended up professionals who did reasonably well for themselves.Don't know, Don't care.
Graduated in 1998, left for the Navy and never went back
Don't know what happened to any of themThey're doing fine. Contrary to what Reddit would have you believe, most of the popular kids in schools weren't bullies in my experience. They were kids who for the most part were nice, had a stable home life, and maybe happened to be fairly athleticThey all became Instagram influencers and started selling detox teaLawyer.
Doctor.
Current NBC Anchor in Lubbock.
Track and Field Coach for high school.
Physical therapist.
Engineer.
Prison for involuntary vehicular manslaughter and DUI.The kids who were popular in my school came from rich families, most of them simply went to rich schools and got jobs that didn't really involve working.
Now the cycle continues.I’m old. Graduated from high school in 1970. My classmate rundown: One of the most popular ones came up with the name “windows” while a VP at Microsoft. One became a state governor and a U.S. Senator. Left politics in disgrace over racist comments. One is a hot shot on Wall Street. One of the less popular ones headed up a major record label for awhile. One was once mayor of a coastal town. Another less popular one was the victim of a serial killer. Another thoroughly unpopular one faked his death to get out of some financial fraud. Most, popular and unpopular, faded into obscurity as most of us do. Heard about a death just this week. Time marches on.They are still as clicky as they were in high school almost 20 years later. There was a whole drama around the reunion (which I wasn’t going to), the valedictorian planned a reunion, and one of the “popular kids” in planned a separate one. People keep adding me to to the fb page and I keep denying myself entry. Not interested in any of them ??Lot of em dead, some highly successful, some still have their varsity football pic as their Facebook profile picture.
In my 30sThe most popular happened to be the highest performing, most of them didn't thrive after completing college.
I think the rigid process of accomplishing assigned tasks as they're presented screws people up when they're met with the real world and all of a sudden it's finally up to them to learn how to improvise.M. took a break up badly, took a bad beating from the cops, took to hard [substances], found his body in the river. A. tried to get clever with 4 guys over a pool table, outside beating left him quadriplegic. P. a terrible bully, tormented dozens of kids (all younger than him) throughout all 5 years of senior school, now a social work child counsellor and all round good guy for those who don’t know. C**t. K. Professor of Science and MBE recipient. J. Couldn’t get over the death of his brother through alcoholism, so proceeded to drink himself to death, go figure.Turned out just like the rest of us.
Some were successful af, some discovered being a d**k had repercussions, and some took it to the bank.
The real shockers are the homecoming queens. Some turned out fantastic and some ended up loony.
So yeah. Turned out just like the rest of us.I haven't been keeping tabs on anyone from my class save for myself. So I guess that makes me the most popular person in my class as far as I know.
I'm not doing greatHe graduated in 1961 as an all-star athlete with letters in two sports over four years. Class and school president, homecoming king - the whole package in a very small town. He was handsome, too.
Went to college on a sports scholarship and flunked out the first semester. Came home, knocked up his HS girl friend, married had two kids, and got divorced. Worked for my dad as a farmer and remarried maybe 10 years later.
Dad decided to bankroll this '*star' with an underwritten line of credit so the wunderkind could start grass seed farming on his own. This credit line swelled up to over $850K - in the late 70s, or nearly $4 million in today's money. Come to find out he was buying expensive equipment and also chartering jets to Las Vegas for golf and gambling trips for his friends. He'd often be seen in bars lighting cigars with $100 bills because... why not? (Dad then cut him off and seized all his property, sold it, and managed to pay the bank most of the money from that)
Fast forward to today: He's 80, living on his (remarried) wife's pension as a teacher and taking care of her as she developed early Alzheimer's. His mom gave him a house and place to live forty years ago, so he has that. I looked him up on FB recently. He has as his 'profile photo' a fuzzy snapshot of his HS 'Most Valuable Player' trophy.
(*he's a cousin)I was once on a train from NYC back to my hometown for Thanksgiving. By chance I ended up sitting next to a guy from my high school; I didn’t know him that well, as we were part of a semi-large graduating class, but we were familiar enough to chat with each other, to pass the time.
He was good friends with two of the most popular dudes from our high school, and he said they were both kinda flailing in early adulthood:
-One of them got broken up with by his equally popular girlfriend, right before college had started, and he just could not handle it. He would show up to her school, unannounced, and just see what she was up to & bark at any dude who talked to her. She had to threaten getting a restraining order to get him to back off. Apparently he chilled out a little bit in the ensuing years, but just really struggled to make things happen for himself outside of the high school environment.
-The other did mostly fine during our college years, but really started to struggle once we all graduated & he lost the comforting structures of school. He was a handsome dude in our town, as a teen, but now, living in NYC, he was in an ocean of handsome dudes and apparently struggled a little bit not getting preferential treatment as often & not having girls interested in him after spitting a minimal amount of game.
I don’t bring this up to wish ill will on either of them. I think they’re both interesting examples of how poorly prepared most people are to jump off the “cliff” of leaving high school: you’ve spent your *entire* life building a life & network within a very specific life structure, and then suddenly, overnight, it all goes away.
I think some kids, especially ones who got popular *early* (like, going all the way back to 4th or 5th grade) do really struggle with the fact that one day, they’re thrust amid a sea of new people who do not perceive them as popular.Was a popular ish kid: currently in school
Other people in my friend group:
- Dropped out of ivy league
- Got pregnant in freshman year at ivy league
- Dropped out of west coast CS school for a start up. Not going well
- on track for med school but not currently doing well on MCAT. Considering quitting medicine
- went to europe to model. Not going well
Doesn’t look too good for me atm lolOne of if not the most popular girl in my grade had money, her parents owned the only liquor store in county (dry counties for 45 miles.)
Well that gravy train ended when the county went wet and prices got competitive, problem was they apparently never saved money the whole time. Then their regulars saw that the price was much lower at the gas station compared to what they had been paying them, like 30% over SRP. They closed very quickly, all their luxury vehicles got sold but they had the house paid. They moved after a while.
I saw her 3 years post graduation and she had doubled her weight and was having pics printed of her fiancé who I found out was a trust fund guy after the fact. (The souped up muscle car in his pics was a hint) He broke it off with her like a month later. Heresay was he figured out she was just there for money.
Most of that info I got second hand and I was only present for the pictures part. I don’t use Facebook so I never verified anything. I also do not care to investigate, I’ve stopped letting hs bs live in my head rent free.They’re making askreddit postsI saw some pictures from my 30th year reunion. The popular kids and jocks did not seem to fair well.
The folks who did well academically seemed to have done very well in life all around. I have bumped into a few others over the years as well, and many have done well others settled into low wage jobs. The back parking lot crowd mostly ended up blue collar but not unhappy lives. It was kind of a mixed bag. More people died than I would have thought.Last I heard they were failing to organize a 10 year reunion. I think it technically happened, but the facebook group where they organized it has like 5 people in it.
Also, 2 of them are ministers now, and *wow* would I have stories to tell their congregations.One went trans. One went to prison. One became a pompous musician. Most of them gained weight like it was their jobOne has a nice music career going for them, which they put in a f**k-ton of work for and I'm so proud of them. Another got hooked on several [substances] and is doing their best to get sober and I hope they get themselves well because they didn't deserve the life they've managed for themselves. Don't know about any of the other ones since I didn't really know them.One of the more popular girls (who I had a gigantic crush on) posed for playboy right after high school, got pregnant, got married. This was 20 years ago. I hear how she’s divorced and works as a manager in a retail store. (Nothing wrong with that, just that’s where she is now)I had popular kids in my school who were popular because they were the loud and disruptive, too-cool-for-school jocks and meangirls type. They're not up to much last time I heard.
I also had popular kids in my school who were popular because they were extremely charismatic and well put together. These folks are doing just fineThey almost all in real estate, sales or homemaking.Having babies and getting married (I’ll pass on the former)All I know is that they have a lot of childrenThey're still popular in the lives that they inhabit and for all intents and purposes look like they are happy.Popular cheerleader turned to [substances]. Basically a tweaker now with young children. Feel bad how things turned out for her since seemed like she had a bright future ahead of her in high school.Guys got bald, girls got fatLife hit them hard after high-schoolJamie had a chance, well she really did. Instead she dropped out and had a couple of kids. Mark still lives at home 'cause he's got no job. Just plays guitar and smokes a lot of [substances]. Jay [took his life]. Brandon OD'd and died.
