Each school has a popular kid—the one with a million-dollar smile and an indestructible sense of self that carries their name to every corner of every hallway. Many of us were even jealous of their attention and the things that came with it.
But in a lot of ways, life begins only after graduation, and these people don't always make use of the head start they have. So Reddit user ZoroX made a post on the platform, asking everyone to share the downfalls of those who seemed to have it all growing up. And they received plenty of memorable stories.
#1
He failed out of college during his senior year. Got hooked on d***s, was a deadbeat dad, did more d***s. Then finally got clean, went back and finished college, now is a d**g counselor AND reconnected with his kids!
F****n strong work Doug!
Image credits: 406xray
#2
Dude sodomized his girlfriend with the business end of a shotgun for cheating on him.
He's seen nothing but prison walls for 26 years now.
Image credits: OldKingMouse
We got in touch with ZoroX and they said the idea to ask the internet this question came to them completely out of the blue. "I wasn't even thinking about it, it just popped into my head randomly," the Redditor explained to Bored Panda.
"As I kept going through the comments, I noticed that a few common themes emerged, mostly drugs, alcohol, and DUI," they added.
All of which remind us of the pitfalls we see among Hollywood stars as well. Looks like excess and misfortune sometimes do go hand in hand.
#3
He dropped out of high school, went to jail, then got his s**t together and went back to school. He is now a math teacher at a prestigious high school.
Image credits: Few_Cook8399
#4
Two of them decided to take hunting rifles and shoot several rounds into the principals house at night, thinking the police wouldn't catch them and they would just not follow through with a possible attempted murder.
Image credits: Unhappy-Television91
#5
Tried to hit me with his car and lost control and put it in the ditch. Cops came, realized he was DUI and underage and lost his Scholarship.
Image credits: Then-Bed1001
Some research supports the notion that there are some serious downsides to being popular as a kid. For instance, Lara Mayeux and her colleagues found that popularity is linked to risky behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, and early sexual activity among high school students. Becoming more popular can also lead to peer resentment and dislike. Another study found that only 9 percent of popular children are widely liked by their peers.
Then there are distorted relationships. Jennifer Crocker and her colleagues argue that focusing on self-image goals at the expense of more compassionate goals leads people to feel competitive, anxious, depressed, and disconnected.
#6
He beat the s**t out of the disabled kid ( who was well loved by everyone and told dad jokes). The problem was that kid got a brain bleed and almost died, so he went to prison for attempted manslaughter. What did disabled kid do to deserve this? Allegedly, he told a somewhat flirty joke to the popular guy's sister (who was 1 grade below us). I think it was along the of "if you were a desert , you'd be a cutie pie" kind of joke. His parents don't even visit him in prison.
Image credits: that_catlady
#7
Didn’t exactly f**k up his life but he managed to put two brand new Audi A8s into the same telephone pole outside of school.
Second time we all stuck around in the school parking lot to witness the aftermath. His dad was apocalyptic “YOU HIT THE SAME F*****G POLE! HOW? HOW?”
He got a used banana yellow wagon after that. It was hilarious.
Image credits: FirmlyThatGuy
#8
Went to a house party shortly after grad, got kicked out for being douche bags. Went back to the party and beat the host to death with a bat. Petitioned for a conditional release so they could "spend Christmas with family"
You know completely normal s**t.
Image credits: Nobanob
ZoroX believes that we remain interested in how our peers are doing because as we progress in life, we often have a sense of who might face challenges based on their behavior in school (especially bullies) and we want to know if our gut feeling is correct.
But at the end of the day, it's difficult to know for certain if someone's doing well after school because of their social status or skills.
"It's a mixed bag—determination and skill often lead to success, but if someone is popular due to their parents' influence, they might have an easier path because of the opportunities and respect that come with a notable family name."
What's certain is that if you want to better your chances, you must try to avoid being a jerk. "It will only hinder your progress and limit your opportunities. Treat others with respect, but don't be afraid to stand up for yourself if necessary. This insight comes from another question I asked on r/AskReddit about 'What is the easiest way to mess up your life?'—a lot of responses pointed to being rude and unkind to others."
#9
He and 3 of his buddies got drunk at a parking lot hangout after practice, drove home, and their car went off the side of a bridge into the river below, killing all 4 of them.
Image credits: loki8481
#10
This kid wasn't necessarily popular, but he was on the verge.
He wanted nothing more in the world than to be on our High School's Cross Country team. He just didn't have the chops for it. He'd practice and practice, and try out repeatedly, but could never quite make the cut.
Everybody knew about his desire to be on the team, and I think most of us were pulling for him, because he had the heart, just not the legs.
Anyway, one day in gym class, we were having a "fitness test" in which we were to run laps around the outer perimeter of our school, and complete as many laps as possible.
Most of us dropped out after a lap or two, and went to sit on the bleachers.
There were a bunch of Cross Country kids, though, who had taken this as a challenge, and were running seemingly endless laps.
Not-quite-popular kid figured that if he could keep up with those guys, he'd show that he deserved to be on the team.
Lap after lap, he hung right at the back of their pack, never catching up, but never falling completely away, either. The large group of us who had already given up and were sitting on the bleachers saw this, and we all started rooting for this kid, and watching closely.
As the pack passed our bleachers on yet another lap, the kid following behind visibly s**t his pants. Turds poured from the leg holes of his gym shorts, and onto the pavement as we all watched in horror.
The kid just kept running.
On the next lap, our gym teacher, who fancied himself a drill sergeant, flagged the kid down, chewed his a*s, and made him clean up the turds as we all sat there wishing for an unexpected asteroid strike to put us out of out collective misery.
His popularity never recovered. He never ran a single meter for our Cross Country team.
If anybody wants to make a Rudy-esque film out of this, hit me up and I'll fill in the blanks.
Image credits: EarhornJones
#11
Full ride for football at any school you can name. Decides to rob a Walgreens with his buddies one Friday night. He lost everything. I saw him working at McDonald’s a few years later.
Image credits: Tangboy50000
#12
Not dumb, actually one of the smartest people I've ever met, just not what we expected from him. He was absolutely brilliant and got shipped off to a special academy for genius kids for the last year or two of high school. The pressure broke him and he died homeless on the sidewalk in his early 30's.
Edit to clarify since I typed this too quickly: The special school isn't what messed him up, it was the intense pressure on him to succeed. The man spent his life constantly being told he had to keep going further and try harder and that he was going to change the world. That's a lot to put on someone, especially a kid.
#13
Took pictures of himself getting head from the football coaches daughter and slipped a copy under the coaches office door as revenge for some slight against him.
He was one of the top football players.
He was dumb enough to think the coaches daughter wouldn’t say who it was in the picture. Of course she told, and of course he knew, and of course he was kicked off the team. Few months of disciplinary actions after because he sort of spiraled and he was sent to one of those schools for people with difficulty functioning in normal schools.
I don’t know if it ruined his life, but it ruined his trajectory and he wound up dropping out of the local community college instead of going off to Florida State like he had planned.
Image credits: Mryan7600
#14
Got addicted to d***s. Rich parents got him out, rehab, then got him a lucrative job that needs no qualification. Now he is still in media, well paid, enough that he became a functioning d**g addict.
Some people have everything handed to them, they can't even f**k up properly.
Image credits: WN11
#15
Had sex with the German foreign exchange student on the principal's desk during a pep rally.
Instant expulsion. Exchange student was sent back to Germany.
In his defense, it was consensual and she was devastatingly attractive.
Image credits: InfiniteBackspace
#16
Four of them in a car. Driver going *very* fast on an expressway late at night. Lost control of the vehicle and flipped it, ejecting three of them not wearing a seatbelt. Driver got rolled over by the car and was killed instantly, second was killed from the injuries, third had severe brain damage and requires assistance until his dying day. One passenger was wearing a seatbelt and left with minor injuries except the trauma of watching two of his friends die and one of his friends become severely disabled.
edit: many of you have asked where this was. it was upstate ny, i dont remember the year but at least 15 years ago. given how many of you asked where it was, or shared similar stories, i think the overall theme here is: **wear the seatbelt every time**.
Image credits: jenkag
#17
Dug up the body of an 11 year old boy that died in 1921 in a cemetery for black veterans and their family and then decapitated the body and smoked Marijuana from the skull.
Image credits: imagetarplayer
#18
He decided it was a good idea to get high on pills and go for a drive. He ran over a lady and her dog killing them both. He left his car and called the police to say that the car was stolen by a "black guy". After they found the car and the accident, they called him into the station for a talk. He went up to the police station with the keys in his pocket.
Image credits: CanableCrops
#19
Got suspended for something really dumb so he and a couple buddies tried to burn down our vice principal's house. Got the address wrong and almost burned a family alive.
Image credits: JumboDakotaSmoke
#20
He didn’t become a pro baseball player like he told everyone he would because he partied too much and in turn became the meanest piece of s**t ever any time you would see him. He would bully the f**k out of anyone he ran into from HS at bars to make himself still feel cool (just a side note he would mime playing baseball while you spoke to him the entire time)
He got married and cheated on her repeatedly with strippers. When she found out and was planning to divorce him, he blew his head off with a shotgun.
Image credits: DrPeterVankman
#21
He got his GF pregnant. Pregnant GF dumped him and started dating his best friend. Shortly after giving birth, she got pregnant again. She dumped the BFF and goes back to popular kid. Popular kid learned she was pregnant with BFF’s child. He got into his car and parked on BFF’s street. He waited for BFF to show up and shot him thrice. The GF was in the car with him and even gave him the gun.
BFF survived and popular kid and crazy GF are currently in jail. It’s in Canada btw.
Image credits: Jai-envie-de-chier
#22
They poured some chemicals on the football field to spell out our graduation year for a senior prank. It killed the grass and ruined the soil under it.
The grass and soil on a football field are specific and expensive. It cost 10s of thousands of dollars to repair it on such short notice.
The school wanted to be lenient. However, the insurance company required them to get the police involved to cover the claim. So they were arrested.
Image credits: esoteric_enigma
#23
Thought he'd be cool by **chugging** an entire bottle of vodka. Killed himself via alcohol poisoning.
Image credits: Charlie24601
#24
More like his body f****d up his life.
Cancer. Luke died of Cancer. F**k cancer.
Luke was one of the best. Everyone liked him and I’m saying that as one of the school nerds while he was a high school football star player. Genuine great guy all around. .
#25
Guy had a telephone pole fall on his car a couple of years after high school. Instead of calling to have it removed, he and a friend tried to remove it themselves. The guy ended up getting crushed to death. Extremely tragic, but also extremely stupid.
Image credits: WalrusWorldly87
#26
Sitting on railings. Just don't do it.
I know one girl who I went to high school with who was sitting on someone's deck railing at a party. Fell backwards, broke her back, is in a wheelchair to this day.
Another kid was sitting on the railing at a Skytrain station (Vancouver's subway that is largely on elevated track), fell backwards a full story onto concrete and died, right in front of his girlfriend. Just one second chatting happily to his loved one, the next second he's gone, the next second he's dead.
It seems like such a dumb little thing, but it's so not worth it to sit on a railing.
#27
He got caught cheating on the SATs and lost his college scholarship. Now he’s working at his dad’s car wash. Karma’s wild. ?.
Image credits: xmimixcutiex
#28
He would pick on this kid with Autism and the school would look the other way. He was on his way to getting a football scholarship. Only the kid’s uncle was with some kind of white supremacist biker gang. Who showed up broke his knee and busted his head open with a bike chain. When the popular kid was walking home with his friends. Because he couldn’t participate in the sport due to how badly his knee was damaged. He could no longer receive the scholarship.
#29
Flashy good looking kid, John, who was honestly quite talented at taekwondo kept pushing and poking and bullying the quiet new kid who immigrated from Venezuela.
After the immigrant kid, Andre, had enough and pushed back, John challenged him to a fight after school.
The fight was over hilariously quickly. Tkd dude tried a flashy kick you'd see in a Van Dame movie and it looked good but missed. Andre just easily dodged it, threw a right hook to the jaw and then a left round house kick to the face.
John was out f*****g cold standing up.
Later we found out that Andre's dad was a former military police officer in Venezuela and a kickboxer of some repute so he had taught his kid from an early age how to protect himself.
Anyways, this happened in March and we never saw John till graduation in the summer. He spent the rest of the school year being homeschooled.
#30
Beat the hell out of a girl he was hooking up with who told him she was pregnant and almost killed her. Got put in jail for 20ish years.
#31
Kid was kinda smart, but an excellent multi-sport athlete. He had a full baseball scholarship lined up for a state school. The summer after senior year at a party he got drunk, picked a fight and got his knees broken.
Don't know what happened to him, but I know he didn't go to college.
Image credits: DiabloIV
#32
Vandalized the school with racist graffiti as a senior prank.
Image credits: DaedricWorldEater
#33
I had a friend who was a straight A student, everyone loved him and he came from a good middle class family. His day was a solicitor, I think. Never put a foot out of line.
One day he came in and set off half a dozen smoke bombs in maths class. Turns out his dad was part of the sealed knot, an English civil war reenactment society. The smoke bombs were used by his dad to simulate the smoke from cannons.
He was quickly suspended and then sent for private schooling. Never seen a turn around as quick. Apparently they are dangerous and his dad had signed something to say they were in a secure location. Not something you should steal, smuggle into secondary school and throw at the maths teacher because you forgot your homework.
Image credits: dwellerinthedark
#34
My mom went to school with a popular kid who was DUI and crashed with another popular and generally more well liked kid. The passenger was badly hurt, the driver only superficially. He didn't want to get caught so left, leaving the passenger to die on the side of the road. It was later determined that he would have absolutely lived if the driver called 911. He was still alive for hours.
Driver got caught anyway. I think he's out and still lives in the small town he grew up in, and it's a "no one talks about it, but everyone knows" kind of situation. He has no real social life bc of it.
#35
They partied too hard at a frat party and OD'ed freshman year. Apparently the people there just dumped all the unconscious people into a single room with no one keeping watch. I had no idea since I went to a different school and only found out after seeing a gofundme on facebook.
Image credits: Expert-Big8369
#36
Went to jail for something like accessory and parents got sued in to oblivion. Rich kids playing gangster. Went with his friend to buy a couple pounds of weed.
What he didn’t know was his friend wasn’t going to pay for the weed. His friend took out a tire iron and proceeded to beat the s**t out of the supplier. What the two didn’t know is that it was a local undercover cop.
Cop sues the richer of the two families. Kid got out of jail a couple years ago. Parents moved him across the country because he kept getting women pregnant. I know his mom and she turned in to a zombie on pills.
#37
Went on a joyride after the prom and crashed, killing one of the passengers. Spent two years in jail followed by a lifetime of shame.
#38
MLM. Tried to leverage his social influence to get people in on it. Burned a lot of bridges. Skipped town and works at McDonald's. He wasn't a bad guy or anything but I consider trying to get someone in a pyramid a hostile act.
Image credits: PckMan
#39
Back circa 2006-07 when smart phones and sending nudes were relatively newish, a well liked popular girl in her junior year had everything going for her. She was involved in practically every extracurricular, sport, cheer leading, etc.. She wasn't a bully like the stereotypical "popular" trope, and actually talked to everyone. She even tried to get me to come out of my shell when I was a sophomore going through my goth phase.
However, she sent a topless picture of herself to her boyfriend. The boyfriend sent it to all of his friends, and said friends sent it to their friends. This was a small high school of about 400 students, so news spread like fire. She was humiliated and her parents forced her to home school through her senior year. I never heard about what happened to her after that, but it was sad to see her fall from such a height. Also, considering the legal grey area surrounding minors sending other minors nudes at the time, I'm not sure if she or her boyfriend were ever prosecuted for distribution of CP or revenge porn.
#40
He got hammered at 19 and rammed his car into a pole going 60ish, flinging his body from the car and dying on impact.
I hear our high school reunions are still very weird, as we had the one big "reunion" the year after graduation at his funeral.
He was way cooler than me, but because the system sorted Gen Ed and APs by last name, we became friends from having so many classes we hated together.
But he got on with everyone, and everyone showed up to say goodbye.
#41
Big football star / handsome / ladies man at my school who would have def gotten a sports scholarship took a s**t on a teachers car and got expelled. A year later he was stabbed in a knife fight and then ended up in jail shortly after. .
#42
This guy was super confident and would party out, so when he was around 18, he had several girls in tow. But some years later he was still that same teenager personality, but now in his 20s, the girls were no longer impressed, so he did what probably made sense to him; started hitting on grossly underage girls instead, buying them beer and apparently had sex with one of them.
When it came out, no one was super impressed. Especially the judge.
#43
Got drunk at a party. There was a freshman that crashed the senior party and he went after him with a broken beer bottle. He was charged (as an adult) with attempted manslaughter. (This party happened the week before his 18th birthday. Was never seen at school again and had his football scholarship to college revoked.
I only know when his birthday is because it is the day before mine. In elementary school, our class parties were often combined.
Edit-- I have no idea where this dude is now. I haven't spoken to anyone in my class since graduation.
#44
F****d a not so friendly guys girlfriend. Then proceeded to brag about it to that guys friends at a party. Not so friendly guy shot him 12 times. He was only 19.
#45
Married the "popular guy" right after highschool.
2 years later they found she had hanged herself in her basement.
#46
Two groups of popular kids from my high school and a rival school ended up causing a tragedy that destroyed several lives. They had a bonfire party at a lake, and tensions flared between the schools. At some point, someone pulled out a pistol, which caused everyone to panic and rush to their vehicles. In the chaos, several people jumped into the back of a pickup truck.
The driver, impaired and trying to escape, attempted to pass a car by veering into oncoming traffic. In a desperate maneuver to avoid a head-on collision, the truck flipped. The accident was catastrophic: three kids were killed, and eight others were critically injured, with many left in comas.
A friend who witnessed the crash described it as horrific, with body parts scattered and an overwhelming scene of chaos. The incident has become infamously known as "The [lake-name] Tragedy" on that road.
So yeah, not just one popular kid, but basically all of them from two schools f****d up each other's lives in one f****d up night.
DONT DRINK AND DRIVE.
#47
Based on my graduating class, d***s.
I went to my 40th reunion. Of my class, 15 had died of overdoses. And I know of at least another twenty or so who went through a lot of rehab because of their addictions. Every single one of them thought they could handle it when they first took it up.
#48
He went train surfing. On an intercity train. His head was found over a mile from the other parts of his body or so the rumour went.
#49
Lost a testicle in a barbed wire fence mishap and was forever known as Uni-ball Scott. Not sure if it f****d his life up, but high school sucked I'm positive.
#50
The most popular guy in our small a*s podunk town realized he was a nobody after high school and for some reason decided that to gain back everyone’s respect that he would make everyone fear him by beating the living s**t out of this mentally handicapped cart return boy at the local grocery store.
Absolutely went to jail for it, and hopefully got his a*s beat(and more) in jail. Guy was a huge d**k with an insane inferiority complex.
Edit: after looking up the news article this a*****e then decided to start his own breast cancer awareness organization. And you’d think, oh he turned his life around and is helping others!! Hahaha f**k no, this a*****e just wanted to be involved with something that has to do with boobs.
#51
He and some other guys wanted to go to spring break early. So they stole a car and some guns, shot some poor lady in the face while trying to steal her car, after the first stolen car ran out of gas in Tennessee. Didnt make it very far. Then after spending many years behind bars, managed to escape (with a convicted murderer) with only like 18 months left on his sentence. They were caught while raiding some old man's refridgerator a few days later. Guess what he didn't get out on time. Apparently they had been planning it for months, and despite me being on of his best friends, I hadn't a clue. Dude f****d his life for absolutely no reason and it still breaks my heart a little almost 30 years later. The lady survived btw.
#52
Straight A student, multiple scholarships, decided to play LA Cross to become more athletic. Took a knee to the head in a game, and it rattled his brain. Never recovered mentally. Now works as a checker at a local grocery store.
So sad. Nicest kid ever.
#53
Dropped acid with some of his buddies, ordered pizza, forgot they did, and then shot the delivery driver with a shotgun through the front door.
#54
Not the dumbest by any means. Most of the popular kids I went to school with are living their best lives now.
I did go to school with a popular kid in the year above me who tried to break up an argument outside of the pub. Punched to the ground, kicked repeatedly in the head like a football, never made it out of the coma.
It made national headlines, moreso because it involved underage drinkers and exposed a scandal of city centre pubs not checking ID.
#55
A girl my high school met up with her college boyfriend and decided to race him on a local road. She failed to make a turn and slammed into a tree. She was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.
#56
Meth.
From what I understand, she has a couple kids with different daddies. The dads have full custody of her kids.
I see her mugshot in the local paper every once in a while because she is in and out of jail.
The last I heard, she was living in a dilapidated camper in a trailer park.
Unbelievable how people can just absolutely f**k themselves.
Image credits: Admirable-Cobbler319
#57
When I was in high school, one of the most popular guys got a full-ride athletics scholarship to one of the main universities in our state. The weekend before he was to head off to college, he went out drinking with his friends. He got really drunk, and decided to ride a pumpjack (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpjack) like he was riding a bull at a rodeo. Well, he fell into the gears and lost one of his legs. No more scholarship for him....
#58
Many many years ago. Got a full ride to West Point Military Academy. They even sent out a representative to our school to present to him at a ceremony in front of our class. Got 2-3 girls pregnant either before or during 1st year. Had to drop out. smdh.
"18 years. 18 years. She got one of your kids, got you for 18 years...".
#59
Summer after we graduated we found out he had been beating the s**t out of his girlfriend (who we were all cool with). Last I heard he’s dating a girl who is barely legal and he’s still selling weed to the highschool kids.
#60
Married an older man and had like five kids with him. Now she's severely unhappy. I know because sometimes I see her around town and she just looks absolutely miserable. Poor thing...
Right after high school, I noticed the decline and I used to take delight in it because she was also one of the girls that bullied me the most in high school.
As a grown up woman going through my own financial and marital s***, I now sympathize and pity her.
#61
The only one that comes to mind is a high school friend who had the looks and could have had any girl he wanted, decided that gang banging was the way to go, got locked up for murder only to be released early and then dies of cancer a year ago. Never hated the guy I just know he made the wrong decisions in his life while in school.
#62
He committed to a college far away from his gf who decided to not go to college. He had a football scholarship. She panics that he's going so far away and tells him she's pregnant to get him to stay. He withdraws from the school, gives up his scholarship, and decides to stay local to be around for his future child. Later find out the gf lied to get him to stay and his football prospects were all gone. There was no pregnancy. He's still in our hometown.
#63
She went to UT Austin on a bioengineering scholarship. Graduated and got a nice intro lab job. She was unable to not talk smack to her lead researcher and has been unable to land a lab job since. That was nearly 10 years ago. No clue what she's up to now.
#64
Paralyzed during a football game his senior year. The rest, it's a mix but none of them, that I'm aware of, really f****d up their lives. Some are doing very well. Some are just doing average. One average-popular guy drowned trying to save someone else. Another ended up killing his family but they weren't what I'd call "popular".
The most popular ones, pretty average now.
#65
One of the hockey players in my high school tried to commit suicide by shooting himself when his girlfriend broke up with him. He loaded the gun with the wrong sized ammo, and ended up blowing the skin off one side of his head. I don’t know what happened to him after high school, but he went from being a handsome guy to being a half-handsome guy.
#66
Hosted a party at his parents house with dozens invited, got everyone hyped up, chugged a beer in front of the crowd and dove into the shallow end of his parents pool.
#67
For many of the guys is becoming alcoholics before 25 and having to pay child support for at least one child. For the ladies is getting pregnant with a one-night-stand. Most of those scenarios are potential killers.
#68
Stealing (on a grand scale) from where he worked.
#69
He wasn’t really popular when we were in high school but Lil Xan was in my graduating class. So that….
