Who are the "popular" kids at school these days

[terrywynne]

I was just reading a BBC article about whether Mean Girls the musical is going to work in 2023 or of it is too "noughties". The implication seemed to be that it is no longer the case that the popular kids at school are the thin, diet obsessed, conventionally pretty, sporty, not very academic ones, and that there is more body positivity and less slut shaming around these days.

So who are the 'popular' kids at high school/sixth form? Is it even still that cliquey?

It is years since I was a teenager and my own DC are not at that stage yet. My memory of school in the late 90s/early200s is of the popular kids being pretty, confident, sporty, average to above average academically, and also just a very close knit group. I don't remember there being a particular thin obsession but there was no real social activism or anything either.

The naughty ones

The sporty/drama ones, i.e. the louder and more extraverted.

DC1 was always a bit of a nerdy one at secondary school (she's just moved to college). However she always commented about two if the most popular girls that "it's not surprising A and S are so popular, they're always really nice and friendly to just about everyone". So maybe things have changed for the better...

Same as when I was at school, the ones who are into drugs/ alcohol and have appalling behaviour.

The dickhead ones that think they are untouchable and have zero respect for anyone.

Same as when I was at school, the ones who are into drugs/ alcohol and have appalling behaviour.

They're popular with others like them. Most kids just think they’re dickheads. 😅

My school it was always the opposite. The kids in top sets/good at sports were always the popular crowd.

From what I can see, not the mean ones.

It's the funny, friendly ones who may or may not be sporty.

hard to define popular now. In my ds year group (yr 10), the girls all pretend to like each other but secretly hate each other (according to ds), and now again massive dramatics happen between them all! Much wailing and gnashing of teeth 😁

The badly behaved boys all hang around together and keep each other company in detention - or exclusion! But now again have a massive punch up!

My ds and the very small handful of other boys that don’t like trouble, hang out together and avoid the other lot like the plague.

My dd says the popular ones are the sporty, confident and pretty ones. She goes do grammar so they're all pretty smart.

Definitely still mean girls at DDs secondary focussed around clothes/make up/boys etc. DD sussed them out first day and does her best to steer clear. There is a second group of sporty types who are cliquey but not mean. Ultimately teenage girls can still be vile and even with all the body positivity/Be Kind stuff the old tropes sadly seem to be alive and kicking but the difference is that it seems to be more acceptable to NOT be thin/pretty etc now and they are just 1 clique out of many rather than the supreme popular group.

I went to an all girls school and the most popular were the tougher girls. None of them were thin and pretty.
I think they were popular because no one wanted to get on their bad side.

My teen boy is popular- good looking/sporty/funny. Although he does get in trouble a fair bit so maybe it is the naughty ones!

The friendly ones. People like people who are nice to them.

Who needs men to put women down when we can come up with lovely posts like this about ourselves?

This must be in part a social class thing. I went to a very rough girls' secondary in a very deprived area, and being vaguely literate, let alone being bright, was a passport to being a pariah. I was clever, and I had to be good with my fists to compensate.

The most popular girls were (looking back over 30 years) probably also clever, though it didn't emerge in their academic work, and were consistently badly behaved in class, mouthy, liable to get into fights, popular with the boys from the boys' school nearby, and given to under-age drinking, clubbing and mitching. A few dropped out pregnant.

The only one I knew well (because I sat next to her in Maths, at which we were both dreadful, and who was actually a good person under a ferocious exterior, and from a very dysfunctional home, judging by her appearance) was in prison last I heard. One (who was extremely cool in our schooldays, and whom I remember because she was so fearless and witty) died young of an overdose.

The few others I ever see around if I'm visiting my parents look as if they've had difficult lives.

There are sets - the pretty girls with long swishy hair from the wealthier villages are a popular group. The mean girls tend to get shunned once it becomes clear that they are out to cause trouble

The socially normal geeks. Not the ones that tip into being incels but the nerdy more normal ones.

DD was at a all-girls secondary until Y11. She never really said anything about a "Mean Girl" troope, she had some run ins with some girls who thought they are better than the rest because of their clothes, bags, phones, parents etc but I think they were in the minority and lots of girls incl. DD just ignored them and it kind of frizzled out.

I found that there are a lot more of differnt groups nowadays than when I was at school. Nobody blinks about a group of nerdy/geeky girls, LGBTQ+ ones, sporty ones, performing arts ones.

Saying that, the school really was good in offering stuff outside the usual sport/dance/music clubs and encouraged girls to stretch their limits and feel good about their quirks.

She is now at a co-ed 6th form, 70% boys as KS3 and 4 are boys only, and I think the no-nonsense approach of the girl school helped her stand her ground.

Mean Girls too noughties?

Was Heather too noughties? Or Carrie? Or those mean girls in Little Women who laughed at Meg March being too provincial. Obviously not since they were from the 1980s and the 1970s and the 1860s, but my point is that exclusive cliquiness doesn’t belong to the noughties. It’s always been a thing and hasn’t magically evaporated in the past 20 years. I’m sure teens will manage just fine understanding Regina George’s role as bitchy Queen Bee. Many of them will know one in real life.

@Givejimmybluntachance wtf do you mean? Teenage girls can be vile to each (as can boys but this discussion isn't about mean boys is it?). All kids have the capacity to be vile to each other as do all adults.
I'm answering a specific question posed by the OP about whether Mean Girls would be relevant today.

@HibernianHibernator you have a point actually, the school I went to was in a posher part of town, on the back of a large private housing estate, and tbf they were all the richer kids !!
Myself I came from a council estate background and tended to hang around with the other peasants 😂😂 I would have never had fit in/been accepted with the popular crowd!

Seems to me the popular ones are the very confident / outgoing / slightly loud ones who sort of 'take charge of things' - also the ones who may not be prettier but have more to spend on things that make them look good: always have latest accessories/ in-brands, makeup, swishy hair types, who can afford to spend all Saturday afternoons having frappucinos in Starbucks when they are about 14 years old.

I think Mean Girls will work regardless as I’m not sure it’s target audience is teenagers of today, maybe I’m wrong but I assumed anyone who would watch the musical will be going for the nostalgia or because of the memories the film gave them. It came out in 2003, most of todays teens weren’t even born!

Honestly? I think different types of people can be popular. Sometimes there's a sporty crowd, sometimes it's the fashionistas, everyone loves a funny guy, the class clown. Sometimes it just depends who you hang out with.

Top set AND good at sport.

Which also means it’s likely they are the thin ones too.