What are the cool kids from your school up to these days?

[McOrange]

I keep in touch a bit and sometimes see people on Facebook from my old school (25 years ago now) and the former geeks and losers are the ones who seem to be doing really well, mostly got “big” jobs and have families etc. Whereas the cool ones stayed in my home town and don’t seem to have amounted to much.

of course, there is way more to life than you can see in a fb snapshot, and more to life than big jobs, but I wish I could have told my school age self that it was cool to be academic and embrace that. As one of those geeks who had the piss taken out of me a lot, I wish I’d known it was ok to be uncool.

What are those who were cool in your school doing now? How about the geeks and uncool kids?

Those that didn't go to uni in my home town have definitely had all the success on the housing ladder. They got jobs from school and bought houses for a song. By the time the rest of us graduated 3 years later house prices had gone through the roof and everyone has struggled to eventually get on the housing ladder and had extremely large mortgages in comparison. So while they may not have had super successful careers they certainly have financial stability from much lower mortgages and are probably close to or already paid them off.

And many of the 'cool' kids went off to have very successful careers. Cool didn't necessarily equal dickhead.

The coolest kids came from pretty wealthy families to start off with that was why they were popular, had the most expensive clothes etc

So they had a great start in life and most have carried on that trajectory and have good careers and seem to have happy family lives.

But then so do most of the people I went to school with. One exception was a geeky nerdy tall skinny girl with milk bottle glasses who became a model but sadly developed anorexia and died of a drug overdose.

The one who wanted to be a glamorous actress is a dinner lady. The one who had a crush on Roger Moore became a professor. The boy I had a crush on, who said I had big hips, sells pre-owned cars and has a goatee.

I love a good Facebook stalk of the people I went to school with! I moved away in my 20s so keep up to date through the local fb page and my mum’s gossip from the co-op! I can confirm that the cool kids are mostly all still in town either with who they got together with in school or are divorced and dating within the friendship group still. It’s a bit like everyone’s still in Year 11 which I find odd.
Dude on drugs sorted himself out and got a lovely wife.
Unassuming, shy guy that I was sat next to in almost every class who’s dad ran the Indian restaurant went into banking in the city and married a Dr who is stunning.
A couple of the girls married footballers and moved to the posh bit.
A couple haven’t had it easy - lost parents and/or siblings, lost kids in infancy etc. that’s been heartbreaking to see on SM but also appreciate being able to reach out to them.
One was nominated for a BAFTA.
Pretty much all are still in hometown, I’d say.
Can confirm that all the girls who bullied me cos I was from the council estate look like potatoes and sell Juice Plus or Scentsy. Sorry not sorry.

All doing very well for themselves.

Turns out being a fun-loving, middle-class extrovert isn't a bad thing.

My school was a notoriously rough school on a sink estate. There were no high achievers (I had no idea I was clever when I went there —it was the kind of school with (understandably) exhausted, demoralised teachers and where it was not just uncool but actually dangerous to be even mildly literate), but a depressingly high proportion of the people I vaguely remember, or see or hear of if I’m back visiting my parents, cool or not, are in jail, have a criminal record, struggle with addiction etc.

The girl I sat next to in maths is in jail on a drugs offence. She was cool, but, looking back, was obviously from a seriously dysfunctional background, even given a high level of dysfunctional it’s in general..

Certainly not. I wore fishnets under my 100 denier tights, black nail varnish and was very much a greebo. I knew I wasn't cool. Not much has changed in nearly 20 years to be honest

Not a clue. How do you all know? I am not in the same town that I grew up in and the only people I am in touch with from there are my parents and one school friend. That one school friend and I talk about our own lives and stress about our children rather than anything else.

This reminds of a Daily Mash article called

" Biggest wanker at your school , now lives on Dubai "

Whereas the cool ones stayed in my home town and don’t seem to have amounted to much.

What a nasty thing to say!

Not a clue, not in touch with any of them.

I agree.

What is your idea of 'amounting to much' OP?

Most of my old school peers are just as mixed today as they were back then.

Some have big important jobs, some not as big or important, some have kids/grandkids and some don't.

It seems to have nothing to do with their personalities when they were schoolchildren.

I was going to say the opposite - that nobody thinks they are a cool kid!

I think a lot depend on the school that you went to. I went to a comp in a grammar area. The cool kids in my school are doing very different things from the “cool kids” in the grammar

Many many years ago I worked in mothercare. One of the popular but bully girls came in. I served her. She tried to get credit and it failed. Karma

I went to a bog standard comp in a small blue-collar town in the midlands. Only a handful of us went to University, and we were the polar opposite of ‘cool’.

Most of the cool kids left school at 16 & went to work in the local factories or as sewing machinists in the textile industry or in shops. Many of the girls got pregnant young, as was the norm in such places in the 1980s.

Married to European aristocracy with a castle in the family. Typical.

One guy who wasn’t particularly cool went on to play in a fairly major band, of the Cool Cymru genre - and still is playing. He was always a really nice guy though.

One became quite a well known actor - Hollywood stuff etc.

Lots went on to be GPs.

One decidedly uncool person went on to run their own TV production company, which does a well known TV show.

Quite a lot went on to work in education and many are now headteachers etc.

One went on to be something really big in banking.

The drug dealing 'cool' girl at my school is now a police officer!

OP so I think you have your answer. Some cool kids carried on being social winners. Got great degrees and are highly successful. Still look stunning in their older age. Some peaked in high school and went into a life of mediocrity and aged terribly

Some geeks did brilliantly and became tech entrepreneurs etc. others continued being social outcasts.

It seems to have come down more to whether they were smart or not. Some cool kids were still hard working and smart. Some weren't. Same with the geeks.

Whereas the cool ones stayed in my home town and don’t seem to have amounted to much.

Its quite normal to not have to leave your home town, just depends where it is.

No idea, I wasn't part of their friendship group. Never saw them again once we all left school.

They all seem to be doing fine in the main, cool kids and nerds alike. Of the ones I vaguely keep up to date with anyway.

Lots of “cool”/“bully” kids in my comp had multiple kids by their earlier 20s.
a few smart and popular kids now working in professional services/general post Redbrick and oxbridge careers
No one has an ultra high flyer “big job” whatever that means…