To wonder what became of the 'popular' crowd at schools

[Tistheseasonbear]

The 'popular' crowd always seem to dominate every year group in every school.
I remember at my school the popular group had around 30 people in it and would always be doing things you shouldn't do such as smoking on the field at playtime, drinking and sex, always the most fashionable, faces full of make up and lots of bitchiness etc( thank goodness that was all before social media!!) Anyone who wasn't in the crowd seemed to want to be and they were certainly the 'powerful' ones of the year group.

Why is it that this group seems to exist everywhere?

Most of the 'popular' group from my school are no longer friends and the majority of them had babies young and didn't aspire to a career. Barely any of them went to university either. Is this the same in most of the 'popular' groups? What happened to the people in yours?

About half went on to have fabulous careers and lives and the other half just mundane average lives.
My favourite tale about our school queen bee (who was a bitch and a bully) is that she was engaged but was cheating with the neighbour (by slipping sleeping pills into her fiance's nightly scotch and heading next door). When she returned from her honeymoon her house burned to the ground the day after and her now husband found out about the affair and drugging and filed for divorce that week.

There were different types of cool. The well to do cool. The arty cool. The we -work-hard cool. The we go out and party cool. And then there were the we like boys and sex types, and the I want to marry the boy from down the road types.

I was in the popular group. Looking back we were really nice kids. They've gone on to be nice adults.

I have a friend now who drifted away from the age of about 13-18. She now says she was bullied by the popular gang- she's a bit of an attention seeker. She wasn't bullied at all, the popular gang just weren't really interested in her which wound her right up

Posters are posting about different things on this thread. Some are talking about popular people and some are talking about 'popular' people.

There was popular kids, who were nice and everyone liked. And there was "popular" girls who were snide, spoilt and pretty.

The "popular" girls got married but didn't really pursue careers. Some of them seem decent now, but TBH most of them were spoilt by their parents and I think it didn't help them have ambition to do things for themselves.

It's the reason dd doesn't know she has a trust fund and will be working at maccas for pocket money! Wealth opens doors for her in terms of a good education and her needs being met, but it won't give her a "security blanket".

I don't remember any popular groups at school. Dd however has populars at school - mostly they seem to wear handbags to school, do lots of pouting on instagram, bitch and fall out, have boyfriends etc.... i think they see themselves as the year 7 cool gang. I have a preference for her to stay well clear of the populars - that really aren't all that popular.

I went to a grammar school so all the girls there were fairly, very or extremely clever. The more popular girls tended to be the fashionable and/or sporty ones.

I was rubbish at sports and reasonably good at music, and fairly (well very) square, so I definitely wasn't popular.

Sixth form was fine, everyone seemed to suddenly grow up but the first five years were not very pleasant.

If I had to work at maccas and I didn't really need to financially..my piss would be officially boiled to lava point. Talk about wasting someone's time.

no idea, i have absolutely NOTHING to do with anyone from school any more.

I hated it and them, and i really wouldn't care what they're doing.. good riddance to the lot of them.

Two people who bullied me in the past (not popular people) contacted me on FB, like another poster experienced.

Both went into detail about how they really missed me and one told me quite personal traumatic things about what happened to them after school. I had pretty much forgotten about both of them.

Unlike the other poster's experience, I didn't get the impression they felt guilty. I got the impression that as their victim I had been an important emotional relationship for them, who had left an impression, while to me it was just an unpleasant event from the past.

I'd never thought before about how the victim must be very emotionally important to the bully. But it makes sense when compared to abusive adult relationships and all the strong controlling feelings abusers have for their victims.

Sorry, getting a bit off topic.

I agree Belleview. I'm not from a wealthy background, but I've met people (usually with parents from a poorer background who have made money) who have not given them the financial support they could have done, and it has created strong feelings of being unloved and uncared for that have gone on into adulthood.

There's a big difference between struggling for money in your teen years because your parents are poor but doing what they can for you, and struggling for money because your parents are teaching you a 'life lesson.'

As others have said the 'in crowd' at our school were more likely to stay within the small town we grew up in, and get married and have kids relatively young. A couple if the guys who were considered very attractive got beer guts in their 20's. Conversely I was delighted to see that the fat clever kid in our class went to uni, list the puppy fat and became cool and clever. On a more serious note I hope everyone from school has a happy and fulfilling life. I was weird then and I'm weird now so I've got nothing to be smug about.

The popular crowd in my school are in amazing jobs and still the sort that the rest of us mortals aspire to be like: beautiful homes (so i've heard), excellent careers (pilots for commercial airlines/ medic professionals at world famous hospitals/ well respected solicitors) and they look well heeled on fb.

Some were very nice and some were arrogant nasties. That's life though.

Seems to be several different groups being covered with the term 'popular' on this thread:

The well liked kids who fitted in and got on with most people

The streetwise crowd who bullied and looked down on those not as tough as themselves

The 'up their own arses' cool kids who strutted around giving off an air of having 'something' about them, while actually being shallow and unpleasant.

Only the first group could genuinely be described as 'popular'.

Mixed bag really - there were two "popular crowds" at my school, one of them was girls from a somewhat rough area and the other one was made up of the daughters of "naice" middle class parents.

Of the first one, most had kids aged 18-22 (3 of them were pregnant at the time they finished school), most have 2-5 kids now and either work part-time or are stay-at-home mums. Their partners have had a bit of a rough road because most Irish men from that sort of background went into construction, which collapsed completely around 2008 when the recession started to bite. Quite a few on benefits.

Of the second - there is no one true path! One girl moved to London shortly after the Leaving Cert to try and make it as a model - at 6'1" and a size 6-8 she was always very catwalk-sized. Quite a few others ended up studying arts or business at uni and then settling down in their mid-late 20s. Others have gone into teaching, again generally humanities or business subjects with two girls becoming art teachers.

One of the best outcomes of any of them was the Bosnian girl who came as a refugee with about 5 words of English to Ireland at 12. She's now a biology professor. Another friend of hers had two children at uni and completed a life science PhD at 30.

The popular girls kicked me out of the gang in year 8! To be honest it was mainly because I was such a twit, so I can't entirely blame them, and by year 9 I had worked out that I had to act nicely and stop being such an utter bitch and ended up embracing my inner geek and making lifelong friends. By sixth form nobody minded much what group anybody had been in before.

The 'popular' girls in my class ended up (well, we're only 33, so not 'ended up' exactly) being: a SAHM of four; a driving instructor; a curator at a well-known art gallery; a police officer, and a legal assistant.

The 'clever' group I ended up in include: an academic at a Russell Group uni, a financial director of an international drinks company, a lobbyist for a child human right's organisation, an opera singer, a primary school teacher, and the manager of a maximum security men's prison!

So varied lives, varied careers. Some of us have children in both groups, some of us don't. It was a girl's grammar school in quite a poor area and most of our parents had typically 'working class' jobs (taxi drivers, shop assistants, etc). So I think there's no real pattern - everybody found paths that suited them and there's no animosity between any of us. I think I got lucky at school.

It's like Bill Gates said during his speech at a US graduation -be nice to geeks, it's likely they'll be your boss one day...

And of course there are bitchy "popular" groups at school. Heathers and Mean Girls weren't imagined out of nothing ;-)

For all of you who felt excluded and miserable at secondary school, this is for you:

I saw a girl I went to school a couple of years ago who said I had been popular- in fact she said "I hated you at school, you were so horrible and everyone loved you. You, 'friend's name' and your little followers!" and I was taken aback to be honest. I asked what I'd done that was horrible and she said "you were always picked first for everything but now you're a single mum it shows what goes around comes around".

But then a girl who was shy and very academic at school said that she remembers me differently- I apparently got her 20p back for her from a show off boy who had "borrowed" it. I can't remember this but it sounds plausible- I would have hated a lad acting like a tool to her!

At school I was academically average, I loved PE, I didn't get into trouble but I wasn't shy, teachers liked me because I did the work and tried, I'd always talk to anyone and despised bullying. I didn't smoke, didn't drink and didn't have sex but I did have a face full of makeup and I loved new clothes/fashion.

The girl who was nasty to me never spoke to me at school and I doubt I ever spoke to her. Is the fact I had babies young, never went to uni, don't have a career etc. some kind of victory for her? Probably but, I like my life!

Ruledby

funny you should say that about the biggest bitch being a vicars daughter.

when I arrived at 15 at the fee paying convent the only other Protestant rounded on me for 'not going to church every Sunday'. She was made to be lily white and 'a bit of a rebel but always on the right side of wrong'. She was a very talented singer so much so that she had private singing lessons. FFW a year and she was pulled out of school pregnant by you've guessed it her good looking but older singing master... she had the baby no idea what happened to her.

I just remember her as being a sneery girl and she was very pleased of herself dating her singing master and being 'superior' re getting away with sex... it was a huge shock when she did get pregnant but I'm sure she's fine now.

Bearing in mind these were children, popular or not, some of you are holding grudges against

I was pretty popular at school and pretty nice, Wasn't bitchy, always tried to be kind .Have done pretty well for myself, still generally get on with most people.

Just went on Facebook to find the school bully and at the grand old age of 47 he appears to be posting pics of half naked models he likes, talking endlessly about football, talking about how much he drinks and where his favourite pubs are. He appears to have a beany hat clamped to his head(bald spot??), has a daughter with a different surname who appears to dress like his favourite models.

These bloody judgey pants are very uncomfortable(says the divorced man who loses an inch of hairline every time he sneezes).

I haven't read all the thread but I think the op is mixing up he popular girls with he hard girls. I went to a girls school so might be different. But I distinctly rember two very separate groups. One bright, pretty, often from affluent backgrounds, some nice some not - most went on to university and several do marketing/ fashiony type jobs in the city. The hard girls sound more like the op describes, from not quite as affluent backgrounds, queen bee type attitudes and most girl were a bit scared of them, didn't progress to uni etc. I was in neither tribe. Just in a nice group of middling girls who all went on to uni but don't feel any resentment now. A lot of my friends now would prob have been in the "popular girls" group. Ok so I might feel a bit smug about the hard girls ;-)

They have all married and had children and their facebook posts are all about normal things. None of them have big highflying careers none of them have become stars. They are just normal people.

However looking at how it works with my niece and dd's and their crowds I suspect my form in school were actually very unusual and there wasn't really that massive over popularity. We all managed to through work get to London (grew up in Denmark) for a week having worked very hard for this as a joint venture we gelled well and by age 15 we really all had a close relationship. No one was queen bee Top Boss.

The 2 I recall as most popular in the younger years. 1 boy 1 girl first is now married and has 2 children (his wife cuts my stepfathers hair so I get updates :) ) Unsure what he does but he works for the local council. When I met him last he was lovely and SO proud of his then small dd. His parents live across the road from my stepdad (and late mother)If I am there they always wave to me.

The other is married with 2 sons and works in an office. From her facebook posts she seems content with her life.

One girl who was the girl who didnt really do much. Seems to have really blossomed. She often comments on stuff on facebook and from her posts it is clear she married and is 20 odd years on still very happy and has found some wonderful friends. Weirdly when I look at old class mates she is the one I feel the most pleased for. I remember her as someone who always seemed unsure and unhappy and as an adult she seems to have found what she was looking for in life.

Sadly several others have divorced