Note to high schoolers: Cliques are stupid

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Seriously, don't care about them. They're going to look soooooo silly in 10 years, actually a hell of a lot sooner. I mean they don't go away, they exist in college, though in a different way, and can easily develop in the workplace, but the differences then are far more relevant than that stupid sh!t in high school. Everyone you hated because of their clique will laugh about it with you. So yeah, don't care about them.

Also it's quite appropriate for a high school reunion that virtually every single person in attendance had their parents drop them off/pick them up, just like a school dance. Something we all shared a big laugh about.

[Simfan34]

So what happened? Picked up and dropped of by their parents? Did they all fail or something?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So what happened? Picked up and dropped of by their parents? Did they all fail or something?

Cheaper than a cab or a DUI.

[Simfan34]

So what happened? Picked up and dropped of by their parents? Did they all fail or something?

Cheaper than a cab or a DUI.

The school let you get that smashed?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So what happened? Picked up and dropped of by their parents? Did they all fail or something?

Cheaper than a cab or a DUI.

The school let you get that smashed?

It wasn't held at the school. Friday was a downtown pub crawl, Saturday was a popular restaurant/bar with a patio across the river in a different city. The only school event was a tour thing on Saturday that I didn't go to because it was too early (seriously you don't schedule something for 11:30AM when the people who'd go to it are all drinking the night before.)

[Simfan34]

So what happened? Picked up and dropped of by their parents? Did they all fail or something?

Cheaper than a cab or a DUI.

The school let you get that smashed?

It wasn't held at the school. Friday was a downtown pub crawl, Saturday was a popular restaurant/bar with a patio across the river in a different city. The only school event was a tour thing on Saturday that I didn't go to because it was too early (seriously you don't schedule something for 11:30AM when the people who'd go to it are all drinking the night before.)

I see.

[AndrewTX]

Cliques are a part of life. If you look at it, you tend to do it even after school. I'm over 11 years out of school, and I still see them all the time, even at work.

[dead0man]

Cliques aren't bad.  Cliques are inevitable.  It's snobbery that is the problem.

[Hash]

No sh**t Sherlock! How is this supposed to be news? I avoided cliques like the plague in high school - not that it was hard because I was in IB (which I guess is a large but friendlier clique of poor souls who are victims of evil Overlords in a mysterious castle in Geneva and Cardiff) and that prior to that I was a near-recluse. I certainly did have a group of close friends in high school, to the point where we even had our own name for our and became surprisingly famous (being mentioned in the valedictorian speech, for some reason); but it wasn't a real clique and we didn't entertain clique wars (we preferred much more amusing civil wars!). Those who I hated it was because they crossed me or had been assholes to me in the past, and when I hated a general clique it was often because the individuals in it were all assholes.

I'm not sure if my high school in Ottawa even had real cliques in the proper sense of the term. There were, to be sure, groups and alliances and coalitions (the IB snobs, the IB Asians, the nerds, the jocks, the dumb teenage girls, the sports people, the Asians, and the dumb academic kids) but there were no clique wars and people didn't hate each other because of cliques. It may sound overly cheesy, but I think that the valedictorian's speech which was something along the lines of "no matter who you were friends with, ate lunch with and so forth; we formed a single community". But it was a very well rated and successful public school in a wealthy Tory-voting suburb which offered the IB program, sooooo...

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Cliques are only bad if you're not in on them. This coming from the kid that couldn't care less about popularity and is relatively content with the fact that I'm not popular.

[The Mikado]

What's wrong with having a group of friends that you regularly socialize with?

[AndrewTX]

Clearly it's too mainstream.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Clearly it's too mainstream.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Does he think people are going to just stop being in "cliques" because he warned us? I'm sorry, this just seems like a pointless thread. I can't quite rap my head around why, but I've got the gut instinct going on this one.

[opebo]

So what happened? Picked up and dropped of by their parents? Did they all fail or something?

Well, haven't you heard, Simfan?  About 98% of young people 'fail' nowadays due to the macroeconomic conditions.  And by 'young' I mean anyone up to 35!

Clearly it's too mainstream.

I wore those glasses in high school and I was in a clique.  We used to go to a teacher's house to eat fried egg sandwiches and watch recordings of Dr. Who after schoo.  Despite all that I was voted 'most likely to succeed'.

[fezzyfestoon]

So are high schoolers.

[Хahar 🤔]

The whole exclusionary deal was a middle school thing. Once we got to high school, everyone was pretty cool.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

Seriously, don't care about them. They're going to look soooooo silly in 10 years, actually a hell of a lot sooner. I mean they don't go away, they exist in college, though in a different way, and can easily develop in the workplace, but the differences then are far more relevant than that stupid sh!t in high school. Everyone you hated because of their clique will laugh about it with you. So yeah, don't care about them.

Also it's quite appropriate for a high school reunion that virtually every single person in attendance had their parents drop them off/pick them up, just like a school dance. Something we all shared a big laugh about.

Pipe down, nerd

[Alcon]

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but don't you frequently post about "kids" at shows, and the DIY subculture?  How is that any different than a high school clique?  I also agree with the posters above that high school cliques are mostly awful because a bunch of dissimilar people are forced to be around each other, and that the association behavior persists way after high school.  (Although isn't as bad in college IMHO, because people are there electively.)

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Everything in high school is irrelevant. Thing is, people typically have to graduate before they can appreciate the true irrelevance of it all. I often think that my life only really began when I accepted my high school diploma. Four years from now, I'll probably say the same thing, except about accepting my college diploma.

[Hash]

Also, a friendly recommendation from a HS grad: don't write inside jokes or specific (recent) events when signing yearbooks, they're not funny two years down the road because you won't even remember what it refers to unless you're naturally brilliant like I am (no, I'm not boasting, that was a yearbook comment from a girl in mine)

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

BRTD is just learning new fascinating things about the world.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I suppose I should've been more clear about the context, this was written in response to the fact that cliques did not mean anything at my high school reunion. I was drinking and hanging out with people I never would've in high school. They became meaningless. So yeah don't get caught up in them in high school for that reason. Hash is also correct of course.

[LastVoter]

     Everything in high school is irrelevant. Thing is, people typically have to graduate before they can appreciate the true irrelevance of it all. I often think that my life only really began when I accepted my high school diploma. Four years from now, I'll probably say the same thing, except about accepting my college diploma.

Not true, high schools are usually like a small town that doesn't get along. It might not be relevant for most of your life, but it makes social interactions for four years in there ing retarded.

[Lief 🗽]

I wore those glasses in high school and I was in a clique.  We used to go to a teacher's house to eat fried egg sandwiches and watch recordings of Dr. Who after schoo.  Despite all that I was voted 'most likely to succeed'.

And people on this forum actually argue that opebo is not the best. It's madness.