Well, as anybody who has ever been to high school or college will know that not everyone fits in with everyone, and that are certain cliques which don't mingle together. I mean, when you think about it, everyone is roughly the same age, is going through the same education, lives in the same city, how different can these people be in comparison to each other...?
Nerds/Geeks
A social circle with very little desire to join from the outside world, yet one that never seems to fade, and one that exists in every school/college worldwide. You know the people I mean, the ones who sit around playing Magic: The Gathering during their lunchtimes, the one's who are already in class when everyone else (sometimes including the teacher) arrive, the ones who never miss a deadline no matter how much work they get given and yet will also find time for a quick game of World of Warcraft before bed. Well, what makes them so "different"? Nerds/geeks tend to get bullied and abused a lot during their school lives, and why? Because they're actually working hard to get a successful life, because they don't have madly rich parents who can buy their kids into top universities, and more importantly they're the guys who popular kids hate on most of the time, but will always turn to when they are stuck with homework, why? Because the nerds and geeks will always help because they don't have a bad bone in their body.
Jocks
A word that has become infamous in teenage education life. Wandering around campus in their school/college sports gear just to try and prove to the world they can kick a ball around a field or something like that. The kind of people who, rather than trying to get somewhere in life, would rather spend a week in the gym. In the films jocks are always portrayed as being quite, well, stupid and through my experience, that is pretty much spot on the truth. And also, I mean, whats the point in being over muscular, granted when you're young it looks pretty impressive and will help you get the "hot blonde model" of a girl, but, she is not going to want to stick around when you turn 40 and all that muscle becomes a mass of fat, when your joints stop working properly, she isn't going to sit around and give you sympathy. The jocks are also the guys who think they're better than everyone else because their daddy is going to buy them a Porsche and that they go out drinking every weekend like older guys, yet come Monday morning have to resort to tripping up the smart kids for their amusement...it's quite sad really.
Goths/emos/metalheads/punks/greebos
From the outside looking in, so many names for the same kind of people, yet for the people grouped under these names, they are all different too each other; I kind of agree with both points of view in parts. For this one I'm going to take a slightly different approach, I'm going to write a list of similarities across the board, then talk about the things that make each group different. So the similarites... Rock music (of many forms). And that is actually as far as the similarities go, a similar taste in music. I mean, you could argue they all wear black all the time, in realistic terms that's not true most where all sorts of different colour clothing. They all cut themselves, again, not true, most people who listen to rock music aren't masochistic. They all dye their hair black, well thinking about it, this is also wrong, you don't have to have black hair if you like rock music, I mean James Hetfield (lead singer from metallica) even he has blonde hair. So yeah, many many different people and personalities who are grouped together because of one similarity, a love for the same kind of music.
Popular kids
The ones who seem to fit in with a huge group of people, and because of this, seem to believe they are top of some kind of social hierarchy. When, in realistic terms, they are just normal everyday kids who have the typical things you expect mainstream kids to like, the things that make up "pop-culture". These are the kids who you could take out of one school, and drop into another school miles away, and they would fit in like they've always been there. They may all come from entirely different backgrounds from both ends of the scale, but they all come under one clique because they are all "the same". These are the people who listen to the chart music, wear the latest fashions, have the latest must have mobile phone or mp3 player. The worst part is, these are the kind of people who label all the other groups just because they aren't the same, but what would the world be without variation..?
Under this group I'm also going to mention the Preppy kids. The people who wear the top designer brands, the ones whose parents are going to buy them a luxury car when they turn 18, the kids who live in a nice large house and who enjoy the finer side of life, and like to show it off around campus, yet whilst still hanging out with the popular kids.
But there's more...
I know I haven't covered every social stereotype in schools and colleges, but I feel I've covered to majority of main ones. If you feel you don't fall into one of these categories the chances are you're one of the hybrid blurs that fall into two or more categories. And also, as a sub note, personally I dislike social stereotyping and think that people should be left to live how they want to live rather than being forced into some kind of clique.
And so Connaugh, you asked me to talk about social circles in high schools and colleges, I feel I've given it my best shot, and hope it's what you wanted....
Sincerely
The peoples puppet
x
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