Meanies

[wishfulthinking]

We saw that american movie 'mean girls', where school is made up of these cliques [is that the right word?], and how it affects your social standing. One in a long line of trashy american movies that depicts high school in this way, and what equated to social suicide.

Did I miss this in high school? Sure, there was some loose sort of division amongst the ranks - the skanks, the nerds, the popular kids, but generally everyone got along - and it wasn't a small school. There was never a person who made my life miserable, or a seat I couldn't sit in, or someone who refused to talk to me.

Is this just an American thing? Did something like this actually happen to people?

 

[bg23]

Meanness in schools isn't really as pronounced as it is in the movies...that's a stereotype and probably just used for humour. However, it does exist, and while generally no one (if they were brought up with standard manners) ever says, "Hey, loser, get the hell out of our faces," the message would always nonetheless be very effectively conveyed. Seen it happen so many times...not necessarily just with the "cool" clique - although the clique idea is also quite exaggerated...they were really just a bunch of people who hang out together - everytime someone was no longer considered to be worth hanging out with, the group would simply move somewhere other than their usual hang out place...and the poor outsider was left alone for an entire lunchtime...or else wandered pointlessly around the entire school. They'd get the message...spend the rest of their highschool career alone until someone pitied them and invited them to join their group - but this was rare. While the Mean Girls scenario is rather exaggerated, it does reflect the if not cruel, then certainly thoughtless, nature of kids. And while I was never really one of the cool kids or one of the social outcasts, life really can be made to be hell for you if you get on the wrong side of people...

: )

xxx
badgirl

 

[Monazwx]

Did I miss this in high school? Sure, there was some loose sort of division amongst the ranks - the skanks, the nerds, the popular kids, but generally everyone got along - and it wasn't a small school. There was never a person who made my life miserable, or a seat I couldn't sit in, or someone who refused to talk to me.

Is this just an American thing? Did something like this actually happen to people?

It's not just an American thing. It happens anywhere people are lax and just allow things to slide. Everyone did not get along at either of my high schools, and the cliques were rampant. Of course, they didn't consider themselves cliques, just 'similar people who hung out together', but if you weren't willing to change, you weren't allowed to hang out with them.

It happens all the time and is getting progressively worse.

 

[rgraham666]

Stephen King noted in Danse Macabre that high school is the most caste ridden society outside of Hindu India.

And me? I was a Dalit, an untouchable. Well, it was perfectly all right to punch and kick me. But that was the only allowable form of interaction with me.

Did I mention that I hated high school?

 

[Liar]

I gues it varies from place to place. The cliché says that high school is a cast ridden, clique society. And here and there I guess it's true. For me it was the total opposite.

It was the three years before (I guess that what you ppl on the wrong side of the atlantic calls Junoir High?) where the real social fences beween groups were built, and the pecking order was firmly established, and open season on throwing all kinds of poop at me was declared.

This all ended in high school.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Most likely one’s view of high school is determined by one's personal experience.

Prior to high school, teachers were in charge of who was “in” and who was “out.” They picked their pets, their whipping people, and who they would permit to become a class clown.

Upon reaching high school, the students’ got to pick their own lepers and leaders. Once the upper echelon was filled, the unpicked students naturally fleshed out several lower strata, for those who had not made the first draft.

This is why – for many – high school was such a positive experience. This is also why those who ended up in the flotsam and jetsam category remember high school as such a negative experience

 

[rgraham666]

For me, being in the flotsam and jetsam category would have been an improvement.

 

[oggbashan]

At the local equivalents of High School I was always exotic and not a member of a clique.

I had come from somewhere else that the school's elite had not visited (this was before cheap package holidays) or I was going to move on shortly. The 'meanies' existed but they didn't bother me because I was fit, large and mature for my age. 'Meanies' don't pick on a Rugby forward who can swear in several languages and had dented the school wall when putting the shot.
I was in one school's first Rugby XV at age 11 and I wasn't the smallest team member.

But it was generally lonely. You don't make life-long friendships if you are going to be on another continent next year. Until I was 28 (in this incarnation) three years was the longest I had stayed in any town. Four years was the longest continuous stay in any country until aged 22.

Og