Columbine HS - social structure

So, reading Larkin but also keeping in mind some 11k student testimonies:

1) On top are the athletes, cheerleaders and "popular girls". This is not a white-only group, people mention there being latino and black members. This is however a christian-only group, or at least that's how its perceived by the students from the interviews.

Jocks are a sub-group of the athletes and jock is somethign of a cuss word, people use "jock" to describe an athlete that is vulgar and has low moral and intellectual standards. Jocks are mentioned as being hypocritical, vulgar, treat women as property, drink, party hard and don't live up to christian standards at all.

"Popular girls" are a mixed bunch, they can be very rich (wealth of parents is a big thing here) but some are there because they are very attractive, date athletes, are friends or family of male athletes or just have good social skills and lots of friends in this group.

2) Perhaps not second in popularity, but second in "pecking order" is suprisingly the TCM. TCM are descibed as a very tight-knit group of people. They rally togeather and stand up to the jocks as a group. They don't back down from physical confrontations if needed. No other group than the jocks can push TCM people around. TCM people on the other hand are known to pick on and bully peppies. They are one of the few openly anti-christian groups, have atheist, stanaist and wicca memebers.

3) Preppies are the third large and visible group in CHS. They aren't as popular, probably because the most sucessfull people who would otherwise fit here, instead get adopted to the ruling athlete/popular girl group. Again, mostly a christian group.

4) A loosly defined, but easily recognizable and often mentioned "choir kids". Mostly seen as a straight-edge evangelical christian group.

5) Loosly defined "band kids", mostly associated by their musical activity. The way I see it, Brooks Brown was "on the outskirts" to this group, same was as E&D were on the outskirs of TCM.

6) Various other informal groups described by their activities "art kids, nerds, debate group kids etc".

7) "Loner outcasts", often associated with drug and punk culture. Brooks mentions them in passing in hi9s book, but doesn't see them as a coherent group (corresponds to Larkin's interviews that stress them as loners). He was trying to be friends with soem of them, on the basis of his own punk-culture interests. Brooks mentions these were often kids with single mothers, or broken families with divorce going on in the background. Prime targets for bullying, as teachers don't like them and ignore them.



That's how I see the picture after reading Brown's book, 11k reports and now Larkin's book. Keep in mind the "pecking order" was not the same as the "popularity order". TCM was not very popular, but they were respected and no other groups messed with them, save jocks.

Questions? Comments? Do you think the social structure at columbine was unusual or not? Do you think it had a big impact on E&D?

I'd be quite interested in knowing the approximate numbers in the top two listed groups you have named.

Going off that description, the Trench Coat Mafia come off as jerks as well at the jocks.

I wonder if the TCM had more members they'd have been the guys everyone hated more than anyone else?

Seems they don't mind fighting (I'm not having it that the only time they fought was to defend themselves)
& they bullied other 'weaker' groups.

Pot, kettle?

This doesn't sound very strange to me at all.
There was a similar social structure at my school.

I hung out with a group of outcasts. They weren't popular.
But they were intimidating and people knew to leave us alone.
I can see my group of friends being very similar to TCM
Except my friends wore tripp pants not trench coats

Radioactive_Clothing wrote:

I'd be quite interested in knowing the approximate numbers in the top two listed groups you have named.

Going off that description, the Trench Coat Mafia come off as jerks as well at the jocks.

I wonder if the TCM had more members they'd have been the guys everyone hated more than anyone else?

Seems they don't mind fighting (I'm not having it that the only time they fought was to defend themselves)
& they bullied other 'weaker' groups.

Pot, kettle?

TCM seems to have been a dozen or so judging by some photos, give or take a few "satellite" outskirts members like E&D, or peeps like Eric Veik.

I have no idea how large exactly the whole "athletes and friends" group was, but probably much larger given just the amount of people on all teams. However the violent "jock" sub-group, this seems to have been again about a dozen people or so, mostly male.

The groups are not entirely exclusive either. There was for example some guy (I can't recall his name atm) who was both an "outskirts" athlete (was on some team, wrestling I believe) and at the same time an "outskirts" TCM guy, he worked with Veik on films, was a huge film nut and IIRC even helped with some of E&D movie projects.


In the eyes of preppies or some non-affiliated students, TCM comes off as not all that much better than jocks, with people mentioning TCM people threatening or harassing other kids. However, keep in mind this was stated in interviews after the shooting, so perhaps TCM-led harassment may be exaggerated.

TCM was internally varied, people with different religious and political beliefs. Some were pacifists and liberal-leftists, i think Dylan was perceived by people like that - both leftist and pacifist.

Sabratha wrote:

Radioactive_Clothing wrote:

I'd be quite interested in knowing the approximate numbers in the top two listed groups you have named.

Going off that description, the Trench Coat Mafia come off as jerks as well at the jocks.

I wonder if the TCM had more members they'd have been the guys everyone hated more than anyone else?

Seems they don't mind fighting (I'm not having it that the only time they fought was to defend themselves)
& they bullied other 'weaker' groups.

Pot, kettle?

TCM seems to have been a dozen or so judging by some photos, give or take a few "satellite" outskirts members like E&D, or peeps like Eric Veik.

I have no idea how large exactly the whole "athletes and friends" group was, but probably much larger given just the amount of people on all teams. However the violent "jock" sub-group, this seems to have been again about a dozen people or so, mostly male.

The groups are not entirely exclusive either. There was for example some guy (I can't recall his name atm) who was both an "outskirts" athlete (was on some team, wrestling I believe) and at the same time an "outskirts" TCM guy, he worked with Veik on films, was a huge film nut and IIRC even helped with some of E&D movie projects.


In the eyes of preppies or some non-affiliated students, TCM comes off as not all that much better than jocks, with people mentioning TCM people threatening or harassing other kids. However, keep in mind this was stated in interviews after the shooting, so perhaps TCM-led harassment may be exaggerated.

TCM was internally varied, people with different religious and political beliefs. Some were pacifists and liberal-leftists, i think Dylan was perceived by people like that - both leftist and pacifist.

Chris Walker. As a matter of fact him and Eric were friends.

browneyes11 wrote:

This doesn't sound very strange to me at all.
There was a similar social structure at my school.

I hung out with a group of outcasts. They weren't popular.
But they were intimidating and people knew to leave us alone.
I can see my group of friends being very similar to TCM
Except my friends wore tripp pants not trench coats    

It is very different from my HS, but you need to know that polish HS at that time functioned very differently from any US one. When you joined a HS, you were assigned to a group of 20-30 people (polish: "Klasa") that would since be known by a letter code. So for example if you were in class "B" you would have your history course with all class B kids, your math with all class B kids etc. Basiclaly for the first two years of your HS you would be constantly having all your courses with said group of 20-30 people and almost no courses whatsoever with other kids in school.

So in the end, you have just that 20-30 people in your group that you interact with, which is just too few kids to form any real cliques. I used to hang around mostly with 2 brainiac-nerdy kids, but I was also friends with a sporty guy who in America would be considered a jock/athlete (we came from the same primary school and from the same rough and rather poor "blokowisko" district).

All in all, people would naturally divide into smaller 2-4 person groups of closer freinds, but we still had parties and after-school-events which we attended as the whole group. You relaly needed to know kids from other groups from some after-school activity, because school offered almost no opportunities to interact with kids from other "Klasa" groups during school.
This was the norm in all highschools back then in Poland.

We didn't relaly have outcasts in my group, except maybe one girl who was both rude and seen as uncool, but even she got invited to most "whole group" events. In general the easiest way in a Polish HS at the time to become an outcast was to have either very low social skills, be of a subculture different than everyone in your klasa group (for example be the only punk, goth or the only skinhead), be of a different religion, or root for a sports team from another town or different district if its a huge city.

My highschool was a public school in the capital of the coutry and a somewhat elite one at the time (elite by education level and difficult entry exams, not money cause it was free to attend anyways), so it had some of its own pecularities, but this usually came up only in the 3rd and 4th year of education with specialized courses for people interested in some subject etc.

Aslo its worth noting that in a Polish high school you have a ton of obligatory courses and very few non-obligatory school activities. As far as non-obligatory ones we had the choir, some science-circles and that was pretty much it. In general most people didn't want to be associated with a choir or a science-circle, as these took up free time beyond regular school hours. In general we all had a lot of stuff to do, lots of homework and generlaly valued our free time a lot.

But this resulted in there being no cliques like "choir kids' or "band kids" etc.

All in all, polish eductaion (at least bakc then) was not structured in a way that (for better or worse) did not encourage any informal cliques or groups of students conencted with some common hobby or interest.

lol wrote:

Sabratha wrote:

There was for example some guy (I can't recall his name atm) who was both an "outskirts" athlete (was on some team, wrestling I believe) and at the same time an "outskirts" TCM guy, he worked with Veik on films, was a huge film nut and IIRC even helped with some of E&D movie projects.

Chris Walker. As a matter of fact him and Eric were friends.

Thank you very much for getting the name for us.

Just goes to show you that the groups didn't have clear borders and were not exclusive. Take Rachel Scott - one could be seen as both a preppie, choir kid (she was not on the choir itself, but people asociated her with the group and evangelical christians in particular, see Brook s in his book), art kid and drama kid. Or as both a debate-team-kid, band kid, punk and outcast (Brooks Brown).

Quote :

It is very different from my HS, but you need to know that polish HS at that time functioned very differently from any US one. When you joined a HS, you were assigned to a group of 20-30 people (polish: "Klasa") that would since be known by a letter code. So for example if you were in class "B" you would have your history course with all class B kids, your math with all class B kids etc. Basiclaly for the first two years of your HS you would be constantly having all your courses with said group of 20-30 people and almost no courses whatsoever with other kids in school.

This is how elementary school works in America - or at least, this is how it worked at my school. But not middle and high school.

Another thing about my high school is that I took the same six classes every single day, for an hour a day. At some schools you take some classes on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and some on Tuesday/Thursday. The classes are longer, but you go to them fewer times a week.

LPorter101 wrote:

Quote :

It is very different from my HS, but you need to know that polish HS at that time functioned very differently from any US one. When you joined a HS, you were assigned to a group of 20-30 people (polish: "Klasa") that would since be known by a letter code. So for example if you were in class "B" you would have your history course with all class B kids, your math with all class B kids etc. Basiclaly for the first two years of your HS you would be constantly having all your courses with said group of 20-30 people and almost no courses whatsoever with other kids in school.

This is how elementary school works in America - or at least,  this is how it worked at my school. But not middle and high school.

But in elementary school we don't go by letters - we go by the name of the teacher.

"In the fifth grade, I was in Mrs. [Teacher]'s class."

browneyes11 wrote:

This doesn't sound very strange to me at all.
There was a similar social structure at my school.

I hung out with a group of outcasts. They weren't popular.
But they were intimidating and people knew to leave us alone.
I can see my group of friends being very similar to TCM
Except my friends wore tripp pants not trench coats    

Pretty much describes the majority of HS's in the US & then rolls right up to adult society.

alpha's/athletes
$
appearance
.
.
.
.
everyone else

Fatheroftwo wrote:

browneyes11 wrote:

This doesn't sound very strange to me at all.
There was a similar social structure at my school.

I hung out with a group of outcasts. They weren't popular.
But they were intimidating and people knew to leave us alone.
I can see my group of friends being very similar to TCM
Except my friends wore tripp pants not trench coats    

Pretty much describes the majority of HS's in the US & then rolls right up to adult society.

alpha's/athletes
$
appearance
.
.
.
.
everyone else

Heh, in Poland is pretty much 95% all about money, 5% or so about looks.

Sabratha wrote:

Fatheroftwo wrote:

browneyes11 wrote:

This doesn't sound very strange to me at all.
There was a similar social structure at my school.

I hung out with a group of outcasts. They weren't popular.
But they were intimidating and people knew to leave us alone.
I can see my group of friends being very similar to TCM
Except my friends wore tripp pants not trench coats    

Pretty much describes the majority of HS's in the US & then rolls right up to adult society.

alpha's/athletes
$
appearance
.
.
.
.
everyone else

Heh, in Poland is pretty much 95% all about money, 5% or so about looks.

Ironically, the most famous Polish-American right now is an alpha-male jock who stands to make something like $50 million over the next few years.

Women seem to think he looks good:
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(Yeah, I know you said doesn't look all that Polish ... but that doesn't stop chicks from going after his kielbasa.)

Bah polish-americans. Most of them can't even speak proper polish anymore...

Sabratha wrote:

Bah polish-americans. Most of them can't even speak proper polish anymore...

Maybe not, but Polish still has something of an "ethnic" connotation. Gronkowski looks slightly "exotic" - he's white, but he's not totally white-bread. There's a "kink" to him.

If you talk about the "heartland" of America - including the Denver area, although Colorado is more Western than Midwestern - then there's a certain "all-American" jock type that predominates in those parts.

When I think of the ideal Midwestern-looking jock, I think of someone like J.J. Watt. Some people sarcastically call this the "Aryan" look - blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tall, well-built, "wholesome"-looking:
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She's Danish and he's American, but if they were younger they'd be almost a classic homecoming queen/prom king couple:
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If you look through the 1999 Columbine yearbook, you'll see lots of "wholesome"-looking types.

LPorter101 wrote:

When I think of the ideal Midwestern-looking jock, I think of someone like J.J. Watt. Some people sarcastically call this the "Aryan" look - blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tall, well-built, "wholesome"-looking:
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Classic Tronder type. Unreduced, gracilized, depigmented. Heavy jaw, long face, non-prominent, rather low cheek bones.

LPorter101 wrote:

She's Danish and he's American, but if they were younger they'd be almost a classic homecoming queen/prom king couple:
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She's actually Polish, not Danish. Her parents are both polish immigrants.

She's a subnordid type, with hints of neo-danubian features thrown in. Less depigmented than he is, thin nose. Her natural hair color sems to be brown btw.

Her looks is far more common in the wide polish population than his looks are.

Sabratha wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

When I think of the ideal Midwestern-looking jock, I think of someone like J.J. Watt. Some people sarcastically call this the "Aryan" look - blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tall, well-built, "wholesome"-looking:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Classic Tronder type. Unreduced, gracilized, depigmented. Heavy jaw, long face, non-prominent, rather low cheek bones.

If you say so...

Quote :

LPorter101 wrote:

She's Danish and he's American, but if they were younger they'd be almost a classic homecoming queen/prom king couple:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

She's actually Polish, not Danish. Her parents are both polish immigrants.

Is that how you look?

Quote :

She's a subnordid type, with hints of neo-danubian features thrown in. Less depigmented than he is, thin nose. Her natural hair color sems to be brown btw.

Blondness so often comes out of a bottle, doesn't it?

Quote :

Her looks is far more common in the wide polish population than his looks are.

See, you know more than I do...

But America is a hodgepodge of different types, so if you put them together in parts of the Midwest, they would not look out-of-place. Like I said, if they were younger and I were making a movie set in a "heartland" high school, I would cast her as the cheerleader bitch and him as the jock bully asshole.

She reminds me a little of Kathleen Turner when she was younger:
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At one time, Turner was one of the hottest women in Hollywood. Not now...

LPorter101 wrote:

Is that how you look?

I don't like to talk about my RL specific stuff, including my looks. I already had one aspiring online stalker.

Suficie to say you should take my avatar with a huge pinch of salt.

LPorter101 wrote:

She reminds me a little of Kathleen Turner when she was younger:
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At one time, Turner was one of the hottest women in Hollywood. Not now...

Turner looks more sub-adriatic than subnordid if you ask me. Then again, tis all just physical anthropology bs ;)

Here are some guys who played football at Columbine High School (years after the massacre):
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The guy at the far left looks fairly J.J. Watt-ish, does he not?

Sabratha wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

Is that how you look?

I don't like to talk about my RL specific stuff, including my looks. I already had one aspiring online stalker.

Suficie to say you should take my avatar with a huge pinch of salt.

Understood.

Quote :

LPorter101 wrote:

She reminds me a little of Kathleen Turner when she was younger:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

At one time, Turner was one of the hottest women in Hollywood. Not now...

Turner looks more sub-adriatic than subnordid if you ask me. Then again, tis all just physical anthropology bs ;)

No, it's interesting. But this is the kind of stuff - racial "features" - that the Nazis talked about, so it makes people nervous.

"Oh, Dylan's nose looks so ... different from Eric's nose. Uh ... let's talk about something else."

Hoffschneider is a German name, and Rocky did indeed crack anti-Semitic jokes that would have made the folks at Der Stürmer proud ... but does he look German to you?
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LPorter101 wrote:

Hoffschneider is a German name, and Rocky did indeed crack anti-Semitic jokes that would have made the folks at Der Stürmer proud ... but does he look German to you?
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rocky looks classic Dalofaelid, which would be a common type in Germany. His look would be far more common in Germany than Poland if you ask me.

If you want an image of an example athlete polish team of roughly the same age as CHS jocks were, chek these links:

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Really random teams, but I think this will show that the "long-faced-square-jaw-depigmented" look is far from common here. also Poland has a huge percentage of people with light eye colors (green, gray, blue), but far less with natural blonde hair.

So Rocky "Another Jew in the oven!" Hoffschneider has a stereotypical German look ... interesting.

Columbine was one of the whitest schools in America in 1999. Isaiah Shoels alone was something like one-fifteenth of the school's black student body.

LPorter101 wrote:

So Rocky "Another Jew in the oven!" Hoffschneider has a stereotypical German look ... interesting.

Columbine was one of the whitest schools in America in 1999. Isaiah Shoels alone was something like one-fifteenth of the school's black student body.

Yeah Larkin mentions that. However its worth noting two separate issues:

1) You had overtly racist statements coming from both E&D, but also from the Jocks. A relative of the Shoels family mentioned taht Isaiah started to withdraw from some sport activities because the other players didn't treat him seriously ebcause he was black and even had some racial slurs thrown at them. The shoels home was also vandalized at least once.
2) You ahd anti-semitic rants and slogans coming from TCM members (nazi salutes etc), but also from jocks. It was jocks that threated the jewish student by saying they will burn him alive.
3) You did have some black and latino members of the athlete elite.

So it seems race was not a clear-cut issue even among core jocks and core TCM.

Also, I seem to remember that Brooks Brown said something like, "The worst bullies were also the most religious - one minute, they would be talking about their personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and the next, they would be calling you a faggot."

The football players all went to Bible study.

Athletes will always get preferential treatment. They did back then and they still do now. It will never change. They get the easiest classes just to stay eligible and they use and abuse everybody in their path to get to where they need to go. It happens in high school and it especially happens in college.

Not murder, not hate, not anything will ever change the pecking order.

NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, soccer, even Olympic sports are big business and will always remain that.

How does the signing on of a good player work in the USA? Has anyone from Columbine made a top notch Ayer at your big sports?

Radioactive_Clothing wrote:

How does the signing on of a good player work in the USA? Has anyone from Columbine made a top notch Ayer at your big sports?

It depends on the sport.

The big U.S. sports leagues are all cartels.

The best players are "drafted" by the teams and are "traded" several times during their careers - until a player plays enough years to qualify for "free agency," he is owned, more or less, by the team that has him at the moment. A free agent can pick the team that makes the best offer. Few players earn anywhere near a million dollars a year; a select few earn more than ten times that.

The team that has the worst year goes first in the next year's draft; the team that had the best goes last. There are several "rounds" - the best-regarded players are picked in the first round; the second-best-regarded in the second; the third-best-regarded in the third round; and so on. (I say "best-regarded" instead of "best" because there have been an awful lot of first-round "busts" over the years.)

Talented baseball and basketball players can go directly from high school to the MLB and the NBA, respectively. They are also recruited out of college (university). Some players stay in college for only one or two years before going to the big leagues; others play the full four years of college ball first. (Some players with special circumstances are allowed to play a fifth year.)

The MLB has what's called a "farm" system - lesser players are assigned to so-called "Triple-A" development teams. If they show promise, they are brought up to the next level. Even an established star player who is having a bad year can end up being dropped back down to Triple-A, hopefully to be brought back up again when he improves.

Football players always go to college first. Some go to the NFL after their third year; others after they graduate.

Most high-school players never even make it to the college level; most college players never make it to the big leagues; most big-leaguers never make it anywhere near the top.

Another thing to keep in mind is that *colleges* recruit heavily - almost more-heavily than the teams.

But not all NFL stars were that highly-regarded out of high school. J.J. Watt, the player I talked about above, was a "walk-on" - he literally "walked on" the field and proved to the coach that he was worthy of a shot.

The catch is that colleges cannot pay players. In fact, players cannot accept any kind of payment, even from people who are not officially associated with the university. All college-football teams have "boosters" - jock-sniffers who pay big money to be associated with the program. If a booster so much as takes a kid to lunch, that kid can end up in big trouble.

The colleges make gobs of money off of these players. Now, one might argue that a free college education is payment enough ... but the bottom line is that they're working their asses off for nothing.

But I say fuck 'em.

Majority don't wind up in the big leagues but just being on the team even in high school (or even being associated with an up and comer) will give you more freedom and leniency in regards to whatever than the typical person. It's just how the world works. It worked like that 16 years ago and it works like that now. Even the no name bums on college teams get preferential treatment just for being a part of the team (whether it's cash under the table to do things to make sure top players are happy, females, good food, a decent quality of life when compared to an average student).

I'm just not sure how this pecking order can change.

Sane One wrote:

Majority don't wind up in the big leagues but just being on the team even in high school (or even being associated with an up and comer) will give you more freedom and leniency in regards to whatever than the typical person. It's just how the world works. It worked like that 16 years ago and it works like that now. Even the no name bums on college teams get preferential treatment just for being a part of the team (whether it's cash under the table to do things to make sure top players are happy, females, good food, a decent quality of life when compared to an average student).

I'm just not sure how this pecking order can change.

I doubt that it ever will.

But there are other ways of getting special treatment besides playing sports ... I was one of the fattest, ugliest kids in the school, but I was a shameless suck-up and my teachers let me get away with all kinds of shit that other kids never could have gotten away with.

My first and foremost question was, "How can I make the teacher like me?" I must have been good at answering it, because almost all of them did. Even those who didn't tended not to give me any shit. And if I ever found myself in a class where I was in over my head, I got out as fast as I could.

Some people are stronger-willed than others ... assholes get what they want a lot more often than nice guys do. (The ones who get the most are the assholes who know how to be nice when they need to be.)

It helps to stay frosty. The way I got through school was to think of the other students as bugs, or cockroaches, or rats, or some other kind of vermin. Some of the other kids didn't like me; most of them didn't give two shits about me. But what did I care? If a cockroach doesn't like you, why is that your problem? You know that you're on a higher level than s/he/it.

(Yes, this is the kind of thinking that Eric and Dylan talked about in their journals ... but if you can make yourself believe it, it can make your life as an outcast a lot easier.)

Think of the school social structure as an ant colony or a beehive - there are a few at the top (the queen/king/whatever) and then an awful lot of drones scurrying beneath. Now, if you're as fat and ugly and socially-awkward as I was, then you know that you're never going to be a king or a queen ... but it doesn't follow that you're thus a drone.

Think of yourself as a scientist studying the whole silly game with a dispassionate eye. Learn to say, "Fuck it, and fuck them - fuck 'em all."

Of course, I was fat, but I was also big - I mean, big-boned and broad-shouldered. And I was already fairly big when I was a freshman - there were people who thought I was a senior, based on the way I looked. If I'd been a skinny little runt, I probably would have taken shit from the bigger guys. So my way can't work for everyone.

None of this helped me with the ladies, though ... I was dateless all through high school and college (and afterward). But I put it out of my mind. You have to learn to stop thinking about certain things.

LPorter101 wrote:

Think of the school social structure as an ant colony or a beehive - there are a few at the top (the queen/king/whatever) and then an awful lot of drones scurrying beneath. Now, if you're as fat and ugly and socially-awkward as I was, then you know that you're never going to be a king or a queen ... but it doesn't follow that you're thus a drone.

Think of yourself as a scientist studying the whole silly game with a dispassionate eye. Learn to say, "Fuck it, and fuck them - fuck 'em all."

Different people, different strtegies. My HS was not abusive as a social structure, but it was demanding academic-wise, even for straight-A kids.

My primary school (equivalent of US elementary, middle shcool and jr.high put togeather) was a tough, rough, hard-nosed and violent school in a rather poor urban environment. Also very christian and very catholic.

I've always been quite socially-apt and not at all unpopular - quite a few people had crushes on me in this period. I wasn't the most popular kid mind you, but I was able to stay two steps in front of the most rough and violent bullies (which doesn't mean i didn't get beaten up at all - I did and quite badly several times).

However my take was that I didn't want to be a part of the "elite" crowd (blue collar kids who did party, drink and not do anythign remotely interesting). I didn't want to be an outcast (who were all loners with no social skills, not a part of any group). I didn't want to be a regular average joe either. I wanted to get out of the system as fast as possible, participating as little as possible.

Being a popular loner (primary school) or a part of a small circle of brainy nerds (HS) were really just peripheral roles I adopted to get what I wanted in the most efficient way available and to participate as little as possible.

Quote :

Different people, different strtegies. My HS was not abusive as a social structure, but it was demanding academic-wise, even for straight-A kids.

Oh, my school wasn't abusive. Like I said, I was ignored, not mistreated. (Some people think being ignored is being mistreated, but I don't.)

And my school was demanding, as well. Our valedictorian - one of those Asian academic-drone types - had something like a 7.0 GPA.

LPorter101 wrote:

Oh, my school wasn't abusive. Like I said, I was ignored, not mistreated. (Some people think being ignored is being mistreated, but I don't.)

My schools were like that (although the second especially was abusive, bullying). I went to two highschools and I was on and off homeschooled, and in both schools I was just ignored and cast aside. Although at one point I did find a good friendship group in the year above me, I felt that I was more interested in them than them me, and eventually it drifted and they forgot about me. My own year at school was bitchy and immature, and I felt that I was just dancing around on the outskirts of a friendship group who didn't really care for me.

Sane One wrote:

Majority don't wind up in the big leagues but just being on the team even in high school (or even being associated with an up and comer) will give you more freedom and leniency in regards to whatever than the typical person. It's just how the world works. It worked like that 16 years ago and it works like that now. Even the no name bums on college teams get preferential treatment just for being a part of the team (whether it's cash under the table to do things to make sure top players are happy, females, good food, a decent quality of life when compared to an average student).

I'm just not sure how this pecking order can change.

Athletes are predominantly alphas.. alphas usually dominate until intelligence/earnings kick in. Regardless, plenty of alphas are smart as well.

Alpha males & attractive females will likely always sit on top in American high schools.

Athletes are predominantly alphas..  

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I disagree. Many athletes are simply conformists who display no "Alpha" traits whatsoever.

Gustopoet2 wrote:

Athletes are predominantly alphas..  

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I disagree. Many athletes are simply conformists who display no "Alpha" traits whatsoever.

Yes, that is true. But insofar as athletes tend to be taller and more well-built than, say, band geeks, and insofar as being tall and well-built is "alpha," then athletes tend to be more alpha than band geeks.

At many if not most American high schools, many if not most of the kids at the top of the social totem pole will be "jocks" - star players on the big sports teams.

Not all athletes are jocks, and not even all jocks are athletes - there are lots of jock-wannabes out there.

Women like high-status men, and they like tall, well-built men. So it stands to reason that high-status men (football players are at the top of the heap) who are also tall and well-built will do fairly well with the ladies:
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Even among jocks, there is a hierarchy. Note that the taller, more-confident guy on the right has a cheerleader on each arm, while the shorter, sullen guy on the left doesn't have anyone:
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Without a doubt the worst kids at my highschool were the preppy rich straight-A christian kids.

bigj wrote:

Without a doubt the worst kids at my highschool were the preppy rich straight-A christian kids.

Yeah, they tend to be pretty douchey.

An awful lot of football players are Tim Tebow types - when God says, "Go forth and kick the everlasting fuck out of the other team," they say, "Yes, sir."

All of the top football players and wrestlers at Columbine - from Hoffschneider on down - were religious fundies who went to Bible class all the time. "Jesus loves everyone, but He hates you, you fucking fag."

Now, not to offend anyone, but I also knew a few bitchy Jewish-American Princess (JAP) types when I was in high school. So it's not only Good Christian Bitches (GCB) you have to watch out for...

I'd like to revisit this thread.

One group I did not mention in the opening post were the Jewish kids, which (if we see them as a single group) were at the bottom of the pecking order. I do not think they were a cohesive group and it seems they got all the bad stuff that loners did, or worse. The "Steroid poster boys" were reported to be antisemitic and turned violent on them. They were also forced to do humiliating stuff in public. I vaguely remember that one jewish kid was reported to be forced to roll a marble with his nose across the halls in CHS.
I'm not sure if TCM and related people participated in the anti-jewish harrassment, but it does seem likely that the "Heil Hitler" cries might be related to this. We know that Dylan hid his jewish ancestry from everyone, this might have been a reason.

Another group I think should be mentioned as somewhat separate are the soccer guys. They seem to be where the counterculture sporty guys would go. While athletes, they were not on good terms with jocks. Kevin Hofstra (who was captain) spoke strongly against the "steroid poster boys" of the 98' class.


Again, American 1990s HS social structure is very different from our Polish HS social 1990s structure the way I remember it.

it would be so fascinating to go back in time and just attend the school for a day to see what it truly WAS like during the time E and D attended before nbk happened, say senior year or something. Sadly that's impossible and will never happen. All we truly have to go on is eyewitness accounts, it is long since done and the kids are now 33-37.

VoDKaComeHere wrote:

it would be so fascinating to go back in time and just attend the school for a day to see what it truly WAS like during the time E and D attended before nbk happened, say senior year or something. Sadly that's impossible and will never happen. All we truly have to go on is eyewitness accounts, it is long since done and the kids are now 33-37.

You have that video where Eric is just playing with phones and walking randomly around CHS.