So, I didn't know how to do an epilogue, so I thought this may be a better ending than the thing I handed you that said "The End."
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High School Popularity
By Evelyn Parks
What is "popular"? Well, Webster calls it "adapted to or indicative of the understanding and taste of the majority". Well, something tells me that Webster was kind of the geek in high school until he wrote that book. Doesn't that suck for him?
I mean, I bet you that Mr. Webster was the kid with the pocket protector that got his head dunked in the toilet after the lunch that he didn't get to eat because someone else stole his lunch money.
This tells you two things; the first being that I should have studied up on Noah Webster.
The second thing is that popularity isn't in your blood. The sad fact, yet promising fact is that, many times, you have to do something to gain popularity. The good thing about this is that it can be something like winning a race, being the first man on the moon, writing a book, or saving us when someone says a word that we have no clue the meaning of.
That's good! If you do something fantastic, you deserve to be commended for it. There are some sad facts in that too though.
Take a look at the people that we idolize. Singers, actors, even some people with no talent at all. They make so much money because we love them. I'm not hating on them because they're talented.
Believe me, the last thing I want is a bunch of Bliebers on my tail for hating on Justin Bieber. But really, why do we worship these people? Take a look at your hero. Ask yourself why you like them.
If your answer is "because they are a great actress" or "because he can sing/rap well.", you need to reevaluate human nature.
If your answer is "because she fought for the right to give women suffrage." or "because he put himself in harms way to save someone else", you're my new best friend. You deserve a high five.
Congratulations America! We give millions of dollars to the person that can move their voice up and down to someone else's words, and to the person that can play a sport. We give millions of dollars to the person that can pretend to be someone else.
I did that! Where's my money?
I don't want money though, because this experience has opened my eyes to what we call popularity.
In the movies, they show the girls as popular because they are pretty and they can be mean. And then they have the audacity to show girls with an attitude, and call them "jealous."
No, That's not how it works in the real world. I have never seen a situation beyond Elementary School in which a girl was popular because everyone was scared of her. That doesn't sound like "indicative to the taste of a majority." Well, perhaps that how it is in Iowa, or some other irrelevant state where they say "pop" instead of soda.
So how did I become popular? I let myself. I stopped brushing my shoulder on the wall while walking down the hallway, I started to get noticed, and then I somehow became popular. Though most of you readers think I'm being insane, there is at least one person saying "who is this?" Yeah, being popular doesn't mean everyone knows you, or even that everyone likes you. It just means that you have a group of people that likes you.
But that's not how most of us view it when we talk about the popularity of a person.
Let me tell you a story about Marcus. He was the man of middle school. He was funny-ish. But I wouldn't consider him the funny one. His jokes always took a second too long. I guess he was good looking. He wasn't ugly, but he wasn't drop-dead gorgeous. He had a girlfriend. She was sweet. He wasn't a jerk. He was nice, and he was actually smart. He was a smart jock and no one teased him for it.
Of course, since I was no one, I ended up in almost all of his classes in middle school. I sat next to him in at least one class every semester. He talked to me a few times, but we weren't close friends or anything.
We were both on the mathletes. Yes, I was on the mathletes, and so was the coolest kid in school. When we went to the competeition, the whole team laughed and joked, and we helped each other during practice.
We'd ask each other for the homework, or for help on it when we were the only two in the class with honors.
I didn't have a problem with him. He was a good guy. I had a problem with the fact that they worshipped him. Think I'm exaggerating?
Since he was African American, a lot of the guys in the class called his birthday "black Christmas" because he was "black Jesus."
Everyone he saw wanted to give him a high five. All the girls wanted to hug him when he walked in the room. He never tried to get one from me or anything. I was friends with a girl that you could consider popular. I thought that they were pretty good friends. One time while I was hanging out with her I made a joke about him being the God of the school and she rolled her eyes and shook her head. Not at me, but at the fact that it was true.
Neither of us could understand why anyone would worship him. He had followers. He thought they were his friends, which they were, don't get me wrong.
Anyway, he was like that for all of middle school. So, during the last week of school, I was talking to a friend of mine and we made a joke, and we used his name.
Someone asked us what was so funny. So I said the joke again, and she said "Who's Marcus?"
We were shell-shocked. Everyone knew Marcus. Everyone. My mom knew who he was!
He went to a different high school. I heard from a friend of mine that he was still popular there. Most of his disciples went to my school.
His popularity hadn't come from anyone else. He wasn't popular because of how he dresed because let's face it, in middle school, all the guys dressed alike.
He was popular because he was confident. But, even that didn't make sense. There are plenty of confident guys! In fact, confidence is the reason there are so many tools.
So why was he popular? And my answer to you is, I have absolutely no clue. So let's not use him as an example.
Let's use me.
I was nobody. I had friends, but those outside my immediate circle didn't really associate with me. I wasn't anti-social. Well, okay, I was. But how did I become so popular so fast?
Initially, I thought it was because I changed my clothes. I thought you guys were shallow and saw me when I changed. So once I started acting the way I thought the popular kids acted, the popular kids would accept me as their own.
That's what happened. But for a different reason than I thought.
I thought that I was acting like the popular kids in that I wore trendier clothes, and acted like an airhead that's in to the trending music , that you would like me so that you would accept me. I acted like the popular kids, so they let me in. That's not it.
What actually happened was that I was acting like the popular kids in that my shoulders were straighter, my head was up higher, and I was walking in a way that would let people see me. I acted like the popular kids, so they let me in.
But isn't that how it works? You gravitate towards the people that act and think like you. It's human nature. The geeks act like geeks and the geeks let them in. So why isn't everyone popular? Well, there can be people in the "popular" clique, but maybe they aren't popular. Webster says that they hold a positive opinion with the majority.
A lot of the people that act like the popular kids are tools, because they overdo it. So they don't really act like them, do they? What about the followers that want desperately to be popular? They don't act like them either, because they can't think for themselves, and they try to be exactly like the "popular" kids.
So that's it then. I solved it. I know how popularity works. To be popular, you have to act popular.
Well, if you decide to try that, I wish you luck. But I'm afraid that it doesn't seem very plausible.
So, instead, I'm gonna give you some advice.
Find a group of friends that likes you for you. Ones that'll like you even at your very worst, help you even. Be popular in that group. Don't worry what anyone else thinks. Don't bother with anyone else.
If you want, branch out. Grab a few friends from other groups, and make even more friends.
So no, I can't tell you the secret to popularity. I can't tell you how it works, or how to obtain it. So you wasted your time, I'm afraid. I'm sorry, but I hope that maybe, just maybe, this article taught you something too.
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Ok, so in my head I thought that would turn out really well, and it didn't quite get there. Sorry. But you guys wanted an epilogue, so now you have one. Sort of.