I have a new theory that I have been working on for the past year. It is still new, so bear with me as I iron the kinks out.
Are you ready? Here it is:
The popular kids in high school vaporize into nothingness the first midnight after graduation.
Sure, some may deem this an impractical or even idiotic suggestion, but stop and think about it for a moment. How many people have you met in the age group of 18-22 who declare, “I was so popular in high school…I mean, I just ruled. I started on every sports team I was on, dated the school hottie and was offered a record contract at sixteen…but of course I got that scholarship to Harvard, though, so that was out of the question.”
Or “I was so popular in high school that I could get away with treating people any way I wanted and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it.”
Not ringing any bells? Of course not. Geek is now chic. If you don’t believe that, just look at the success of “The Matrix” and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogies.
Geeks find a voice during the post-high school years and often end up as success stories. This is not to say that those who were popular in high school don’t achieve anything after prom night; but rather, their stories aren’t as remarkable or interesting to the masses.
The version of a war-story at college is to recount the horrors and humiliations one was subjected to in highschool. No one wants to hear how you were the lead in the school musical and homecoming queen in just your freshman year.
People love commiserating about the day that someone ranked on their sneakers or when they were stuck in the chorus of a school play while the school’s darling warbled her way through a painful song-and-dance.
The fact that many of us survived these high school land mines only enriched us-to paraphrase Calvin ‘ Hobbes, being miserable builds character. (Personally, between middle school and high school, I gained all the character I wish to accumulate at this time.)
So some reinvent the past, or avoid it, because in many ways it has become irrelevant. There really is no such thing as popularity in college; it’s just a group of people doing their own thing and playing Beirut afterward.
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