Popularity as a teen: An obstacle to success?

Popularity as a teen: An obstacle to success?

By Gina Kim -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, July 10, 2005
Do high school geeks get their revenge on more popular peers later in
life?

According to a Gallup poll, 37 percent of those surveyed think the
popular kids they grew up with turned out less successful in life than
the unpopular kids.

That's compared with 24 percent who thought the popular kids were just
as successful, and 25 percent who thought the "in" crowd was "in" for
life, according to the results released last week.

The 1,000 adults who were randomly polled by Gallup in March weren't
just bitter geeks hoping Caitlin the cheerleader turned out to be a
dud.

Of those polled, most described themselves as popular: 14 percent
remembered themselves as being "very popular" and the majority, 60
percent, rated themselves as "somewhat popular" during their high
school days.

Ralph Keyes, author of a book on the lasting effects of high school,
believes the very characteristics that make a person popular in high
school are detriments to success in life.

"What does it take to be cool in high school? Does it take brains? No.
Creativity? No. Independence of thought? No," said Keyes, who wrote
the 1976 book "Is There Life After High School?"

"It took a certain look, a certain walk, a certain talk. Mostly, it
took a willingness to blend in.

"That worked great in high school, but what does it create for life?
It's great to become a bartender, an airline hostess or a vice
president of stockholder relations, but it doesn't prepare you to
become an entrepreneur, a scientist, an inventor, an actor, a writer."

Most people react to who they were in high school and try to become
the opposite, he said.

"If we were ugly and not cool, we work very hard to be pretty and
cool," he said. "And on the other hand, the kids who were popular,
they react against the big dumb jock and silly cheerleaders
stereotype, and they want to get across that they have a thought or
two in their heads."

While the poll isn't based on science, people can learn something from
the results, which solely measure perceptions, said Gallup's
editor-in-chief, Frank Newport.

"I would say, 'Take heart,' to students who are not popular," Newport
said. "It's ephemeral and once you leave high school, the status
hierarchies that seemed incredibly important in high school bear
little relationship to how successful you will be in life."

Hazel Stream, 52, of Roseville, wasn't popular in high school but
considers herself very successful in life. She's got great friends,
great kids and a good job at the South Natomas Transportation
Management Association.

And she vividly remembers a popular peer at her school asking a
developmentally disabled student to prom only to stand her up. For
kicks.

"Everyone's view of success is different," she said. "There are some
who were popular in high school and consider themselves very
successful in their profession, but spiritually and emotionally, I
believe they have more to learn."

Anthony Edwards, 31, of Sacramento, also said he didn't quite fit in
while attending Catholic high school in Vietnam. But now he's working
for a financial company and taking online classes for a business
administration degree.

"People who were popular in school, they didn't study well," he said,
adding that they tended to lack the drive and skills necessary to
reach success. "They just hung out with their friends."

But Kevin Carruth, 57, who retired this month from his job as the
undersecretary for the California Youth & Adult Correctional Agency
and rated himself as an average high school kid, sees the poll as a
bunch of baloney.

"I know people who were very popular and really successful," said
Carruth, who was spending a morning of retirement drinking coffee and
reading the newspaper at a Sacramento Starbucks.

But Keyes, the author of the high school book, stands by his theory
for the masses.

"I think all the terms for being popular in high school are exactly
the terms that will keep you from being in the top tier afterwards,"
he said. "That's not true across the board. ... But I think on the
whole, being unpopular will prepare you better to do more interesting
things in life."

http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifest...14045509c.html


===
"I don't feel the need to be famous. It's all bull**** anyway....Having people around me just because I'm famous makes me feel really bad about myself. So I give 10% to my agent to do the fame thing, and I go focus on whatever I love."
-- Jessica Alba

Ablang wrote:
And she vividly remembers a popular peer at her school asking a
developmentally disabled student to prom only to stand her up. For
kicks.

I think it all depends on why you are popular. If this sort of thing is
what made you popular in high school, then my bet is that you won't go
all that far later. Likewise, if you were only popular in high school
for superficial reasons (you had the right walk, talk, etc), you will
be limited later in life too.


"People who were popular in school, they didn't study well," he said,
adding that they tended to lack the drive and skills necessary to
reach success. "They just hung out with their friends."

On the flip side, those who only studied and didn't learn any people
skills whatsoever tend to end up stunted in their career growth later
in life too. Many if not most careers require a certain amount of
people skills to move up the ladder.

Therefore I would say that it's not as simple as saying that if you're
popular in high school, you won't go far in life; or if you weren't
popular, take heart, you will go far in life. I think it's much more
complex than that.

I think that those who weren't instantly popular in high school, but
spent some time working on their people skills so they could be
"somewhat" popular - at least have some friends - tend to go on to be
most successful later. These are the kids who do well scholastically,
but also spend some time trying to expand their social skills. Those
that learn that people will like them if they are good, kind, and nice
to others do the best of all.

As for me, I started out in grade school and junior high being quite
unpopular. As the shortest kid in the class, and not all that athletic,
I was always picked last for teams, and frequently targeted by the
bullies. In junior high I had braces and was quite an ugly duckling. I
always excelled scholastically, and that didn't help me win any
popularity contests. I did want to be popular and in junior high I
experimented with all the wrong methods. That worked somewhat, but I
didn't like who I was becoming.

Flash forward to high school. I learned to concentrate on just being a
genuinely nice person who was friendly to all, no matter how popular or
not. By end of high school, I was part of an inclusive crowd of kids
that we called an "unclique" because it was made up of a diverse group
of kids from a variety of other cliques - everything from jocks, to
cheerleaders, to pothead-types from the "other side of the tracks", to
nerds and dungeon&dragon types to artistic goth types to religious
types to band types, etc, etc - some were the "born popular" type and
some were not. What we all had in common was we were all just plain
nice and stuck together because we liked each other and had a lot of
fun together. Every last one of this gang went on to achieve success in
life.

jen