Do the social circles in american high school settings actually exist?

[michael87cn]

Do people fit into stereotypes? No they don't.

Some high schools may have groups of people that appear to fit stereotypes, but that doesn't justify a stereotype.

People don't belong in categories. Stop trying to categorize people. Because, you can't.

I'm a heavyset but buff guy, and I look nothing like a nerd at all. But I love Star Trek, Anime, I even listen to J-Pop. Hell, look at my freaking avatar. If you saw me in real life you'd think I was some kind of weight lifting athelete dude. In reality I'm just a really hard working guy that gets his muscles from work (literally - I do not work out) that likes to go home and play video games.

 

[pearcinator]

In my school year there were 'The popular kids' and 'the rest'.

Contrary to what you might think. 'The popular kids' were the SRC and were responsible for all the formal nights and such. They won all the prizes (because they gave them to each other) so they thought they were popular but nobody really liked them.

'The rest' just had their own group of friends and did their own thing. There weren't any social struggles, if you didn't fit into one group of people then another would accept you. Everyone pretty much got on with each other and if they didn't well they never went near each other.

 

[gargantual]

In pretty much every high school setting I've seen from the US in movies and shows, everyone seems to fit into one of a few clicks. Nerds, Jocks, that sort of thing.

But, that can't be a real thing, can it?

When I was in highschool, I was the biggest Star Trek nerd in the whole school. When it came to the shows and the movies, I knew everything there was to know about it. I was 'that guy' who got into a heated debate with the big Star Wars fanboy over which was better and why, or who would win in a fight. I also had skin problems which caused me to need anti-biotics for years because of acne, which made me the second palest person in our school for 3 of the 5 years I was there (our school system has 7-11 as our high school years). I was also into anime and was the head of the school anime club the last year I was there.

I was also on the football team, and head of one of our three curling teams.

Thing is, apart from two people, of the 400 people in my grade at the time (we all knew each other on some level) everyone was pretty much the result of two or more of the traditional social circles we see in American movies smashed together in about even levels, and pretty much everyone had at least some people in all groups within their circle of friends.

I could list other things which make the image used for high school seem odd, like our football team captain being the biggest weeaboo I'd ever met (until I went to CEGEP and saw how deep that rabbit hole could go) or how our best hockey player was a massive fantasy lover who could tell you anything about Lord of the Rings or Elder Scrolls and owned pretty much everything of both, but listing every example would mean basically mentioning everyone I knew.

So are those social circles a real thing in America? If so, why and how? If not, why are they the pretty much only way high school is shown?

Everything in hollywood is exaggerated. In real life we know there's more overlap but the stereotypes don't come out of a vacuum.

Just like the stereotypes that reality shows play into, mirroring old 90's seasons of MTV's the Real World in worse exploitative ways to fester bs drama. and I don't even waste my time with them, but the setups you can spot a mile away.

The seemingly meek but backstabbing quiet person, the obligatory racist, the stud, the 'princess', aggravated but edgy independent, the relative nerd, the jock, the cool geezer etc.

 

[Ikasury]

there's groups... there's always groups... but they usually devolve into the sort of hodgepodge of 'this is the person for this, or that's the person for that' etc. within their own clique with some 'banner' overhead...

when looking at individuals yea, they were all unique and had a large smattering of interests, but when looking at the 'groups' they were rather general and divided...

i was the one person that seemed to just drift around and could easily assimilate into any of the 'groups' but never got so far into them as to actually be 'essential'... i did that in middle school where a mass conglomerate of people from various cliques joined around me since i generally gave no fucks and prefered people to 'be themselves'... so the 'hot chick' could show her nerdy side, the 'stoners' could show they were smart, the 'jocks' could not be 'jocks', etc. etc.

high school was more the former with the amalgums of 'you are useful, you are ours' kinda deal... still ended up following the general groups of 'jocks', 'nerds', 'preppy bitches', 'ghetto rats', 'rich kids', 'preppy-preppy-prep-prep', 'quote-unquote goths', 'gays', 'lesbians', 'bis', 'trans', 'lbgt' (yes, there were individual and conglomerate groups... go figure people...) 'gamers', 'pc gamers', 'xbox-dweebs that did nothing but play halo', 'play station dweebs', 'anime fanatics', 'furries', etc. etc. etc.

the individuals could co-mingle but the 'groups' generally stayed apart...

like i said, i wondered alot, so i got to really see most all of them... .-.

simple answer: yes... that cliche does exist...

not-so-simple answer: ... but its really complicated...

XD

 

[Madame_Lawliet]

Seriously, I graduated American High school, and I for the life of me have no idea what goes on there, mostly because I didn't really hang out with anyone until about half-way through my senior year, and generally never attended any school functions. I went to school, I went to class, I came home, sometimes I never even talked to anybody but my teachers (my first two years of college were very similar in this respect). I never noticed anything of the sort, but I have a friend who was all about that social shit and she insists that it really was like that, and I guess I just kinda have to take her word for it because I really wasn't looking that hard.
Hell even the supposed gender divide never even registered with me, in high school I was still identifying as a male, atleast openly, but I'm pretty sure nobody was buyin' that because I never really had any male friends, all my friends were girls and I never really felt like I was treated differently because of my outward gender expression (which in retrospect kinda makes me wonder just how obvious I really was...).

Bottom line, I don't know, maybe they do, maybe they don't.