Popular Kids Finish First, Apparently
Well, I think it’s true. I think the reason it’s true is [popular people] know how to socialize. People like to be around them and they are able to turn that into all kinds of different businesses.
The nerds are smarter and can come up with more amazing super wealth, and it’s possible a nerd can be popular. It’s not an oxymoron. Woody Allen said all success is based on networking. You have to say the popular kids are better at networking, and that’s why they are successful. If you’re not networking, you can only make it on your talent.
That’s from Revenge of the Nerds writer Steve Zacharias in response to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research showing that popular kids in high school often have higher incomes in life. In high school, I wasn’t the most popular kid, and I wasn’t exactly a nerd. I was just a kid who tried to be nice to everyone and do well in school. Okay, maybe I was a little bit of a nerd.
Mike Dang, I hope you were a nerd. It makes me like you more.
@theotherginger It all depends on when I wore my glasses, because when I took off my glasses, the other kids were like, “Wow, who is this new attractive person we all want to take to the prom!?”
@Mike Dang did your hair cascade down your shoulders too?
It’s great that we have this study to disabuse America’s unpopular teens of their last fleeting notion of hope for the future.
@EvanDeSimone Remember that there are plenty of people who, like Bill Gates, didn’t care about being popular in high school, and are doing perfectly fine.
@Mike Dang Haha I was mostly joking of course. Success is the result of multiple skills. Intelligence is valuable but obviously it’s also helpful to be attractive and socially adroit…I speak from experience obviously.
“Woody Allen said all success is based on networking.” What? I’m sure he has, but hasn’t everyone? This is totally standard advice, why cite Woody Allen?
I love that Business Week went out and interviewed the screenwriter for Revenge of the Nerds about this study! Cute, BW, cute.
If I recall correctly, the study’s authors measure popularity by the number of times someone else says that person is their close friend. That doesn’t seem like the same thing to me as Mean Girls exclusivity or Alpha Betas bullying. So maybe we can all hope that the allegedly-popular-but-actually-kind-of-mean people are wasting away unsuccessfully.
@readyornot I never understood that concept of “popularity.” Popular kids are often just more attractive or confident. Regina George popular only really exists in media.
@EvanDeSimone and, I think, the minds of some of the less-popular, while they are in high school.
@EvanDeSimone Nope, I knew a girl who was a Regina George caricature in high school.
@Megano! I don’t get how these people are popular if they’re so awful. Don’t the oppressed masses rise up against them?
@EvanDeSimone Rising up of the oppressed masses is definitely one from the movie storylines! I don’t know, I’m not really sure how these paradigms applied to my own high school. The stereotypical popular clique of cheerleaders and football players wasn’t really desired by those outside it. There were some instances of meanness, but it felt more like individual instance and less systemic.
@EvanDeSimone Ummmm I’m not really sure. One her “friends” singed the ends of her hair with a lighter once, and I was pretty happy about it, so maybe they didn’t like her any more than I did.
@EvanDeSimone Just a note, the study in the article measured popularity by having students list their “close friends” and cross comparing to see which kids were listed most often. So vicious mean girls probably did not end up ranked as “popular” in this study. Everyone seems to be misinterpreting the study as indicating that anyone who wore the right clothes in high school ended up successful, the study indicates that kids who were probably involved in multiple activities, friendly, and close to lots of people did.
@KatNotCat Hey there, I made that exact same comment about the definition of popular above, the comment that set off this long thread. Great minds!
I wonder what the correlation is between these kids’ relative success and their parents’ incomes. I don’t recall many of the classmates who I’d classify as popular being poor; in fact, most were pretty well-off. And I think your parents having money is one of the biggest indicators that you will have money.
@Original_Becky Absolutely. It has been my observation that most kids who are “popular” growing up are able to be so because their parents have the money to a) dress them well, b) keep them well (health, hygiene, haircuts, etc.) and c) allow them all the time and assistance in the world to pursue any extra-curriculars and friends they wanted, along with the necessary tools for early independence as teens (free cash, a car, etc.). Sure, some kids get to that status based on pure charisma, but I would say it’s a VERY small number.
If you’re a nerd, you really score if you have just enough social skills to make a friend who is popular. Perhaps you could call it “popularity magnification”?
I’m a nerd, so I suck at this, but I have a popular sister, and it sure did help.
@P.J. Morse@twitter Oh yeah the popular family member. My experience was weird. I had older cousins move into town (20 and 21 yrs old) when I was a sophomore in high school. Somehow, even though they never went to school in my town, I became known as their little cousin!
All the popular kids from my high school still live in my hometown and have boring careers and two or three kids. The interesting (nerdy) ones moved to cities and are doing far better.
@cmcm Yeah, my old student class president (president for 3 years consecutively) was very, very popular, and is now a huge pothead and still lives in my hometown. His Facebook updates are usually along the lines of “I like to take my life a moment at a time and see where it leads me”, which, different strokes for different folks, and he is genuinely a nice/friendly guy, but he was like prom king every year, class prez, could fit in all the groups who were honored by his presence, etc.
A lot of the nerdy kids went to good schools/have great techie/engineering/startup jobs in big classy cities…
@cmcm
I am saying this as a small town kid who moved to a big city, and is still there.
A good number of those people that you are looking down upon are happy. Your are defining success by your own lens, and not what other people might have.
The problem I have with these interesting people who move off to the big city is that because they assume they are satisfied with their life, that it is the envy of everyone else. That type of bias can be dangerous.
Just remember:
College isn’t for every 18-year old.
Not everyone wants to live in New York/San Francisco
Not everyone wants to be a graphic designer/writer/professional student
Some people are happy with a house/steady job/kids in their 20′s.
@Morbo I agree, but the article is about career success, not satisfaction/happiness with their lives. In terms of financial/career success (not graphic designer/writer/professional student, more like business owner/engineer/computer programmer/whatever other $$$ profession you can think of), from my experience the people that achieved this were less popular in high school. They may have had friends and a social group, but were not shining stars or whatever.
@oiseau
Oh, I know that.
However, the original poster was making an interesting inference about boring careers and kids in regards to success. It struck a pet peeve of mine about definition of success.
@Morbo “They must be sooo bored and unhappy and think I’m way more successful than them”
… and other lies I tell myself as I see Facebook updates from high school acquaintances and weep into my student loan bills in my tiny studio apartment.