Just to offer a differing opinion; Though this person thinks they know what they are talking about and thus make it sound very believable, I don't agree with hardly a word of it.
Just from seeing the entire gambit of the popularity spectrum myself and having friends on both ends with whom I've discussed the topic at length. I could get into it further, but since I'm probably disagreeing with everyone, it is probably best I shut up now ;)
Well he seems to totally discount the "I remember the dorky things you did when you were 9" factor.
Think about it. A new kid comes to your high school Junior year...he's intelligent and witty if not terribly attractive and dresses decently. Bam, he's suddenly popular, the new 'amusing guy' to have around. Then you speak to him and find out he was one of the lowest of the low losers at his old school. Why? Not because he had some inborn need not to be popular or mixed up with a shallow crowd, but rather because the shallow crowd remembers chanting his name as an insult because he had dandruff at 7, or because he was a teachers pet at 10, or because one time he farted during a test when they were in the fifth grade. Labels we get at a very young age seem to stick with us when we maintain the same peers for a long period of time throughout adolesence. Often people are liberated from this in college, and it is only THEN(or so I believe) that as the author suggests, one can truly decide to take on a hermits life for oneself, choose to be a dork among dorks, choose to be suddenly verbose and yet listened to...ect.ect.ect.
Being a dork is NOT a choice as he seems to assert, if in a backdoor sneaky kind of way.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 3 Mar 2003 17:14 (UTC)Just from seeing the entire gambit of the popularity spectrum myself and having friends on both ends with whom I've discussed the topic at length. I could get into it further, but since I'm probably disagreeing with everyone, it is probably best I shut up now ;)
Re:
on 3 Mar 2003 17:17 (UTC)no subject
on 3 Mar 2003 19:17 (UTC)Think about it. A new kid comes to your high school Junior year...he's intelligent and witty if not terribly attractive and dresses decently. Bam, he's suddenly popular, the new 'amusing guy' to have around. Then you speak to him and find out he was one of the lowest of the low losers at his old school. Why? Not because he had some inborn need not to be popular or mixed up with a shallow crowd, but rather because the shallow crowd remembers chanting his name as an insult because he had dandruff at 7, or because he was a teachers pet at 10, or because one time he farted during a test when they were in the fifth grade. Labels we get at a very young age seem to stick with us when we maintain the same peers for a long period of time throughout adolesence. Often people are liberated from this in college, and it is only THEN(or so I believe) that as the author suggests, one can truly decide to take on a hermits life for oneself, choose to be a dork among dorks, choose to be suddenly verbose and yet listened to...ect.ect.ect.
Being a dork is NOT a choice as he seems to assert, if in a backdoor sneaky kind of way.
There's my two cents, anyway ;)
off topic
on 4 Mar 2003 08:37 (UTC)Re: off topic
on 4 Mar 2003 10:54 (UTC)