As emotionally satisfying as this is, it’s also false. If you look at CEOs, CFOs and the people who usually end up at the top of the heap in business and finance, they are almost always the people that WERE popular in school, class president, homecoming king/queen, star athlete, etc. Those people tend to win, not lose. Which sucks, but it is true. Those people still crap on us later in life too. As a geek who had a really crappy time in school, I wish it were otherwise.
@Ben: It’s very much a mixed bag, I think. Most of the popular kids in my high school class peaked in high school. They were decent athletes but not good enough to play in college. Most of the cheerleaders and majorettes never came close to that level of success again.
On the other hand, the girl who was valedictorian, homecoming queen, and head cheerleader is now a successful OB/GYN. The quarterback and homecoming king is now the head football coach at the same school after nearly twenty years as an assistant coach and teacher. The drum major is a retired Navy officer who works for NASA.
I agree with James. All things being equal, someone who is popular and outgoing will be more successful than someone who is introverted. So the class President who gets straight A’s will do better than the nerd who gets straight A’s (on average). But there are a lot of people who are popular in high school just because they are good looking or whatever and don’t really develop themselves as a person.
Is the class president usually one of the “cool kids” to begin with? At my school at least, student government wasn’t really a big attraction to the “cool” crowd.
Cheech and Chong did a, to me, hilarious routine about a guy giving the valedictorian speech at his high school, and there’s this other guy way in the back yelling “Eat shit!”, etc., etc., etc. The speaker gets progressively more discumbobulated and ends the speech with “Fvck you!!!” I tried to find a youtube or mp3 of it on the web, but no luck. Very funny, though.
A friend of mine met one of the most popular girls at our high school, years later. He happened to walk into a bar where she was in the $50 wet t-shirt contest. Told him her kids were at home.
Schadenfreude … the tears are so sweet.
That’s awesome. Thanks, James.
Great. Oh yeah…. I remember those people. I’ll bet they’re still ticks.
As emotionally satisfying as this is, it’s also false. If you look at CEOs, CFOs and the people who usually end up at the top of the heap in business and finance, they are almost always the people that WERE popular in school, class president, homecoming king/queen, star athlete, etc. Those people tend to win, not lose. Which sucks, but it is true. Those people still crap on us later in life too. As a geek who had a really crappy time in school, I wish it were otherwise.
@Ben: It’s very much a mixed bag, I think. Most of the popular kids in my high school class peaked in high school. They were decent athletes but not good enough to play in college. Most of the cheerleaders and majorettes never came close to that level of success again.
On the other hand, the girl who was valedictorian, homecoming queen, and head cheerleader is now a successful OB/GYN. The quarterback and homecoming king is now the head football coach at the same school after nearly twenty years as an assistant coach and teacher. The drum major is a retired Navy officer who works for NASA.
I agree with James. All things being equal, someone who is popular and outgoing will be more successful than someone who is introverted. So the class President who gets straight A’s will do better than the nerd who gets straight A’s (on average). But there are a lot of people who are popular in high school just because they are good looking or whatever and don’t really develop themselves as a person.
Honestly, these are caricatures and stereotypes being portrayed, but that doesn’t make it any less humorous.
@Hal_10000:
Is the class president usually one of the “cool kids” to begin with? At my school at least, student government wasn’t really a big attraction to the “cool” crowd.
Cheech and Chong did a, to me, hilarious routine about a guy giving the valedictorian speech at his high school, and there’s this other guy way in the back yelling “Eat shit!”, etc., etc., etc. The speaker gets progressively more discumbobulated and ends the speech with “Fvck you!!!” I tried to find a youtube or mp3 of it on the web, but no luck. Very funny, though.
A friend of mine met one of the most popular girls at our high school, years later. He happened to walk into a bar where she was in the $50 wet t-shirt contest. Told him her kids were at home.
It doesn’t get too much darker than that.