Like it or hate it, school has a social pecking order for most people.
From grade school to high school, students form social groups or cliques, and some are
more popular than others.
While many students are lost somewhere in the middle in terms of popularity, the students
at the top and at the bottom stand out the most.
There are the high status popular kids who are often seen as the ideal everyone else
strives for, and then there are the social misfits at the bottom who are often shunned
lest their undesirable attributes rub off on anyone else above them.
Nerds are usually lumped together with the others in this bottom group.
Outside of school, popular kids and nerds have caught the attention of Hollywood, resulting
in a steady stream of movies and TV shows about these opposing social groups.
While these depictions of popular kids and nerds have entertained us over the years,
how accurate are they?
And what happens to popular kids and nerds after they get out of school?
We will try to answer these questions in this episode of The Infographics Show, “Popular
Kids vs. Nerds.”
Both popular kids and nerds are on the giving and receiving end of bullying.
In teenage movies such as Pretty in Pink, Clueless, and Mean Girls, popular kids are
often portrayed as bullies.
Research indicates that this movie image is fairly accurate.
A study conducted by sociologist Bob Faris and his co-author Diane Felmlee reveals that
“popular kids – except those at the absolute top of the social ladder – are most likely
to act aggressively toward other kids.”
This aggression comes in the form of “normative targeting” or bullying kids “who break
social norms” such as nerds, but it also emerges in another surprising form.
Contrary to popular belief, not all popular kids are safe from bullying.
Some popular kids will pick on other popular kids whose popularity is growing.
These aggressive kids engage in what Faris and his colleagues call “’instrumental
targeting’” or the use of bullying “as an instrument or tool to gain social status.”
In other words, they are acting out the age-old story of building themselves up by tearing
others down.
Another surprising finding of the study is the reaction of the popular kids who were
bullied by one of their peers.
According to Faris and Felmlee’s study, “any given bullying incident . . . hurts
more, emotionally, for a popular kid than an unpopular one.”
These popular kids feel more anxiety than unpopular kids because they think that they
have more to lose.
It unnerves them that a social competitor could undo all of the hard work they put in
to increase their social status.
The only kids who seem to be safe from bullying are those at the absolute top of the social
hierarchy because as Faris states, “no one is trying to topple them from their perches.”
The popular mass media image of nerds as victims of bullying is also fairly realistic.
We could not find studies that focused specifically on “nerd-only” bullying, but we did notice
that some characteristics of nerds put them at greater risk for being bullied according
to stopbullying.gov.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a nerd as “an unstylish, unattractive, or socially
inept person; especially one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits.”
These characteristics could easily lead to a nerd being “perceived as different from
their peers” and being “less popular than others,” which are two of the risk factors
for bullying listed on stopbullying.gov.
However, some nerds may also meet a third risk factor on stopbullying.gov’s list:
“Do not get along well with others, seen as annoying or provoking, or antagonize others
for attention.”
There are anecdotal reports of encounters with “’angry nerds’” and “jerk nerds”
as a few Reddit users call them.
Unlike the likeable but helpless nerds frequently seen on television and in the movies, these
nerds annoy people with their “condescending” behavior and “intellectual superiority.”
And then there are nerds who reverse roles and become bullies themselves.
A computer expert named Rob Collie wrote a blog post criticizing “Nerd Bullies.”
He calls them traitors because they try to compensate for their “historically-instilled
feelings of inferiority” by passing the pain and abuse they suffered on to other nerds:
“Nerd Bullies suffered at the hands of the mob, and now they lead mobs (of other former
sufferers!) against victims in their own communities.”
However, he describes seeing Nerd Bullies at work in the online gaming and tech communities.
We could not find any studies showing that nerd bullies are a problem within schools
as well.
Moving past the bullying and the somewhat accurate but incomplete view of popular kids
and nerds in movies and on television, we find that their lives after high school are
markedly different.
Studies following popular kids into adulthood revealed mixed outcomes for them.
A 2013 Leadernomics.com article cites the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which tracked
the “social characteristics” and “career achievements” of students “who graduated
from a Wisconsin high school in 1957.”
This study showed that “popular students earned a higher income in the long run compared
to those who were less popular.”
However, a follow-up study by Yale professor Jason Fletcher called into question the findings
of the original Wisconsin study.
It included additional data from siblings attending the same school that showed the
“impact of popularity on future pay simply vanished.”
A University of Virginia study tracking young people from age 13 to age 23 also painted
a less rosy picture for popular kids.
According to this study, “cool kids were more likely to have bigger troubles later
in life.”
These problems included drug and alcohol use as well as criminal activity.
The study found that “as young adults, they were using 40% more drugs and alcohol than
the ‘not so cool’ kids and were 22% more likely to be running into troubles with the
law.”
These things done to impress others hurt the popular kids in the long run.
One of the researchers of the study, Joseph Allen, says that “teens trying so hard to
be cool early in adolescence find the rewards of popularity in the short term, but their
approach ultimately leads to a ‘dead end.’"
The end result is what Allen calls the “‘high school reunion effect’”:
"You see the person who was cool ... did exciting things that were intimidating and seemed glamorous
at the time and then five or 10 years later, they are working in a menial job and have
poor relationships and such . . . ” In contrast, nerds often fare better than
popular kids after they leave high school.
The Daily Mail cites the same University of Virginia study mentioned earlier.
While the cool kids struggled as they grew older, the study found that “those who are
less popular as teenagers end up doing better in life than their ‘cooler’ peers.”
Allen and the other researchers of this study also “discovered the ones who were considered
‘geeks’ went on to outperform the others by the time they reached early adulthood.”
In addition, Alexandra Robbins, author of The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth, attributes
some of the nerds’ success to what she calls the Quirk Theory: “the traits which made
the nerd alienated in school (unique personalities, passions and ideas) can end up being admired
or valued traits in adulthood.”
She argues that “being exceptional,” developing “coping strategies and independence,”
and being “able to deal positively with stressful social situations” are some of
the useful and valuable skills nerds learn while in school and later carry over into
the workplace and beyond.
What are your experiences with popular kids and nerds?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called What Makes Popular Kids Popular!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!