Popularity: Is It Really Worth It?

For many high school students, being popular is the most important thing in the world. They think that by being popular, all their problems will automatically disappear and that their lives will be perfect. I know by experience that this is not true at all.

Two years ago, my family moved to a new city and thus, I started Grade 9 in a high school where I didn’t know anyone. During the first few weeks, I became really good friends with a girl who was part of the school’s “popular crew”. These were the kids who partied every weekend and made fake IDs to get into clubs in downtown Toronto. At first, as she was one of the only people I knew at school, she invited me to hang out with her and her friends. Except for one of the girls who didn’t like me at all, I became friends with all of them and they accepted me into their group.

They were the type of girls who couldn’t stand to wear the same outfit twice and who would never leave their house without having a huge amount of makeup on their face. They were also the type of girls to make a fuss over the smallest things and would hate someone simply because they were wearing the same top as them. Before that, I had never actually encountered girls who cared that much about their appearance and were such drama queens. When picking out clothes, I’ve always been the type of person to choose comfortable clothes instead of tight-fitting ones and I don’t even wear makeup on a regular basis so it was a bit weird for me to become friends with them. My new friend Kate was the only reason why I kept hanging out with them for a while. Unlike the other girls, Kate was actually nice and cared about things other than the way she looked. At lunch, the “clique” as they called themselves would spend half an hour in the washroom fixing their hair and makeup and another half hour gossiping about other people. Most of them were on diets and only ate a couple leaves of lettuce for lunch. At that point, I couldn’t have felt more out of place and different from them. I just didn’t understand. How could they spend half an hour fixing their hair and makeup when they already spent a whole hour doing it in the morning? How could they survive on a couple of lettuce leaves?

Being on the school’s swim team, I have practices early in the morning and my hair is usually wet and messy by the time I enter my first period class. I also don’t wear makeup most of the time because I don’t have much time to care about it, I don’t think it’s really necessary, and I don’t think that covering my face up with loads of makeup will make my life better in any way. I think that what’s in the inside is way more important that what’s on the outside because beauty will eventually fade but personality stays on forever. I’m also the type of person who eats a lot as I’m very active and I would never feel bad about eating a big slice of chocolate cake. Another thing is I’ve always hated gossiping because I don’t believe that we have the right to criticize others when we ourselves are not perfect and I’ve always hated saying bad things about others in general. Thus, I felt very uncomfortable just being with them. All they ever talked about was boys, makeup, clothes and gossiping. Even though I also love talking about these things (minus the gossiping), I knew that I wasn’t as shallow as that.

At my old school, I used to have a close group of friends with whom I could debate about politics, the environment, or our career goals and we still sometimes talked about boys, clothes, and movies (after all, girls will always be girls!). My new friends usually invited me to hang out with them during the weekends but I always refused because I’d rather be home reading a book than using a fake ID to get into a club where I would be with people way older than me. I was well aware that Kate’s boyfriend often came to school drunk and it was no secret that he occasionally consumed drugs and even got suspended a couple of times because of it. I knew and told her that he was a very bad influence for her but she wouldn’t listen to me. After all, he was very good-looking, popular, and he was the star of the school’s hockey team. I felt forced to be nice to him even though I didn’t like him at all as he was rude and his vocabulary consisted mostly of vulgar words. I’ve always hated drama and I was very miserable being with them. Sure I was now in the “popular crew” but honestly, never in my life have I cared about popularity and my recent experiences with it made me realize that there was nothing good about it.

After a few months, I started befriending other people with whom I could relate much more to than my popular friends. I was still spending time with them at school though as I didn’t want to leave them like that just because I had found new friends. Then one day in the cafeteria, Jane who was one of the new friends I had made in English class said hi when she saw me. I was with  a bunch of the popular girls including Kate at that moment and as soon a Jane was far enough that she couldn’t hear us, one of the girls said: “Why are you even friends with this girl, have you seen her hair, it’s like she’s never owed a brush. She has so many freckles, wow she’s never heard of something called foundation. And she’s not very pretty either, why do you even bother being nice to her?” That was it, these words made me so angry at them and I couldn’t believe they could be that mean. How could they judge someone they didn’t even know simply based on the way she looks? I honestly told them that I didn’t want to be friends with them anymore. I was so sick of the drama and I couldn’t stand listening to them criticize others without being able to stop them. Our friendship was very short (it only lasted 3 months) but I received a good lesson from it. I eventually switched schools the next semester because I wanted to be in a specific academic program and I ended up making some really good friends there who were not superficial at all.

Being popular does not mean being happier and to all the Swigg Girls who are reading this, I just wanted to tell you that it’s not really worth it. Be yourself and surround yourself with people who like you for who are and influence you in a good way. I can assure you that you’ll be such a better and happier person that way

By: Estelle K.