HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL - PART 2

1989 - 1993 (cont'd)

Goths:
There was a tiny goth contingency, almost entirely female, who were buds with a lot of the punk kids. Bauhaus and its assorted offshoots were still their big musical guys, though there was also a lot of support for folks like Nitzer Ebb and Pretty Hate Machine-era NIN. Both girls and guys shied away from ostentatious deathrock-y stuff and just wore really long and blousy black shirts and dresses, the bare minimum of makeup, and long and tangly dyed black hair. They also often did this haircut where they would make a tight ponytail and then shave everything below it in the back. The general vibe could be pretty well summed up as “witchy.” There was a fair amount of crossover between them and the theater kids, which was probably either the result of or paved the way for their occasional dabbling in acid.

Early Hip-Hop Kids: There were maybe three or four of these guys in the whole school. They were really into stuff like Gangstarr and some of the Native Tongues groups like Leaders of the New School, and wore Starter hats and jackets and K-Swiss sneaks. It was that real clean look right before gangsta rap blew up everywhere. They kind of kept to themselves and didn’t even really show up at parties.
Popular Kids: Z. Caravacci held sway over a good deal of these guys’ style too, though not quite with the stranglehold intensity it exercised over the guidos. The popular kids were like a toned-down, more wholesome version of the guidos. The girls all feathered out their hair instead of spraying it and wore sort of mall-ratty makeup. There was a split in the guys between short spiky hair and slightly longer feathered bangs. One huge thing with the girls was wearing a kind of baggy sweatshirt over a turtleneck, then rolling up the cuffs of their jeans and pulling two pairs of matching socks (which also matched the turtleneck) over each leg. The guys would just wear the rolled-up cuffs plain. The shoe of choice with the popular crowd was white Reebok high-tops. There was a lot of crossover between populars and the jocks, and they’d typically attend all the same parties at whomever’s folks were out of town for the weekend. All of them drove Volkswagens.
Jocks: For all the importance placed on football, you’d have thought we were going to school in mid-50s Texas. A little bit of Z. Cavaricci would sneak into the mix when jocks were feeling classy, but for the most part they dressed in t-shirts, jeans, and their varsity jackets. They kept their hair short and in gelled spikes and acted like they owned the place. They got up to more shit than the popular kids, who had to worry about not pissing off their parents to keep up their financial support, but weren’t quite as tough or balls-out as the guidos, presumably because they didn’t want to fuck up their place on the team. The jocks were also generally more working-class than the straight-up popular kids, so instead of a brand-new Jetta they’d usually drive some parental hand-me-down like an old Buick or their father’s Oldsmobile. Also for some reason, every time they hosted a party you were guaranteed to hear most, if not all, of the Eagles’ Greatest Hits.
Burnouts: Mainly longhaired dudes in tight jeans and denim jackets. The other key components of their outfits were ratty Reeboks or work boots and a hair metal shirt, typically either Def Leppard or Bon Jovi. There was a subsection of burnouts who were into heavier shit like Slayer and Sepultura, as established by their shirts, and were a little more sullen and intense-seeming than the rest of their ilk. A lot of the burnouts were walkers, but those who had wheels either had old 70s muscle cars they tooled up in auto class (where they could smoke) or trucks with huge fucking tires they’d take out mudding in the woods. They were easily responsible for the bulk of the school’s weed, acid, and pills consumption.
Nerds/Dorks: If the popular kids’ style was just a toned-down take on the guidos’, these guys were the next step down the restraint chain. They stuck with plain jeans and button-ups or sweatshirts and Reeboks with the tongue sticking out over unrolled cuffs. Because it was kind of a small school, there wasn’t that much shit being dished out to these guys from the popular kids and the jocks, and a lot of them would make stalwart showings at bigger house and pit parties.