HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL - PART 5Kids' Cliques Then and Now
2006
 Jocks:
Football and baseball are the big sports still, even though everyone realizes our football team is a joke. Wrestling was big my freshman year, but after that it kind of died out. The jocks will do that thing where they act all tough and try to push people around in the hallways and outside of school, but then the second a teacher or someone’s around they’re like the biggest suck-ups. In any case they never get into fights, it’s all just acting. A big part of it is they don’t want to get in trouble with their parents ’cause they’ll stop giving them money or take away the Jeep they gave them when they turned 16. They all tend to wear sports shirts and Abercrombie gear and listen to really established white-kid rap like Biggie and Tupac and Dipset.
Preps:
These are mostly the girls who hang out with the jocks, though there are some dudes mixed in who just aren’t that into sports. Abercrombie and Fitch is based out of our town and they all work at their stores, so that’s seriously the only thing they’ll wear. The prep guys do the same pretend-tough-then-suckup-to-the-teachers thing as the jocks, and the girls just pretty much suck up all the time. Each of them gets a new car from their folks as soon as they’re old enough to drive, usually either a Mazda 6 or a Celica. All the girls wear a ton of makeup. Even though it’s generally the kind that’s supposed to be “natural looking,” they slather on so much of it you can see it in this thick layer coming off their face. There are a few who go all out and wear blue eyeshadow and all that.
All the preps listen to is mainstream rap, and they’re constantly trying to impress the thug kids, but the thugs don’t give a shit. While the jocks smoke a good amount of weed, the preps are mostly just drinkers. Everybody hangs out at each other’s houses because the cops have become really uptight about giving out $80 tickets for loitering. Even in the park across from my school, if you’re not out of there 30 minutes after classes are over, POW!—ticket. |
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Thugs:
Everybody in the area is pretty rich, or at least upper-middle-class, except for this one little part of town that’s sketchy. All the thug kids come from here and they are all constantly in trouble for dealing weed and coke and beating up other kids. I would say that the only reason half the guys even show up to school is because it’s their selling territory. All the different groups buy weed off them, but they’re the only ones who really do coke. There was a weird period for a few months a year ago when all the jocks got really into blow and were buying it off them, but that kind of died away. There’s a pretty good deal of gang activity that’s been getting bigger recently, so they usually wear either blue or red tees and a fitted cap or a bandana with Ecko pants. They keep their clothes really neat, and seriously come in with a fresh pair of sneakers every week. They will only wear Nikes. The girls wear the same clothing as the guys, just really short and tight, with their thong sticking out in the back. Sometimes a few of the less nerdy Asian kids will go through a phase where they try to buddy up to them and act tough, but that rarely lasts and I’m not sure the thugs even notice. |
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Dumb Kids:
Almost anytime there’s a fight it’s between some of these guys. They all dress really plainly, just like t-shirts and jeans, and are all into Zeppelin and Floyd. The girls are typically just kind of losers who hang out in groups and go to the mall or the movies together or whatever. The dumb kids and the skaters tend to rag on the freak kids a pretty good deal though. |
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Skaters:
The skaters dress pretty regular these days, just like plain or band shirts, jeans or pants, and whatever skate shoes they’re into. Everybody wears their hair pretty long, but not parted, and is into stuff like Evergeen Terrace and Comeback Kid. There’s a small group of kids who are strictly into hardcore, and they usually dress in skate clothes and keep their hair a little shorter. There are only three straight-edge kids in the whole school. Skaters all pretty much just go to shows and the local skatepark, and every so often hang out at the mall. Occasionally they’ll get with preppy girls who think they’re cute. Ever since that Mark Ecko video game came out, a bunch of the younger ones are going nuts with the graffiti. |
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MATT KOMAR, EDISON NEW JERSEY HIGH SCHOOL, SENIOR
DRAWINGS BY MILANO CHOW
TO BE CONTINUED:
HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Next>
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Oct 27, 2009 wrote:
Is anyone seeing the underlying message? | | Anonymous, on Aug 8, 2009 wrote:
oh the fat alternagirls, the main staple of my social life in grade 9. that skater dude at the top is scary though, one fake marijuana cigarette and mall lurking pedo later and its a fucking disaster when you couple in his tendencies from the hockey change room, but once rap got big it was all immediately shoved back in the closet, about a deep as he’d try to get a dick up your ass on the down low. and the utter decadence of of early 2000’s mainstream rap only makes him feel entitled to every material thing a tv ad told him to buy, its like watching those morbidly obese people inhale food all day, but with a shit eating grin. | | Anonymous, on Apr 21, 2009 wrote:
ya’ll are forgetting this is from 2006, when you were probably 12 years old | | Anonymous, on Sep 17, 2008 wrote:
Is it just me or did a bunch of fucking annoying 15 year old kids find this article and post their oh so important thoughts on it? | | Anonymous, on Jul 25, 2008 wrote:
yoo its changed again, you better make a new article. | | |
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