Popularity in all aspects in life can be pretty fickle. One moment you're cool and the next you're a social pariah.
But nowhere does it seem to be so acutely felt as in school where most kids obsess over their popularity or lack thereof.
And when a Queen Bee or Big Man on Campus has a fall from grace, there are plenty of people happy to see their reversal of fortune.
Reddit user Tomfooleryman asked:
"What made the popular kid lose popularity?"
Stuck In Time
"To quote a close friend of mine, 'he was cool when he was 13 and then he never changed'."
~ Autisticbutnotvirgin
Why Kids Need Sex-Ed
"We didn't see him much after he knocked up his girlfriend and had to drop out of 7th grade. I'm not joking."
"They were both 7th grade preteens. They were forced to keep the baby and their families made him drop out and get a job to support it."
"Rural South. He almost definitely worked under the table on a farm or the timber industry."
"This was in the US in the 90s, and it's f*cking sad."
~ Semi_Lovato
Peaked In High School
"We graduated and he found out that nobody cares you were a star linebacker after high school."
"It’s odd to hear someone 20 years after high school bring up that they 'were all conference and all area'."
~ JD054
Haters Gonna (attract) Hate
"She revealed her grandfather (who was still alive) was a highly ranked member of the local KKK chapter."
~ Bmelt
Life Is Hard
"Life happened. Our Senior class president was popular with everyone."
"But then he graduated, almost immediately got a sophomore girl pregnant, had to drop out of college to get married, and start raising a family. Real-life work just drained the coolness out of him."
"I saw him again at our 25th high school class reunion. He was still stuck in high school mode, never really matured or moved on in life."
"Yet looked prematurely old at 43. Sad, really."
~ Jonvilliers
Familiarity Breeds Apathy
"A new kid started at our junior high, and according to every girl in it, he was really good-looking. He got the kind of out-of-nowhere attention the rest of us envied."
"For a week he was the most popular kid in school."
But, after a week of excitement died down, it dawned on all of them that he consistently tucked in his T-shirts and played the clarinet."
"And that was the end of that."
~ DrGrabA
Unplanned Parenthood
"We had two or three popular girls over the 4 years get pregnant. They no longer went to all the parties with a kid to look after."
~ Hoomanethingie
Remission Regression
"The kid had cancer, was super cool while he was doing chemo, cancer went into remission, and he became a total d*uche."
~ Slutty323Babe
Allyship
"The popular kid in my school destroyed his popularity by making friends with the two gay kids (me, and another guy). Everyone just naturally assumed he was gay, and thus, shouldn't have everyone hanging out with him."
"He wasn't. He was just a really cool/fun guy that got tired of the other guy getting harassed by his own friend group. No one ever really bugged me for being gay—for being tall, for having crooked fingers, for wearing glasses, sure. But never for being gay.
"Regardless, he was actually really cool to hang out with. And we were great friends until he died shortly after high school."
"He was in a cabin with some friends (not from our school) out in the woods. There was a fire on the first floor, and he was asleep on the second floor.
"They couldn't get to him (or didn't know he was up there), and he died of smoke inhalation in the fire. The only casualty."
~ ChairmanLaParka
House Party 25
"His popularity dropped off at the age when throwing a party at your parents' house became uncool."
~ Outside_Performer_66
"I knew one of those guys. Had the cool house and the parents who were never around so everyone kissed his a** all the time. Super popular in high school."
"Then everyone went off to college, but he’d still throw parties on breaks, summer, etc. It continued until people graduated college, got jobs, moved away, stopped visiting home so frequently. He kind of fell off the map after that."
"I wasn’t friends with him, and I remember him being kind of a d*ck."
"I ran into him a few years ago. I was at an event for an organization whose board I’m on. He was one of the caterer waiters. I didn’t recognize him, but he recognized me. He seemed genuinely happy to see me."
"We talked for a little while after the event ended."
"As much as I wanted to gloat and say, 'haha, you were the cool guy who wouldn’t give me the time of day, and I was the nerdy girl who never got invited to your parties, and now you’re serving me vodka sodas at my charity event', that’s not how it was at all.
"He actually became an incredibly decent person. He became a social worker, got married, had a kid, did the catering thing to earn extra money because even though his real job didn’t pay well he felt like he was doing important work and found it fulfilling and he liked the catering gig because he got to get out, meet interesting people, and make some money."
"So yeah. He was no longer the 'popular guy' but he became a better person. I was glad I ran into him, and I genuinely wish him well."
~ CourtAlert8679
Real Friends
"I was on multiple sports teams (basketball/football/rugby), I used to hang out with the popular crowd. We'd hang out after sports and head into town at the weekend. For years, I thought we were pretty good friends."
"This changed after I started Senior High (UK) and my old man suddenly died 5 weeks into the school year. I was off for 6 weeks and didn't return until after Christmas."
"In that time, the popular crowd seemed to have forgotten I existed. Probably made worse by the coaches parking me on the bench since I hadn't been to training."
"No one offered any condolences except my oldest friend who came round to my house the night it happened. At 14, it was hard to understand—it was a difficult time in my life."
"In hindsight, I recognize they lacked the emotional maturity to deal with something like that, so they just ignored it."
"Luckily, I became close with the nerds/ musicians and established proper friendships. Two decades later, we've all moved away from home in pursuit of careers, yet we all hang out at least once a year."
~ ChauvinistPenguin
Growth Spurt
"Graduation and the end of puberty really leveled the playing field. Most of the popular kids in high school were just the ones that had physically matured quicker."
"At my 20 year reunion, the star football player—a much bigger guy than me in high school—was 2 inches shorter than me and balding."
"Everything all evens out in your 20s when everyone has had a chance to catch up."
~ ThatCoupleYou
Cruel Intentions
"Last day of school. One of the well-liked class clown types played a fake seizure prank in a certain teacher's class."
"He didn't realize she'd had a student literally die in her arms the previous year, and she had a panic attack thinking it was happening again. The people who knew about her history quickly spread the word, and everyone sh*t on him for it."
"He denies it happened to this day, but I was in the room when it happened. I remember being afraid for him, then growing annoyed and silently angry when he started laughing while she began to cry."
~ TellTaleTank
Sick Day
"Let this be a lesson to all you parents out there to listen to your kids when they say they’re sick."
"We were in middle school, 7th grade I think. The kid wasn’t exactly your traditional 'popular kid', but he had lots of friends."
"He was a good kid; everyone knew him and got along with him. Let’s call him Greg so as to not expose the guy."
"One day during our lunch period, my friend group’s lunch table was invaded by Greg’s friend group. We told them to f*ck off since there wasn’t enough space."
"There were probably like 8-9 of us in my group of friends, and Greg’s probably had 13 or so. We were sitting two people per seat."
"When we asked them why don’t they sit at their own table, one of them pointed at Greg, who was sitting at an empty lunch table all by himself, and said, 'Look at Greg dude, he sh*t himself in class. He smells so fucking bad bro'."
"The poor kid just sat there staring at a wall the entire lunch period. I’ll never forget that face either. He was just completely devoid of all emotion. It was so f*cking sad to look at. I’ve never seen anyone look so hollow."
"Turns out Greg had a stomach virus or something and was actually sick, but since he didn’t have a fever, his mother sent him to school anyway. The guy was in algebra and sh*t himself so bad and so loud it was impossible not to notice."
"He was leaking diarrhea down his leg and ran to the bathroom leaking sh*t. The girl I heard about it from said that the smell didn’t go away either."
"The worst part of it all, though, was that it happened early in the morning, and his mother came to deliver him a change of pants but didn’t pick him up or anything. The poor bastard had to sit through the rest of the school day."
"I look back on that and still think about how crazy it was that within a day, he lost every one of his friends, and his entire social life was ruined for the next five years. Even in high school, he was known as: 'That kid who sh*t himself in the seventh grade'."
~ ThomasEatsA
Did you have a popular kid at your school that lost their social status? What happened?
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