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“I’m Guessing He Was Very Popular In Prison”: 50 Times Popular Kids Seriously Messed Up
Human beings are hardwired to be social and to care about their relationships. However, popularity is a very delicate thing if it’s not built on a foundation of authenticity. You can be the coolest person one day and on your way downhill socially the next. Naturally, this can cause a lot of stress for children and teenagers who might care about their social standing more than grownups.
The members of the well-known AskReddit community spilled the beans about their former classmates who saw their popularity shatter before their eyes. Scroll down for their stories about the incidents that rocked their schools back in the day.
A small note of warning, some of these stories can make you feel uncomfortable due to the sensitive topics they cover.
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#1
He teased my best friend for being built like a Mac truck. She picked him up and put him up side down in the garbage can. He lost any coolness he had.
#2
She made fun of a girl with cancer. Made a joke like, "Why don't you ask your mom to buy you a wig; I can see your scalp", and overnight, she was the least liked person in school, and 100% deserved it.
Family's_disappointment 3 weeks ago
You're right, 👍 she absolutely deserved it. Btw I hope the girl said f*ck you to cancer and survived.
#3
He punched the autistic kid then proceeded to get jumped by every single guy that saw him in school for the next week until his parents had him switch schools.
Wanting to be liked, admired, respected, and looked up to isn’t ‘wrong,’ as it’s a part of our development, but there needs to be a balance to these things. If you base your entire life around looking for other people’s approval, you’ll likely end up stressed, anxious, and chasing happiness instead of enjoying life. Giving up your uniqueness and individuality for the sake of fitting in or having a vast social network is unhealthy.
Meaningful relationships are worth investing your time and energy in, but they need to be built on a foundation of authenticity, trust, honesty, and support. True friendships require a give-and-take dynamic, as well as support through the highs and lows. If you feel like you can’t be vulnerable or that your social circle is never around when the going gets tough, that’s not friendship.
#4
In seventh grade going into eighth, a really popular girl was running for class president. A really dorky, awkward, but completely harmless and generally very happy girl decided to run against her, but everyone just thought she was being weird and had no chance of winning. The popular girl ran a smear campaign in middle school. She spread a bunch of bulls**t about this happy little wallflower that absolutely nobody disliked. Not only did the dorky girl win the election, but the popular girl was shunned because she showed what an awful person she was.
#5
I stood up for the teacher with (at the time) terminal cancer when everyone was teasing/bullying her (cancer made her a bit more positive, live life to fullest-y and she was pretty “childish”-actually great for elementary school children but my class was one degree away from feral at the time). I was no longer popular. She was super nice and by some miracle beat the cancer.
#6
He nearly caused the s*icide of a girl in his year. He was popular but a massive a**hole and would pick on a girl (she was lovely and was only bullied for her weight). He started an online hate campaign against her in the final year of school, and she tried to kill herself because of it. She mentioned his name in a note she left, and he was named and shamed in front of the whole school and ended up going to a youth offenders facility for it. She didn't die and now has a lovely shop in a coastal city with her husband.
Though being popular and trying to build up your social capital in school might sound like the only thing worth fighting for at the time, when you change your environment and go to college or enter the job market, everything shifts. What made you super cool back in school might not carry over elsewhere. However, being a genuinely likable, caring, genuine, empathetic person never goes out of style.
The actual research on popularity is divided. According to the Newport Academy, the long-term effects of popularity in high school are neither good nor bad. On the one hand, having wide circles of friends can be beneficial. On the other hand, it’s the quality of those relationships, not the actual number of people you know, that actually matters.
#7
When he was caught taking up skirt photos of girls in school and sending them to his friends. His popularity went from Hero to zero is a split second.
#8
I was realatively "popular" (I was in JV basketball, marching band, mathletes, and track and pretty much made friends with everyone) until my best friend at the time claimed I pushed her down the stairs and caused her to have surgery on both legs. Thing is, I was at my grandmother's funeral in another state the entire week she claimed it happened.
While the teachers kept us apart and understood my side, none of the others really believed me. Except the Anime club. They believed me. Go weebs.
#9
The popular kid lost his popularity in a pretty epic way. During a party, someone found a group chat where he was talking cr*p about everyone. They projected the screenshots on a big TV, and everyone saw his true colors. He tried to explain, but no one believed him. From then on, people valued those who were sincere and genuine. It was a brutal reminder that popularity built on lies doesn't last.
While some research showed that having bigger circles of friends could reduce the instances of depression later in life, other studies found that higher levels of self-worth and lower levels of social anxiety and depression were linked to deeper and closer friendships, not popularity. In other words, popularity and true friendship are two very different things.
Newport Academy notes that teenagers want popularity in order to build up their independence, determine their identities, and get their friends’ approval and acceptance. However, it becomes an issue if the person starts doing risky things just to get attention, becomes addicted to social media, or starts withdrawing from their family.
Other subtle pleas for help include teenagers feeling pressured to pretend to be someone different at school or on social media and feeling lonely despite having a vast social circle. In these cases, familial support and potentially the help of a professional therapist can be invaluable.
#10
He accidentally stabbed and blinded (in one eye) the nicest kid in the school by throwing a stick at him.
The kid that was blinded grew up to be super successful and is now married, with a baby on the way.
Anxiousguest 3 weeks ago
If that was an accident , there is no point in mistreating that kid. He must have regretted it so much for his entire life
#11
I came out as trans and some people were happy for me others if they didn’t agree they didn’t say anything. One day in the cafeteria he decided it would be funny to push me over and call me names in front of half the school.
It was not funny and people realized how much of prick he was.
#12
He was chatting up my much younger sister (her 12 him 17) and a few months later someone in the class brought it back up so he picked a fight with me. I have barely any muscle but what I found out that day is I have one hell of a right arm.
Who were the most popular kids at school, dear Pandas? Where did their popularity come from? Did they manage to maintain their reputations until school ended or did something happen and everyone stopped thinking they were cool?
Do you think popularity and fame are worth the effort or are they something you’d rather avoid, personally? If you’re feeling up to it, share your school life experiences in the comments.
#13
This super popular girl tricked one of the shy nerdy kids into thinking she liked him, got a d**k pic, and sent it to a big group chat. She got in trouble but cried her way out of it; a month later, though, she transferred schools. Once we figured out she had transferred, we told the people at that school what she did. Funnily enough, the kid she victimized got a lot of support over this. He came out of his shell and became pretty popular, so at least there's some good that came out of this.
#14
This one girl posted something racist on Snapchat and ended up getting suspended for it. This was followed by her parents attempting to sue the district for slander. The case was thrown out almost instantly. The whole situation was honestly really petty.
#15
He sexually a**aulted one of the most liked girls in the school, and after legal action took place, and he came back to school, nobody spoke to him, nobody acknowledged him.
He played soccer, and so the school let him stay, for some f*****g reason. If they wouldn’t give him justice, we all decided to, ourselves.
Rachel Pelz 3 weeks ago
The fact that she was one of the most liked girls was irrelevant, I do hope.
#16
He robbed a 7-Eleven with daddy's nickel-plated 357 while wearing his varsity jacket (first name on front, last name on back) at the start of his junior year. I'm guessing he was VERY popular in prison, too.
Dragons Exist 3 weeks ago
Robbing a 7-Eleven is definitely one of the lamest ways to go to prison
#17
He pulled a prank so bad that the girl had an epileptic attack and was sent to the hospital; she hit her head really bad when she fell. ... The girl participated in a class discussion where teachers asked about our biggest fears; she said hers was grasshoppers. Then at recess, this really popular sh**ty kid found a really big grasshopper in the schoolyard and put it in her pencil case. In the middle of the next period, when the girl picked her case, she screamed and tried to run. But she stumbled and fell headfirst to the floor. The dumb asshole was laughing all the time. He didn't get any punishment; they couldn't prove anything. ... Anyway, the f**ker was socially excluded after that.
Janelle Collard 3 weeks ago
That's f**ked up that he wasn't suspended. At least he was shunned by the kids.
#18
One of the kids at our school lived with his grandma cause his parents died. d******d and a group of his mates started harassing the old lady whenever she came to pick him up, principle was reported this and they ended up getting expelled all together.
#19
Made fun of the mute kid for being mute. Said it she was ‘Faking it’ and that it ‘wasn’t possible for her to be that way’. He definitely didn’t get away with that.
#20
The popular guy was caught hiding in the girl's locker rooms when we were about 11/12. Apparently, he was caught filming them getting changed. No one spoke to him after that and he was 'asked to leave' and moved schools. Also, I'm pretty sure the police got involved, but I don't think they did anything.
#21
She got pregnant at 17 and the father could have been one of two guys, both of whom were boyfriends of her close friends and neither of whom wanted anything more to do with her. My school actually had really good sex education and we knew about contraception from the age of about 11, plus this was the UK where contraception is free and easy to get, so she couldn't blame ignorance or lack of resources. She tried for the woe-is-me act and nobody wanted to be around her any more.
Edit: Since a lot of people are talking about double standards, I'll add that both potential fathers were also ostracized after that. They'd cheated on their girlfriends, both of whom were well liked, and had been stupid enough to not even use contraception when they also couldn't plead ignorance or lack of access. As for the girl in question, she wasn't ostracized for having sex or even for getting pregnant, really - the primary reason was that she'd slept with her close friends' boyfriends and, again, not even used protection. Plus when she went around looking for sympathy afterwards rather than just accepting that she'd done something wrong, that made it so much worse. She tried to claim it was all her friends' fault for being bad girlfriends, and if they weren't, their boyfriends wouldn't have been interested in her.
#22
Popular girl in junior high, got outed & in a bunch of trouble when she accused a couple guys of stalking her. One guy lived a block away from her so she told everyone at school that he was a creep & was looking in her window at night.
Unfortunately for her, the guy she accused of peeping on her was out of town during the time she said everything happened. He had mountains of proof & she had absolutely nothing to back up what she was saying. She & her family got into big trouble for a false police report & since her dad was still active duty military, they got booted out of base housing & she got moved to another middle school.
#23
He was king of the roost from sixth grade into high school. Then he was caught standing on a bathroom sink at a public swimming pool, looking through a ventilation hole into the women's bathroom where one of our female classmates was changing...while pleasuring himself. ... He had to move 1200 miles to Wyoming to escape his new reputation.
#24
When i was in primary school the popular kid thought it would be funny to flush the class pet (a hamster called nibbles) down the toilet. All the kids thought the hamster would have died, he quickly became known as the kid who killed a hamster. He ended up changing schools for another reason.
Btw the hamster survived, I don't know how pipes work but i heard the caretaker eventually found him. The school still gave nibbles away after that.
If you were wondering about the kid, he had bad adhd or something like that, he was transferred to a school that specialised in kids with behavioral problems, he has a stable job as a bookmaker but that's all I know about him.
Also although we were told nibbles survived, we never saw him again, all we know is that he was given away to a random family. There is a possibility the teacher made that up (as another redditor pointed out) and nibbles actually did perish and they just didn't want to upset us.
#25
On the last day of school, if I remember correctly, 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 s**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.
#26
He threw a bottle of pee at a teacher for $60 our first year. She cried and left the school. His last name started with a P, so everyone called him Peeman or Pi*sboy, and even the teachers called our graduating class the 'Pee Bottle Class.' I hope it was worth the $60 he didn't need.
#28
This football player was at a party — also in attendance was a kid nicknamed 'Beans' who everyone knew and loved. The football player tried to get Beans to try some party drug or other. Beans, being a good kid, declined. The football player did not like this answer and spiked Beans' drink. Beans had a bad reaction to this drug. He died.
The entire town banded together to raise money for the family, and 15 years later, someone put up a memorial billboard (probably on his birthday or the anniversary of his death). I honestly don't know who did it; I wasn't part of that social circle. I do know he was absolutely ostracized and had to transfer schools.
#29
Having a set of keys given to him by the school (wtf, I know) because he was one of the really popular kids, then using those keys to break into the school and steal $30kAUD of woodworking/metalworking tools.
#30
He thought it would be cool to bring a loaded bb gun to school and got the cops called on him by another student.
Dragons Exist 3 weeks ago
That's definitely one of the stupidest ones on here, esp depending on when & where it happened
#31
A high school jock ... got drunk at the graduation party and groped a girl. His girlfriend got understandably pissed and told him to take her home. The drunk d**khead wrapped his car around a light pole, and his girlfriend got k*lled.
After that, he spent about nine years in prison for DUI and manslaughter. (I think he got a reduction for good behavior, but I'm not sure.) He got out expecting everyone to be his friend again and everything to be like it was. Nobody wanted anything to do with him. Everyone hated his guts. Last I heard, he moved across the country to work in the mines. Turns out assaulting a girl and then k*lling another kinda makes you a piece of s**t human being.
#32
Everyone else graduated.
#33
There was a really pretty girl that was quite popular in my high school, she was a bit snobby to people and sorta rude - I recall one time she threw a textbook at my groin because I was leaning back in my desk and thought it was funny (I guess it kinda was thinking back). She also liked to make fun of the fact that I was Mexican on more than one occasion.
Anyways, she gained significant weight our Junior/Senior year in high school, and I guess a lot of the popular kids decided to disown her for it. I never actually heard anything, but I recall her sitting all alone at lunch one day. Not my best moment, but I walked by her, pointed, and plainly said "you earned this".
#34
There was one kid in my class who was the son of our math teacher. He was crazy popular because he was able to help everyone out with their homework for that class; turns out he was actually snooping through his dad's notes to get the answers. The teacher naturally got super suspicious after a while, so he deliberately made a fake answer sheet. Of course, the kid grabbed it and noted it all down.
It was full of wrong answers so blatant that anyone who even slightly paid attention in class would know they were way off base. The kid handed out the answers anyway, and in an instant made about half the class bomb, and his popularity dropped like a rock as they all accused him of deliberately making them fail. They moved him to another class and they never had an incident of cheating again.
#35
My partner likes to tell the story of how she became the unpopular kid at school. She was about 6/7, so Primary 2 here in the UK, and a trend kicked off in her class of eating dog biscuits. All the kids were stealing dog biscuits from home and eating them at break time. Unfortunately, she didn't have a dog, and just had to eat normal human biscuits at school. She was ostracized every break time for it.
Peer-pressure is weird sometimes.
#36
Well, he k*lled three people, so yeah. ... He was only in jail long enough for his mommy and daddy to post bail. He served zero time.
I'm from a small southern town. His family has lived there for generations; they're rich as fuck, and he and his brothers have always been assholes.
He got wasted and high on suboxone at a party we were at over winter recess (we were in high school, mind you). He up and decided to take his new jeep with four other people and go down dirt roads on the riverside.
He ramped off a ditch — the first girl got ejected and died instantly. The other girl and the guy in the backseat got pinned and crushed under the car. He and his friend also got thrown from the car but made it out with a broken arm and concussions. Originally, he was only charged with one death, but the two people in the backseat did end up dying from complications due to the crash.
Guess what we got...one small article about a crash involving teenagers and a dumb empty chair with a picture and balloons at our graduation. No one ever mentioned the drugs or the fact he got another DUI charge that was dropped when we were juniors and that he was sent away to rehab in CA.
Now he lives in Toronto and found God, so yayyyy, I guess we're all supposed to forgive him now.
#37
Well, after he planted a pipe bomb in some kid's locker for looking at the girl he liked wrong, everything just went downhill from there.
#38
She started a fight with another popular girl over something petty. The other popular girl, unbeknownst to us all, practiced martial arts and delivered with one hand the most beautiful, graceful punch that I have ever had the pleasure of seeing while pulling out a chunk of hair with the other. The other girl was suspended and skyrocketed higher than ever while the popular girl who started the fight became little more than a laughing stock with a temporary bald spot.
#39
In elementary school, so popularity was already sort of a nebulous concept, but one boy got pantsed at recess and was found to be wearing diapers.
Pretty sure he was incontinent, which has got to be a rough f*****g road for a little kid, especially since he didn't seem to have any other noticeable disabilities.
DC 3 weeks ago (edited)
And that secures him years upon years of being made fun of. A former girlfriend of mine, almost lifelong incontinent, had to endure that and decided to not hide it, while, of course, not parading around showing off her diapers, and they sort of stopped. Unlikely you could hide it completely anyway. Some tried to tease her about it, but she wouldn't take anyone's cräp, not about that, nor otherwise. Everybody knew, and almost nobody made fun of her, but some tried and got taught some, even including a fist fight against a boy whom the other boys were afraid of. She won. Now, elementary school is different. In 7th grade, with, again, everybody knowing (in our year and the next one, 7 and 8,, the older ones didn't know her at all - that school ranged from 7 to 10), she and a friend were last in the locker room after PE. The other girl waited til she wore nothing but a bra and a diaper, and threw her clothes out the window, laughed and just left. Unprompted - while she'd rip you apart for whatever you did to her, she NEVER did anything to anyone with bad intention by her own decision, she fought back really hard, but, still, fought BACK only. Friend, no moreof course. Nobody else around, she had to collect her stuff and dress in the bushes behind the school building, and now, ALL school knew. Still, there wasn't much fun being made of her, but I believe her to be one of the strongest-minded persons I ever got to know. Her attitude towards such, actually, played a major role in me being attracted to her.
#40
The popular kid was a grade below me. One night, he (16, if I remember correctly) was driving his friend (another popular kid but one who was nice to me) late at night. The driver only had a permit and shouldn't have been driving. He crashed the car badly. The friend died in the car while the guy was taking pictures of himself, sad that he wrecked the car. According to those who saw the pictures, he didn't try to help. This was also a few weeks before junior prom and was very sudden. He was no longer a popular kid after that.
#41
When she made fun of me in front of everyone, for wearing a yellow shirt to school. It was just a plain yellow shirt and she somehow found a way to mock the colour. It was so unnecessary, and made her look like someone who was just rude for no reason. Everyone quickly realized that she thought people were automatically on her side cause she was somewhat rich, and she just became a joke after that.
#42
Started straight up lying to teachers to get people in trouble. Don't know how he thought that was gonna work out.
#43
We didn't see him much after he knocked up his girlfriend and had to drop out of seventh grade. I'm not joking. They were both seventh-grade preteens. They kept the baby, and their families made him drop out and get a job to support it. This was in the US in the '90s, and it's f*****g sad.
#44
She got cellphones banned at my high school. We used to be able to use them between classes and at lunch. There was a group chat all the popular kids were in, and they said they didn't think she'd win homecoming queen cause she was too mean to everyone. She reported them for bullying, and they banned cellphones even though the messages were sent after school hours. Guess who did not win homecoming queen after doing that?
#45
She was an aspiring singer songwriter and she had a YouTube channel. It was discovered that she was lip syncing in a lot of her singing videos. She actually was a good singer and after Highschool she had a bit of success so idk why she bothered lip syncing.
#46
He f****d his friends mom at a party.
Let’s call popular kid A and his friend B.
B’s mom was arrested (as she should’ve been) and B faced torment from basically everyone that knew what happened. Kid A continued to brag about his actions. Eventually people gained sympathy for B and kid A lost his popularity real fast.
#47
He tried to coerce his then girlfriend (both of them were 14 at the time) to have sx, when that didn't work and the girl told everyone he played the victim and threatened to k*ll himself. Which of course he didn't.
#48
He shared his d**k pic, it was reportedly really small.
He got teased so much he had to move away.
#49
There was a kid who wasn't really known until his senior year. He decided to lie and say that he won a bunch of money on a scratch ticket. He even photoshopped a ticket and posted it on MySpace. The guy was popular overnight. He showed up to school with a new truck with spinners on it (remember those?). Then, his friend outed him for lying, and people instantly hated him. He went from being invisible to popular to hated by everybody.
#50
The kid had cancer, was super cool while he was doing chemo, cancer went into remission and he became a total douche.
How important is social status in school for personal development?
Ash 3 weeks ago
I'm really happy things have changed from how I was growing up. A lot of these, especially those at the top, are really positive: people standing up for those being bullied, those with disabilities, neurodivergent folks, people with cancer, and girls' rights. I feel like this is much more common among Gen-Z than it was when I was growing up (90s/early 00s)
Earonn - 3 weeks ago
Yes, to me it seems so unusual that people should side with victims against the popular people. Younger folks are definitively handling bullying better - surely not in all cases, but more frequently.
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Ash 3 weeks ago
I'm really happy things have changed from how I was growing up. A lot of these, especially those at the top, are really positive: people standing up for those being bullied, those with disabilities, neurodivergent folks, people with cancer, and girls' rights. I feel like this is much more common among Gen-Z than it was when I was growing up (90s/early 00s)
Earonn - 3 weeks ago
Yes, to me it seems so unusual that people should side with victims against the popular people. Younger folks are definitively handling bullying better - surely not in all cases, but more frequently.
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