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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2885 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 8, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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As someone with a moderate interest in sociology, despite that field of science generally being captured by leftist activists I cannot really stand, I’m somewhat intrigued by the American concept of ‘peaking in high school’ which I wasn’t even aware of until recently. I tried to dissect what it actually means but I feel like I’m not getting that much closer.

Before I continue I’d like to state two assumptions on the subject, based on what limited information I’ve gathered. One is that the concept, or accusation/dismissal if we want to be more honest, is almost always applied to men only. The second is that it doesn’t really exist as a subject of any conversation outside the jock-vs-nerd dichotomy as a wider concept. It’s a subconcept, if such a thing even exist. It's also inseparable from the idea that your high school years are the best years of your life.

As far as I can tell, the concept basically describes a high school guy who’s a midwit and largely without ambition or intellectual curiosity in life but also has street smarts and some level of charm, plus genetic attributes that are to his advantage (muscle mass, height, jawline etc). Whatever he goes on to do after graduation, wherever he moves to and whatever choices he makes, his social status will never be relatively higher than it was in high school. He’ll never be more popular in his social circle or at his job than he was in high school. Whatever level of success he goes on to have, it’ll never surpass the success he had in high school in terms of noteworthiness within his social circle. The things that made him popular he probably is not even aware of, and he just doesn’t know any better.

Is this an accurate description or am I missing the point?

I don't know if I've seen it specifically mentioned, but there's also the dynamic of how after you leave high school, socialization becomes much more elective rather than obligatory. High school is notable because although you still have some decent latitude in terms of who you spend your time with, you are still surrounded by the same set of people every day, forced into constant, recurring proximity. However as soon as college hits, boom all of that reliable, predictable, forced social interaction suddenly dissolves. If housed in freshman dorm housing, you might have some lesser version of it, but even so there are so many activities to do, everyone is in different classes as you, bigger universities mean that until you get into a major you probably won't see the same people over and over, etc. And not everyone makes that jump. If you go straight into the workforce, it's probably even more stark. And yes, I think it's far worse for men due to the somewhat weaker social bonds and the type of friendship patterns involved, even if statistically women are more likely to be lonely than men (well, at least I know this is absolutely true in middle and high school, but I'm not totally sure about the next 10 year bracket - if I were to guess, I'd say male loneliness doesn't spike higher until sometime in the mid to late 30s). In that sense, I'd say the concept probably has some roots in reality (or a common fear/insecurity people have).

With all that said, in the contexts I've usually heard it, it's usually either a derogatory term to a (usually blue collar, but sometimes narcissistic white collar) guy who no one can stand in the workplace. Or if it's someone you personally knew, I think it's more along the lines of "that guy was an asshole then (but popular), and he's still an asshole now (and I think he's only fake popular)". I don't think it requires him to be a midwit necessarily, but it's said in animus more often than not.

High school is notable because although you still have some decent latitude in terms of who you spend your time with, you are still surrounded by the same set of people every day, forced into constant, recurring proximity.

This social dynamic also occurred to me. It’s a unique life experience. For men, I think the only comparable experience they used to have in the past was the draft. I’m guessing there’s a subset of teenagers that are helped out by this, namely those who do have a normal level of social skills but find it difficult to socialize voluntarily for whatever reason.

And not everyone makes that jump. If you go straight into the workforce, it's probably even more stark.

It’s a usual lifestyle change which isn’t exactly voluntary. For the average college-educated man, graduation entails the dissolution of his only existing social circle. If he moves to another place to start working, which is a usual course of events, he’ll soon find himself socializing only with his colleagues and with family members, should the latter even be present at that place. Everything else, he’d have to build up from scratch.

High school is notable because although you still have some decent latitude in terms of who you spend your time with, you are still surrounded by the same set of people every day, forced into constant, recurring proximity. However as soon as college hits, boom all of that reliable, predictable, forced social interaction suddenly dissolves.

What you refer to as the high school experience was exactly what I experienced in college, so I think it really depends on where you go to school.

How does college make it so "you are still surrounded by the same set of people every day, forced into constant, recurring proximity"?

Certainly there are many easy socialization opportunities in college but those are very self selected, at least after the very beginning. Hell, I barely even bothered attending classes after the first semester (except for a few mandatory ones and those related to my later masters studies specialization). In comparison in high school the course selection is much more limited, there are at most a couple of different tracks and you have to actually be there every day.

Dorm living (for students from out-of-town at least) isn't very self-selected, and manages constant, recurring proximity pretty well, for colleges with a high enough percentage of students living on campus. I think my college had around 75% of undergrads living on campus at any one time, nearly 100% living on campus at some point - probably nothing of this applies to "commuter colleges". Most importantly, dorm life forces students into constant, recurring proximity in their free time after class, which makes it a lot easier to turn proximity into friendship than the few minutes of free time in between high school classes or whatever opportunities a teacher provides for kids to socialize in classes.

Thinking back: of my top 11 friends in college, I may only ever have had a class with 2 of them. 7 of them (and IIRC one of those 2, too) were people I met in the dorm. I only actually lived in a dorm for 2 out of 4 years, too, but even during the other years I'd be pulled into proximity with dorm residents whenever I'd visit friends or a girlfriend there.

at least after the very beginning

I think this might be a stronger claim. I made something like half of those friends in my first month at college, when the (non-local, which was most of us) freshmen were all in "must make new friends now" mode while the upperclassmen were in "must be nice to the nervous new freshmen" mode. Miss that window somehow and you'll probably at least need to keep your ear to the ground for opportunities to go to clubs and study groups and public parties and such easy-to-enter quasi-social circles.

How does college make it so "you are still surrounded by the same set of people every day, forced into constant, recurring proximity"?

Er... by doing just that? That is exactly what my college experience was like, I'm very confused by this question. I saw the same people every day, whether that was guys in the dorm or people in classes. And the people in classes were fairly consistent from term to term because the fellow students in my major were taking many of the same classes as me.

Hell, I barely even bothered attending classes after the first semester

Something tells me that this is a very unusual college experience. At any rate it is completely dissimilar to mine. If one cared about learning (to be fair I didn't cause I was young and stupid), you aren't going to learn without going to class. And if you care about passing, you are still going to miss out on participation points (often a significant chunk of my grades!) if you don't go to class.

How does college make it so "you are still surrounded by the same set of people every day, forced into constant, recurring proximity"?

I have the same question. The social situation where college fills this role but high school doesn't seems to be rather peculiar.

I didn't say high school didn't fill that role. As it happens it didn't (I was home schooled), but you definitely read something that wasn't there into my post on that front. For the rest, see my reply to SkoomaDentist.

I was home schooled

It makes sense then.

“Peaked in high school” is definitely a real thing, though as others have mentioned, it’s probably more common in small towns and in sports-focused subcultures. A related type that doesn’t get quite as much focus is the “unpopular in high school and trying desperately to make up for it as an adult.” You’ll find a disproportionate number working as high school teachers, coaches (though they’re usually more the “peaked in high school” type), summer camp directors, youth directors, these people, etc.

Yeah, for some people high school never ends, as they say. Alternatively, not everyone who graduates from high school actually leaves it behind. Others have also observed that the Great Awokening and SJW tendencies are also partially driven by resentments developed in high school and getting nurtured later on.

Other folks have done a great dissection. You haven't missed the point entirely but definitely didn't hit the mark.

I will say that I ANTICIPATED far more high-school-peaking behavior from my peers than ended up actually occuring by a huge margin. The popular dickheads ended up being much cooler in college + beyond, and even the sports stars may have super hot wives but still caught up with friends at the last anniversary party.

I have a complicated relationship with high school overall. Still where I met some of the best friends of my life and I look back with strong nostalgia, primarily for the pre-alcohol LAN parties that I don't get to enjoy anymore. I think most people view it as a great time but not their peak.

Let's return to some of the original texts: listen to Glory Days and read/watch/listen to Death of a Salesman with a particular focus on the characters of Biff and Happy.

Lyrics of Glory Days:

I had a friend was a big baseball player
Back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool, boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside, sat down, had a few drinks
But all he kept talking about was
Glory days
Well, they'll pass you by, glory days
In the wink of a young girl's eye, glory days
Glory days (Alright)
Well, there's a girl that lives up the block
Back in school, she could turn all the boys' heads
Sometimes on a Friday, I'll stop by and have a few drinks
After she put her kids to bed
Her and her husband, Bobby, well they split up
I guess it's two years gone by now
We just sit around talking about the old times
She says when she feels like crying, she starts laughing, thinking 'bout
Glory Days

This is the basic concept: peaking in high school is about a person who still talks about events in high school, when they were the number one in high school. It's also, we can see, gender neutral. If anything, peaking in high school is way more common for women: girls are often at their prettiest at 16-18, I can remember a lot of girls in college where my wife looked at their old facebook pictures and thought "wow they were so pretty 30lbs ago..."

They were the hottest and the best in high school, everyone thought they were so cool, they did all the cool things back then, and now they don't, their life is limited and boring. So they still talk about high school.

Then consider Death of a Salesman, which Arthur Miller specifically wrote in reference to his uncle Manny a salesman. When Arthur was young, Manny was constantly comparing his own sons to Arthur, with the implication that they were in competition. Arthur, the weedy literary type, would go on to write important American plays and bang Marilyn Monroe; Manny killed himself. Throughout the play, Happy and Biff are Willy Loman's pride and joy, and he brags constantly about their exploits as athletes in high school, and derides his friend's son Bernard as an "anemic" loser. Now in their 30s, Bernard is arguing cases in front of the supreme court, while Happy is a cad and Biff is a burnout working as an itinerant farm laborer. The action of "peaking in high school" is largely through the mechanism of the parents, Willy and Charley, rather than through the boys themselves. Willy is still bragging about the high school exploits of his sons, while Charley doesn't need to even talk about Bernard's accomplishment because they are so obviously superior. Biff and Happy are pathetic, man-children, immature.

Salesman lives on as a canonical AP English Lit play because it speaks to something in the human condition: Arthur Miller's revenge of the nerds fantasy against his uncle. A lot of people, high school nerds, recognize themselves in Bernard.

Huh. That wasn’t how I remembered Salesman at all. The parts that stuck with me were

  1. Tying one’s self-image to a job means that when you become obsolete, you’re doubly screwed.
  2. Old people shouldn’t be allowed to drive.

Which makes it more of a counter-cultural paean than a revenge fantasy. I fit it into the canon as part of the general AP Lit introduction to the cynical. I should do a post, sometime, on how that fits into a broader schema of critique and novelty in media.

At the same time, your reading makes obvious sense. Incentive for teachers, at least.

You can interpret it many ways!

I think the countercultural reading of Biff tends to focus more on the fact that he doesn't want to get a real job, he liked being an itinerant farm hand.

But the Charley-Bernard vs Biff-Willy conflict is the heart of the "liked but not well liked" iconic line in the play:

Willy: Bernard is not well liked, is he?
Biff: He’s liked, but he’s not well liked.
Happy: That’s right, Pop.
Willy: That’s just what I mean, Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him. That’s why I thank Almighty God you’re both built like Adonises. Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want. You take me, for instance. I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. ‘‘Willy Loman is here!’’ That’s all they have to know, and I go right through.

Willy and his boys are focused on superficial qualities, athleticism and looks and appearance and popularity, High School qualities. Bernard and Charley focus on academics, learning, focus, and Charley finishes way ahead of Biff and Hap, who "peak in high school."

It's a sub plot, but it's there. And I think it can be considered central because of how Miller recounts being inspired to write the play by his uncle Manny and his "constant endless race" between Arthur and his own son.

I suggest that we delineate female perishableness, which is a biological reality that cannot be addressed in polite company without the penalty of cancelling, from the peaking-in-high-school concept that does exist within the Overton window and is thus safe to discuss. I’d also argue that it’s a bit over the top to argue that girls are often at their prettiest at 16-18. Realistically speaking I think female fertility and beauty usually peaks at the age of 21-22.

I suggest that we delineate female perishableness, which is a biological reality that cannot be addressed in polite company without the penalty of cancelling, from the peaking-in-high-school concept that does exist within the Overton window and is thus safe to discuss.

I guess maybe I live in a different Overton Window than you do, but it's pretty common both personally and culturally to mock the "hot girl in high school" who now either isn't as hot as the female speaker mocking her or who rejected the male speaker mocking her back then but would be chasing him now (see the link above to Sk8er Boi). My free association with "peaked in high school" is the proverbial prom king and queen, the jock and the hot girl, who are fat and ugly and still talking about prom twenty years later.

I’d also argue that it’s a bit over the top to argue that girls are often at their prettiest at 16-18. Realistically speaking I think female fertility and beauty usually peaks at the age of 21-22.

I'm not saying most women peak at 16, just that some do. Women in general peak in attractiveness after puberty and before they get fat, and because that's pretty much a ratchet (pre GLP1) and nobody really loses weight, girls who put on the freshman 15 (or 30) when they get to college are less hot than they were in high school.

If we're doing "peak hotness," if you take care of yourself and you don't get fat I don't think there's any really significant decline until at least 35, maybe later. Up to that point variation between people is much more important than variation between age groups.

I ask you to consider that the Overton window has shifted significantly with regard to judging female sexual choice and single motherhood since Sk8er Boi was released. On the other hand I won't disagree that society does indeed give female speakers limited license to mock other women and their life choices in certain contexts.

I ask you to consider that the Overton window has shifted significantly with regard to judging female sexual choice and single motherhood since Sk8er Boi was released.

Like I said, maybe I live in a different one than you do. Because in my social circles, it's extremely common to mock women for getting ugly or having multiple uninvolved fathers to her kids. I guess maybe it's the kind of thing, like being fat, that's tied to another reason to hate them: look at this BITCH from high school and how fat she got. I suppose I wouldn't bring it up at Church, but it's a common enough topic of conversation.

I feel like the way the brain encodes memories just means that the adolescent years that coincide with high school tend to produce a lot more formative memories good/bad that are very available. Maybe I'm unusual since I lived at home for my university period but I feel like my 5 years of bachelor's + masters produced like a quarter of the core memories that my high school days did

Total opposite for me. High school feels like a blur in comparison to undergrad. High school me feels largely remote and unimportant, closer to kindergarten than to today, where freshman to junior years of undergrad there's hardly a month that didn't hardwire an important part of me through some experience or other.

So I don't think it's just that. Rather peaking in high school is a useful insult because someone who peaks in high school doesn't do anything high status or interesting (to writers), where peaking in college you probably move on to something more high status. Perhaps, like Stoner you become a professor, the guy who peaks in high school and now coaches the high school wrestling team is historically regarded as less than the guy who peaks in college, hangs around to get a phd, and becomes a professor, even though it's much the same behavior.

I had a reasonably successful collegiate experience it just didn't leave much of a mental imprint. IMO cultures/countries where you move out of home to go to college probably more likely to have a bunch of associated big memories, since I didn't move out till like 2 years after finishing university and have way more memories from that first 6 months than like all of college

I think it varies person to person, not just culturally or on a biological clock. People mature at different rates, hit important milestones at different times, have particular peak experiences at different times. For some people it's high school, for some it's college, for some it's serving in the military, for one of my second cousins he talks the same way about the time he spent working as a milkman.

Semi-related: There was a girl I went to high school with who, though I didn't think she was particularly hot, certainly acted like she was. I guess she was reasonably popular and hung out with the popular crowd, to the extent that my school had one, but I can only recall being in one class with her and her just coming off as self-absorbed. Fast-forward ten years later and a couple friends of mine were joking about her Facebook account and what a riot it was. They knew her better than I did, and I didn't have a Facebook account until well after people were sending requests to literally everyone they knew, so I hadn't seen it or thought of this girl in years.

It seems that she had taken the idea of becoming a celebrity seriously. Not that she wanted to be anything in particular, or that she had any particular talent, just that she wanted to be rich and famous. Unlike most people with such aspirations, she actively pursued this pipe dream to hilarious ends. The thing that makes it even better is that she didn't fall flat on her face but had just barely enough success to keep the dream alive. I would also add that she grew up in a dumpy, run down part of the Mon Valley and due to school feeder patterns I didn't know her at all until high school. I will say now that the highlight of her life to that point (and probably to this day) was that she was a backup dancer for Beyonce for some period. I don't know how long this lasted, and as far as I know it was only for one performance. She also released an instructional DVD on hip-hop dancing, which at least means that some production company was willing to foot the bill.

Anyway, after professing my ignorance my friend emailed me some pictures with his own captions added. I'd love to just post them but that seems inappropriate, but I think descriptions with his captions will suffice:

Rov_scam,

See Attachments, I feel by being ghetto, from [school], and constantly posting photos like this (aka starving for attention) that you're good enough to achieve [our other friend's] constant yet private attention via facebook.

  • A picture of her in a swimsuit on what appears to be a beach but looks a little suspicious (Photo shop)
  • A picture from the same shoot as above (I'd still hit it even though [a friend of ours] already has and normally I wouldn't)
  • A picture of her in a bikini tanning in a yard, not styled or made up (not photoshopped and clearly a Mon Valley native)
  • A picture of her from behind in a short skirt staring back at the camera. Her hair is done up and she looks really trashy (Ohio Valley maybe?)
  • A picture of her on a bed on all fours in a negligee (Tramp)
  • A picture of her onstage with Beyonce, complete with a Getty Images watermark (no caption needed)
  • A picture of her with short, shaggy hair (not her natural color; possibly a wig), black lipstick, and a black leather jacket, obviously a professionally-designed costume of some sort (Tour de France fan)

She had apparently also recorded some tracks in an attempt to enter the music industry. I had previously been unaware that she had any musical talent whatsoever (she still doesn't). She did not sing in high school. She did not act in high school either, but this did not stop her from attempting an acting career. Her real last name is, shall we say, of the ethnic variety. Specifically, of the Eastern European ethnic variety that, while not unpronounceable, is not the kind of thing you want to see on a marquee. So she obviously uses a stage name. A stage name that, I might add, was obviously not selected with SEO in mind, because it shares enough similarity with an extremely popular website that Googling it will not yield other results. She is evidently unknown to AI either, as Claude didn't know who she was when asked directly. She said she planned on having a million dollars in her bank account by the end of the year, which obviously didn't happen because even if it did one doesn't keep that kind of money in a bank account.

My more recent forays into her current history show that she has had 20 addresses in as many years, all of them in New York, Los Angeles, and now Florida, though I don't know how one's [drawing a blank] career progresses at age 40 i Daytona Beach. And by New York I, of course, actually mean New Jersey, because there's no way she could afford to live in the real New York. She was evidently under management by a modeling agency at some point, though I'm not sure that means anything. Her music career has progressed to "creating" AI songs. She billed herself as a YouTube creator at some point, though I haven't watched any videos and I'm not going to. Somehow it's gotten even more pathetic.

I can see her Facebook posts pretty easily despite not being friends with her, because she thinks she's important enough to have followers. She still posts multiple times per day, mostly pictures of herself. She has a son, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that the father isn't in the picture. She has multiple LinkedIn profiles. All the jobs are suspicious because none of them have ever ended. These include professional dancer, founder and CEO of her own record label, YouTube content creator, and owner/dance instructor of some kind of.. studio? I guess? And she's a Trump supporter to boot, which doesn't make sense for someone whose primary appeal seems to be to the African American community. Though it makes total sense for a ghetto white girl.

I suggested to my friend years ago that we could easily make a little bit of money off of her by starting a dubious consulting agency and offering to triple her exposure for $500. This didn't seem like that tall an order since her exposure was probably so little that tripling it wouldn't be hard. It appears that that ship hasn't yet sailed.

My own "peaked in high school" anecdotes: a few years back I was waiting for a table at a Perkins with a couple buddies, and in the lobby I kept looking at this guy surreptitiously across the room. Because I couldn't decide if I knew him or not: he looked just like Johny Johnson the quarterback and star pitcher I went to high school with, but he was fat. Like, really fat. Like Johny ate himself. And I couldn't quite make up my mind to go say hello before we were seated, I wasn't sure if I knew him or not.

So I went home and found Johny Johnson on Facebook and, yup, that was him. He was a middle school teacher at a local school, and an assistant coach for their football team. And fat. Very fat.

And I'm not going to lie, there's an atavistic part of my brain that wants to buy into the revenge fantasy of the "peaked in high school" narrative. In high school he was a star and I couldn't make the baseball team, but now I'm in the best shape of my life and he is obese. In high school he made fun of me and got invited to the good parties, now I make twice what he does. It's an easy and appealing narrative for me. He made fun of me on occasion in high school for being a loser (I was), but now I will make fun of him for being a loser!

But if I'm honest, that's both cruel and pointless, and it's an attempt to impose a just-world meaning on events that are basically unconnected. Johny wasn't that mean to me, probably less mean than I deserved if I'm honest, the urge to get one-up on him is just retrospective jealousy. The "peaked in high school" narrative is an attempt to impose meaning: his success in high school destined him to be a middle school teacher, my nerdy loserdom destined me for success. My dateless suffering as a teenager lead me to read Tolstoy and Chomsky and built my mind for law school, while his easy athletic success stunted his growth. But that's not really true. I probably would have wound up pretty much the same if I had made the baseball team, and nothing about his college football career prevented him from joining my gym and staying in shape. My suboptimal talents and choices in high school didn't lead to optimal talents and choices as an adult, nor did Johny's more optimal talents and choices in high school lead to suboptimal outcomes as an adult. At any rate, middle school teacher is a noble profession and I hope Johnny is happy.

Two other kids from my graduating class illustrate the point.

There was another kid on the football team, an absolute brick shithouse of a running back. I was briefly madly in love with his ex girlfriend senior year, she and her family referred to him as "Hooked on Phonics" after a disastrous Scrabble game at her house. Hooked on Phonics would seem a prime candidate to peak in high school, a hulking jock who could barely spell, but last I heard of him he's a captain in the Army, I think in some kind of missile targeting role. Good for Captain Phonics! And frankly he looks like he'd still mog me in the power clean.

A close friend of mine from high school, Ben seemed like the classic kid who would blossom after graduation, he was a straight-A AP student who was majoring in STEM at a state honor's college on scholarship. And more than raw academic smarts, I never met anyone like Ben for competitive gaming, he was a genius, he once pioneered a strategy in competitive Pokemon so unbeatable that it was later banned, he was a wizard at texas hold'em and brilliant at any card or board game. He seemed like he had all the traits to succeed as an adult. Ben got into drugs, never graduated, got arrested a few times, and died a couple years back, probably a drug overdose.

The truth is that provided you graduate high school and go to college, there's not much that happened in high school that will really hold you back or matter for the rest of your life. If you don't get arrested, don't get a bunch of DUIs, or get yourself killed or addicted to drugs, a free man in America can probably turn himself around. In either direction.

Lolcows are people whose eccentric behavior can be "milked" for entertainment.

In this case very little, since it's worth about five minutes every decade, or about 30 second per year. And that's only because I knew her IRL. It's kind of pathetic, but she hasn't done anything to me personally, and she hasn't done anything to warrant anyone trying to destroy her life. I'm not going to condone anything Kiwifarms does, which is why I'm not posting any real details, even though she's still after attention.

she hasn't done anything to warrant anyone trying to destroy her life. I'm not going to condone anything Kiwifarms does

"Trying to destroy people's lives" is explicitly against the terms of Kiwi Farms (harassment is illegal, but doxingphonebooking is not), and the admin quickly bans anybody who crows about engaging in such activities (though detractors of the website like to pretend otherwise).

Regardless, I posted the quote only to call her a lolcow, not to suggest that you make a thread for her on Kiwi Farms.

There are too many lolcows in the world to have a thread for every one of them on the Kiwi Farms, and the standards for a thread have dramatically risen since the heyday of Christian Weston Chandler back in 2013. Most threads nowadays are only successful if there's plenty of content to laugh at, along with sufficient interest from other users posting in the thread. When a thread clearly falls below standards, users often deride it as NYPA (Not Your Personal Army) and mock the OP instead, oftentimes because OP brings a misconception that they can sic harassment on a lolcow by creating a thread on them.

I wonder how much of this is driven by the fact that the U.S. has a lot of up/down mobility in the way many countries do not.

Although it's also sort of a meme in Japan that High School is the best time of your life, which informs much of anime, gaming.

I doubt it's only rednecks and working-class kids who get written off as having peaked in high school, if that's what you're referring to. I think it's entirely plausible for some midwit and otherwise unremarkable guy to come from a comfortable middle-class suburban household and suffer the same fate.

All levels in the US are able to move up and down more than you see in say, Europe.

Class not really being a thing here is part of that.

Rich kid at a rich school with rich friends doing fancy things and then ends up with a boring office job while all their friends end up in NYC finance is a thing that happens, for instance.

It's more of a trope than an actual thing, the prototypical example being Al Bundy from the sitcom Married... With Children. The high point of Al's life was the night he scored four touchdowns in one game for Polk High School. In the series he's working in a shoe store where he spends all day cramming fat women into shoes that are too small for them. The bigger part of the joke, though, is that Al and his family are all lazy and misanthropic, and the fact that he feels the need to mention his past football prowess while in his 40s only serves to underscore what a loser he is generally.

The trope isn't so much a reflection of a real-life phenomenon as it is a warning to kids about not getting too hung up on things that don't matter. There's a lot of pressure in high school to be athletic, or smart, or popular, but the minute you take off the mortarboard it all ceases to matter. Take grades, for instance. In high school, grades and SAT scores and the like are certainly something you need to worry about, far more important than popularity. But as soon as that acceptance letter comes in the mail, that's it. They've done their job, and nobody will care about them again. You're first year in college, you're in the same position as the guy in the seat next to you with the B- average. And if you flunk out and spend the next 20 years working as a convenience store clerk, nobody is going to be convinced that you're smart because you had a 4.0 GPA in high school and won the Bausch and Lomb Science Award. When you apply the same logic to things like sports and popularity it seems even more ridiculous. But for kids who don't know any better, it seems important.

‘Teenager’ is a marketing category created by the media, so of course media filters perception of the teenaged years in popular consciousness.

There are definitely people who enjoyed their high school years more than their adult life, because the paradigm of ‘teenager’ as a category that exists creates an impulse in authority structures to incentivize the ‘fun’ parts and not the ‘becoming a grownup’ parts. That’s what this is corresponding to; people remembering their fun as the important part of life, not their responsibilities.

It should be noted that this memory is, in general, rose coloured glasses. ‘Teenager’ is an unnatural category in that it poorly aligns with the telos of these people, hence teens are on average unhappy.

There are definitely people who enjoyed their high school years more than their adult life, because the paradigm of ‘teenager’ as a category that exists creates an impulse in authority structures to incentivize the ‘fun’ parts and not the ‘becoming a grownup’ parts. That’s what this is corresponding to; people remembering their fun as the important part of life, not their responsibilities.

I can't help wondering how much of this is North America specific and created by the pop culture. I'm sure there are some people who enjoyed their high school more than anything later around here too, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone take that position publicly. The trope here is that your university years were the best time in your life (for some people), although that might have changed in the recent years (or not - I haven't seen much talk of that lately). There is certainly a lot more partying in university for those who want it.

It’s funny because high school is probably the time where a majority of humans have peak emotional experiences, simply due to hormones, which is why popular media often centers on high school (Stranger Things, Euphoria, Harry Potter, the various social life anime and Korean shows).

Yeah hormones, trying to navigate rapidly changing social rules and first exposure to a wider world means that high school years probably coincide with a bunch of core memories.

The concept is because sports in high school can be a really big deal. Especially in the South, or small towns really. The high school football team can be something of local stars not just in their social circle but in the town at large, unrelated adults go to these games and they can be a big deal. But there's an expiration to all that, think of it like Kpop girls or a boyband. This applies to girls to but less so. It can be easy to rest on your laurels in this situation because your never going to be a bigger deal than when you were the town darling but nobody is very impressed by a pudgy 45 year old who keeps going on about the glory days. That's basically it high school sports can turn American teens into kinda sorta child stars. Now there's other archetypes like cool burnouts who remain losers but the concept comes from America's focus on high school athletics which is why it's so interwind with the jock archetype.

I think that's an accurate definition of the archetype, without passing comment on whether that archetype describes any real person.

For a rather dark exploration of this archetype, see Election.

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