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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?
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.
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