‘We Never Really Left High School At All’ – How Popularity Matters Throughout Adult Life

“Study after study … suggest[s] the ways that popularity imprints itself on people’s lives, far beyond the teenage years, through both its presence and its absence. Popularity affects people’s ability to find success in their careers, regardless of their intelligence or their work ethic. It affects their ability to find fulfilling friendships and romantic relationships. … [It’s] much like class in America: It divides people. It defines people. Yet we generally treat it as a relic of the past – as something that was, once, but that thankfully is no more.”