The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School

by Alexandra Robbins

  I asked her what she meant.

  “When you hear that kind of stuff over and over again, it really hurts, and you want just a little bit of vengeance. It was every day for half of the school year and only one person in the class really defended me—my teacher—but it didn’t stop him,” Annmarie answered. “I used to have daydreams in gym class about coming in there with a gun or something and just killing him. Of course, I would never do something like that, but I thought about it, and that was what scared me, so I never told anyone.”

  Annmarie’s secret, though she never made plans to act on it, combined with her image at school, could have landed her in a great deal of trouble. In the aftermath of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, in which the student gunmen killed twelve students and a teacher and wounded more than two dozen others before shooting themselves, campus perception of outcasts shifted from objects of derision to potential murderers. Because Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold wore Goth-like fashion, demonstrated technological sophistication, and were social outcasts, each of those characteristics came to be suspect in other students; the combination became a dreaded stereotype. “We needed to know who was a good guy and who was a bad guy, and nerds and geeks seemed to be mostly in the enemy camp,” psychologist David Anderegg observed. Columbine “changed the world in many ways but one of the most immediate ways was a nationwide persecution of Goths, nerds, geeks, and perceived misfits of all kinds. . . . The nationwide panic that set in after Columbine had all the characteristics of a witch hunt.”

  Panicked and pressured to implement politically expedient measures to prevent further massacres, schools mobilized to root out potential killers. Administrators across the country began identifying students who were “different,” and then proceeded to “keep them under surveillance, remove them from the school, or subject them to intensive therapy until they are able to be like everybody else,” social psychologist Elliot Aronson detailed in Nobody Left to Hate. Further, schools enlisted students in the campaign. “By asking the ‘normal’ students to point out the ‘strange’ ones,” Aronson wrote, schools were “making a bad situation worse by implicitly sanctioning the rejection and exclusion of a sizable group of students whose only sin is unpopularity.” Within short order, schools were expelling outcasts simply for being outcasts.

  More than ten years after the massacre, that attitude has not disappeared. A semi-popular senior in Maryland described emos to me as “the ones you point out during a boring class when you and your friends play the ‘who’s most likely to bring a gun to school’ game.” When I met with editors to propose this book, one of the first subtopics one of them suggested was the “danger” of outcasts, as in “when good outcasts go bad.”

  From one perspective, the evil outcast theory may have seemed sound. When the masses send impressionable youth to conceal in dark corners the activities they should be comfortable if not proud to exhibit in the open—expressing exuberance, watching anime, building robot models, dressing uniquely, playing games, reading for pleasure, loving someone of the same gender—they seal off crucial outlets. If you contain a force of energy in a tightly enclosed space, eventually the container will explode. So, too, the emotions of a stifled teenager. Especially when that teenager is being tormented day after day. Like Annmarie. Like Blue.

  When the pain of losing the club he founded was still raw and Herman and his followers were rubbing salt into his wounds, Blue unwittingly found himself thinking about how much he wanted to kill them. He had a passing daydream about taking his former friends and Mr. Pakaki “into the desert, with a CZ 75 in my pocket, bullets in their heads.” When he admitted this, months later, we talked about this feeling more in-depth. “I know very well how much the anger welling up inside me could hurt somebody. But sometimes I feel that it’s too much to contain,” Blue said. “I’m scared of myself in a way. It’s not that I’m going to hurt somebody that I worked hard on getting to know. It’s that I don’t know what would happen, but I do know something would. And it could be violent. It could be anything, really.”

  “Should I be concerned?” I asked.

  “I’m confident in myself that I have enough self-control, really,” Blue concluded. “Those [thoughts] are just really annoying.”

  The error in the evil-outcast theory is that it assumes that only social outcasts can develop into Columbine-like killers. Identifying the outcasts and tossing them out of schools is akin to singling out a Middle Eastern passenger for extra airport security screening, or stopping a driver because he’s Latino. Just because a kid listens to screamo doesn’t mean he’s angry. Just because she plays Warhammer doesn’t mean she’s violent. Just because her face is pierced doesn’t mean she’s disrespectful. Just because he wears all black doesn’t mean he’s sad. This practice is what I call outcast profiling. It is counterproductive, it is bad policy, and it is discriminatory.

  I selected a handful of popular students who appeared to be well-adjusted and asked them a delicate question: “Have you at any time daydreamed, fantasized, or even had just a passing thought about physically hurting someone at school?” A surprising number answered yes. “When I’m really mad at someone,” answered a Midwestern female jock. “At least once a day,” said a popular Louisiana boy.

  Even the students whose popular cliques ruled their schools answered affirmatively. “Most definitely,” said a Canadian queen bee. “The thoughts are mostly fleeting but they’re there, usually about hurting losers or bitchy girls.” A Southern boy who dominated his high school said, “I used to think about pushing people I didn’t like down the stairs, just because I could. Kids tend to think about using aggression to solve a lot of problems and popular kids, I think, tend to be a little egotistical, and that leads to thinking you can hurt other people without retribution. At least I did.”

  Sometimes it’s the populars, the kids who seem to have it all, who are struggling with the most explosive issues, forcing them down beneath a smooth-as-plastic surface where they percolate impatiently, biding time. A mid-Atlantic overachiever said she often thought about hurting people at school. When I asked her to elaborate, she said, “The needs of students are often ignored by the administration. Violence is a way to get people to notice that you’re angry, sad, or scared, so it definitely crosses my mind. Often, the kids labeled ‘at risk’ are the only ones on adults’ radar, which isn’t fair; everyone can have terrible things happen in their life, regardless of what kind of person they are. I’ve thought about using violence to make others feel guilty for how they treated me, even though rationally I know this will do more harm than help. But it still crosses my mind when I’m in tears after an unnecessary comment or lying awake unable to sleep because of anxiety regarding school.”

  Recent studies have called the link between relational aggression and perceived popularity “robust” and “remarkable.” Psychologists point out that high-status cliques teach the exclusionary behavior that may be the foundation for eventual racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry.

  Eric Harris, one of the two Columbine murderers, had a secret too. He wasn’t raised in Columbine; his family moved there from Plattsburgh, New York, where he played soccer and Little League baseball, earned good grades, and was a boy scout. In Plattsburgh, administrators would not have singled out Harris as a potential school shooter. Harris’s secret? Before he moved to Colorado, he was popular.

  Chapter 7

  MISPERCEPTIONS

  REGAN, GEORGIA | THE WEIRD GIRL

  At a Diversity Committee meeting, Regan announced that she wanted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance.

  “A what?” asked another teacher.

  “A Gay-Straight Alliance,” Regan repeated.

  “Ah.” The teacher rolled his eyes.

  “I’d love to start one, but because I’m leaving after this year, I can’t start it alone,” Regan continued. She asked if anyone would be interested in helping her. The committee members either stared at her or looked down. No one an
swered.

  WHEN A FRIEND FROM college gave Regan money to get a new tattoo, her excitement was a welcome contrast to the helplessness she felt in school. “I’m here for a tattoo!” Regan announced to the guy behind the tattoo shop desk. She opened the book on the counter and pointed to a banner presenting the word Love. “I basically want this, but instead I want it to say SXE.” She detailed a few other changes. The guy gave her a clipboard and told her to fill out a form.

  Crystal was sitting on a couch, playing with her phone. “So, explain this to me again,” she said.

  “It stands for ‘Straight Edge,’ ” Regan replied. “Basically, no smoking, no drinking, no drugs.”

  When Regan had first identified as Straight Edge, after learning about the movement in middle school, she felt validated by the label. She believed that if she could explain her anti-substance lifestyle in one word, she would avoid excessive pressure from classmates. In high school and college, when she was invited to parties or offered alcohol, she simply said, “I’m Edge,” and students accepted her answer.

  Unlike at James Johnson, where colleagues mocked Regan for not drinking, many other people had told her how much they admired her commitment to a substance-free lifestyle. A friend who was married to a Rasta said that Regan inspired her to stop drinking and smoking. In college, a member of Regan’s theater group thanked her for being Straight Edge because, although he wasn’t, he didn’t enjoy drinking. “It’s nice to have someone sober to hang out with at cast parties,” he said.

  In fact, Regan initially had bonded with her best friend, whom she met in college, because neither of them drank. Instead of going to fraternity parties on weekends, they hung out with other SXE girls who went to art museums, plays, dance performances, ethnic restaurants, and sometimes just for walks around town (all activities that Regan enjoyed now with Crystal). Though Regan and her best friend, who still lived in Vermont, had since found additional reasons that made them believe they were “BFF soul mates,” it was the SXE connection that first kindled their friendship.

  A heavily inked tattoo artist called Regan’s name. She wiped her hands on her jeans. In the back room, Crystal rolled her chair to Regan’s side and grabbed her hand. Regan heard the whiz of the needle. She took a deep breath.

  The series of sensations Regan experienced while getting a tattoo never varied. The first few times the gun brushed her skin, it didn’t hurt at all. Typically her nervous anticipation of the process was worse than the reality. After a while, though, the outlining would become painful. Regan closed her eyes. She usually didn’t have company when she got a tattoo. She let go of Crystal’s hand, opting instead to grip the wooden back of the chair as she usually did. She peeked at her pelvis. The tattoo artist had barely begun. Oh, God, Regan thought, and laid her head on her arms.

  By the time the artist began the coloring stage, Regan was used to the sting. Coloring was uncomfortable, like cat scratches, except when the gun traveled over a bone, which made Regan wince. Then the artist had to go over a spot multiple times, rubbing already open wounds with a needle. Just when Regan was ready for the process to end, the artist would begin adding his own flair to the piece, embellishing details, darkening a shade, adding color.

  Regan had waited until adulthood to get the Straight Edge tattoo because, she said, “I’ve known too many Straight Edge kids who get SXE tattoos and then stop being SXE. Then they feel stupid and regret the tattoo. I figured when I got older, I’d stop holding on to the title so tightly. I thought it’d be better to wait so that the tattoo was a celebration of how being SXE has positively affected my life rather than an affirmation of my SXE pride.” For similar reasons, she had waited until age twenty to get any tattoos at all.

  ______

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF PRESSURE

  Drug and alcohol peer pressure today is not the “It’ll make you feel real good” variety that cracked up students during assemblies in the “Just Say No” era. It’s both more subtle and more blatant a nudge. Because social events among the popular crowd seem to involve drinking and/or recreational drug use, willingness to participate can directly affect social status. “It’s really down to the people that drink and the people that don’t,” a “weird kid” said about social divisions at her Georgia private school. “And then it goes to whether they’re on a sports team or not (and if they’re good). And if they go to parties or even get invited.”

  Alcohol and drug use often become a means for students to try to prove that they can manage a social life in addition to schoolwork, sports, or other extracurriculars, without seeming stressed about maintaining a balance. A popular Pennsylvania junior tried smoking weed and a hookah for this reason. “I did it because I wanted to be able to say I had done so,” she said.

  Students are trying alcohol at younger ages, which means the pressure to imbibe can start early. Lana, now a junior, was part of the popular clique in her Chicago middle school—until she refused to drink. “On the south side, you start drinking around seventh or eighth grade and if you don’t, you’re considered a huge loser. My dad’s an alcoholic, though, so drinking was never a big thing on my list. But I wanted to be popular, so I’d pretend to drink at parties,” Lana said. When her friends realized she wasn’t drinking, they kicked her out of the group. To get back in their good graces, she started to smoke marijuana. She was twelve.

  Some students are able to resist the pressure because classmates are accustomed to them doing their own thing. An offbeat junior in Washington, D.C., was not happy with her group’s plans to drive to the homecoming dance after pregaming. (Pregaming, a term that refers to drinking socially before an event, trickled down to high schools several years ago.) Consequently, she ditched her group, including her date, and instead went out to dinner with a friend. “I’m not a Mormon; I don’t mind drinking,” she said. “It’s the drinking and driving that bugs me, and that everyone feels they have to pregame a school event.”

  Other students have been harassed for being brave enough to challenge the perceived norm. Cindy, a bookworm in Syracuse, was distressed to see her best friend, Becca, a straight-A student and an athlete, use drugs. Concerned, she wrote Becca a letter, saying she wasn’t “going to stand by and watch [her] kill herself” and that their friendship was “going to be [her] first consequence of drugs,” although she would be available if Becca needed help. Becca mocked the letter in front of crowds at school.

  As a result, when Cindy opened her locker, pro-marijuana pamphlets spilled out. She had to change her phone number to stop the prank calls. Students whom Cindy once counted as friends texted her death threats. “You’re an awful person who makes everyone feel like shit,” one text said. “You’re not leaving school unless it’s in a body bag,” said another. (“It’s amazing how creatively sixteen-year-old girls will come up with ways to kill you,” Cindy told me.) At school, someone tried to push her down the stairs, but she caught herself on the railing.

  Before long, Cindy was spending weekend nights alone. “Drinking is such a social event that if you don’t go, you’re an outcast,” she said. The only girl who came to Cindy’s defense was equally vilified. “You should just go kill yourself; the world would be better off without you, since you’re friends with that bitch,” a girl texted Cindy’s friend. Another wrote, “You are a whore who deserves to be shot and killed because you’re sticking with Cindy.”

  When Cindy asked a guidance counselor for help, the counselor told her, “Keep your thoughts to yourself about drugs and alcohol.” Becca lost her scholarship to a prestigious college and moved in with her twentysomething boyfriend, an alleged drug dealer. Her mother found the letter that Cindy had written to her. She apologized to Cindy for her daughter’s behavior. “You’re the best friend Becca ever had,” the mother said.

  Many students told me that drinking and drugs have become so prevalent that teenagers who abstain are the rare exception. “The drinking divide is one of the biggest ones in our school,” said Bethany, considered “a
good girl” at her Connecticut public school. When Bethany began dating her first serious boyfriend, a popular guy, she felt pressured to go to the populars’ parties. She wasn’t a drinker, but at her first party, she had a beer. At school that Monday, people treated Bethany differently. Popular students high-fived her. Soccer teammates were pleased she “wasn’t the good girl they’d imagined,” Bethany said. “I felt awful [for caving in]. But almost everyone drinks, and if you don’t, you’re considered weird or awkward.”

  Bethany’s assumption, a view that students echoed repeatedly to me, may be the key to helping teenagers resist the pressure they are so sure is inescapable. Why? Because that premise is absolutely incorrect.

  Teenage drinking has been declining since 1999, but students vastly overestimate their classmates’ use of alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. For example, a study conducted at a Midwestern high school when teenage alcohol use was peaking found that students believed that 92 percent of their peers drank alcohol and 85 percent smoked cigarettes. When researchers surveyed the school to unearth the actual statistics, they learned that 47 percent of students had consumed alcohol and 17 percent smoked. (Another study led by the same researcher noted that parents and teachers also significantly overestimated student use.) Even college students wildly overestimate the frequency and amount that peers drink.