Like a lot of other people in this country, I am going to college. But I am one of the rare people that are actually going to college out of my parents and grandparents money, which they were SMART and have been saving since I was born. During the high economic times of the 1990s and the 2000s, instead of spending it on things to make HIGH SCHOOL popularity such as cell phones, and cool clothes, they were stuffing it in the bank. They were making a sacrifice - buy your kid into high school popularity or save up money to go to college so you can have POPULARITY in adulthood. They think that popularity really should be when you are an adult, not in high school, because they have different beliefs about high school.
Back then, there was a different standard of cool in high school. High school coolness was more about the personality or keeping up with the latest trends; or it was expressing your uniqueness, not buying your self into coolness as it was in the last decade. To be cool in the 2000s, you had to wear Hollister and Abercrombie in order to fit in, or you are a misfit. And kids were not that friendly to the poor kid who has personality like they did back then. Back in the old days, as I heard from my parents, a special ed kid could be cool because of his personality, but in the 2000s, it is all about the bucks.
This recession is doing a good thing in changing our values and we are not going to be as materialistic as we were in the last 20 years or so. We are not going to be as mall minded and we might go back to the older days of high school success, which is more what you do than how much money you have. It will be easy to fit in but I think there is going to be a different status than we had in the last 20 years or so.
I notice college is starting to get pretty dead - on Tuesday and Thursday in the college I go to, all you see is a bunch of older people going into the trades. Online classes are going to become more and more common. College is so not cool anymore. But I am going to college and I am going to college right.
My parents don't have a thing with high school popularity, but they want this more "screw you " attitude when it comes for people who don't have high school popularity. I don't think they were valuing popularity in high school because they think high school popularity is a bunch of BS. They have a thing that they rather see me have it tough in high school, so I can have some purpose to my success as an adult. Usually the ones that have it tough in high school are the most successful as adults. But they are making sure I am coming out of college with some degree that will make me successful with the money, so I can "STICK IT" to them. But I don't have that "stick it" attitude; I am pretty conformist, since I haven't really left HIGH SCHOOL. I am focusing too much on the popularity in college which is going to be hard to obtain because college people, especially the older students, have a different attitude about college than in high school. In this day of age, popularity is not a big deal anymore because we are in an "individualist" (something I learned from college). society. We are not as big with fitting in as other societies. What matters in adulthood is not really the conformist, high school popularity BS - it is having MONEY and being RICH, and it is usually probably some misfit from high school. That's what's the American Dream is all about - you are not placed in a caste system all your life. When you are poor and not cool, you will always be poor and not cool.
This is what my parents want me to have - "adult popularity". They think this high school popularity is piddly junk that really don't matters. Adult popularity is a lot more different than high school popularity - it seems like these days that you are predetermined by your parents where you are going to be in high school social status which is think is not fair. If mommy wants little Timmy to be popular, she will make sure she will have the right friends and the cool clothes, etc. But in the adult world, you get to choose your social status and that's what my parents want from me to get some money so I can finally have social status myself. Back then, you were popular because of other reasons, but we have parents controlling friendships and all that good stuff. This is the result of being packed like sardines you have a clique system established which I think is not fair.
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