Were there cliques when you went to high school?

I graduated in 1999 and cliques were still around then. Now there were no popular kids. I believe that is a myth about high school but I'm not for sure. There may very well be some at other high schools but at mine, that was never true.

We had the "Snotty Preppies" who liked to dress stylishly and be involved in all the sports and clubs. They also obviously liked to act like they were better than other people. What I found weird about them is that 1) they seem to know the "Preps" that inhabited the other high schools in town. 2) I don't know about the ones at the other schools but at my high school, they liked to dress in that certain manner and pass themselves off as if they came from money but it was all for show. There might have been a few that actually did come from upper, upper-middle class but the rest were all from regular middle class and just trying to be something they weren't. What's funny is that everybody else knew about their secret and were either laughing or rolling their eyes behind their backs, basically saying "Who do you think you're fooling?" Hence the name "Prep." We do have rich people in my hometown and their kids most definitely DID NOT go to school where I went to. We have at least two known high schools that are in the "rich" areas and one academy so go figure.

Then there were the "Country Rednecks" that all came from the small towns way out and obviously all knew one another. The girls in that group were of the "slutty kind." The guys, it was all about hunting, fishing, getting drunk, mud-riding, fighting, etc. These people, you could just tell which areas in town they lived in, especially by the way they dressed and carried themselves.

Then there were the blacks, ahem "ghetto blacks." They obviously had the ghetto talk and tried to act ghetto or look ghetto or WERE ACTUALLY from the ghetto. They also pretty much kept to themselves and actually did segregate themselves from us "white people." All you had to do was go into the lunchroom and you'd see it. Bad thing is, they did it themselves. Nobody told them to do it. They WANTED TO BE SEPARATE. The regular black folk that acted normal and not ghetto didn't want to be anywhere near them either. They found friends with us "white people" and did their own thing.

And then there were what I always liked to call the "alternative-hippy-freaks." This was the 90's so you know, the whole "grunge-alternative-goth" look and they were obviously all about getting drunk and smoking pot and doing all the other drugs and trying to find out when the next rave/party was, and such.

That was it. Anybody else was independent and did their own thing. I was one of those and liked to call myself a "social butterfly" at the time because I had my friends yet I also knew and had friends in all of these cliques at one time or another. I just had the smarts not to get involved in one because I have always believed it does not do you any good in the long run.

I just wanted to share what it was like at my high school during the years of 1996-1999.