After my interview...

I wanted this interview to be a little more personal - a little more real. I wanted to hear from someone who just recently left high school what they remember about cliques. I ended up interviewing a friend of mine from high school – Taylor Hayo. For starters, she defined a clique as “a group of people who all seem to be the same in interests and in looks; ‘the jocks’ ‘ the popular girls’ ‘ the nerds’ ‘the art kids’ … groups like that.” It’s interesting to not how she does not just focus her definition on girls in general, or even popular kids; it’s a definition that could be assigned to a number of different groups in high school. Taylor even comes out and says that she automatically thinks of the popular girls. She told me that “every type of person in high school falls into one group or another, whether they mean to or not. Sometimes high school defines who you are without you really knowing yourself.” When asked about whether she had ever met a “Queen B,” she said that ever school has the girl that’s a little more popular than the other, and there’s always going to be mixed feelings about her – because she’s basically nice to the people she wants to be nice to. It should be noted that this could tie into the paradox of popularity – the member of the clique must continue to be nice to maintain her popularity. I wish she would have elaborated a little more on the positive and negative aspects she’s witnessed or heard of when it comes to the popular girl. Even though Taylor believes that cliques lead more to popularity than to ostracism, she also said that the “wannabe” cliques also “need their place to fit in and feel that they can be themselves.” This is a good point to make. Maybe if the so-called popular kids stop distancing themselves from the “lesser” students so much, and just let them be whatever they want to be, the idea of ostracism in high school could be diminished. She also said she has never heard of any groups working against female aggression in cliques… maybe providing insight that it is not a wide-spread concern.