A message to popular kids today

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

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One of those mysteries that I will never solve observing America from the outside is just how much high school resembles its fictional counterpart.

Interestingly the more I learn over the years, the more the answer seems to be “much more so than I ever thought possible”.

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Indeed. Blissful, isn’t it?

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Call it the Al Bundy complex.

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I thought the TV and movie depiction of cheerleaders was some sort of ridiculous caricature until I emigrated to the US and my flight happened to be carrying a group of them returning to the US after visiting Europe.

I also thought manhole covers giving off steam was a metaphor and not an actual thing.

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So much this. It boggles my mind.

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There is always a career in politics. Your lack of human empathy will be a positive asset.

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I had a friend was a big baseball player
back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
but all he kept talking about was

Chorus:
Glory days well they’ll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days

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A lot of American (and Canadian) cities still run on power that creates steam as a by-product that they then use for heating and the like.

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I used to have a smokin’ little fastball
I sure could show 'em some stuff
Now I can’t even make it on the
church team anymore
I guess I’m finally through foolin’ myself

Hang on just as long as you can
Get up whenever you fall
Shake it off, Boys, and go ‘round again
Don’t be hangin’ your life on the wall

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Art imitating life. John Hughes made his career doing this, and goes a long way to explain why his movies were so popular among the age group depicted therein.

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That’s not the case everywhere. Detroit’s manholes steam in the winter because the water in the pipes is warmer than the ambient temperature at street level. (Plus the dew point differential and relative humidity factor in, but now I’m getting too sciency.)

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A message that needed to be said.

For myself, still surprised that Kim(!) ended up as a hotel housekeeper. And yet, makes perfect sense.

As it turns out, pretty and cool are not an in-demand skill set.

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There ain’t no such thing.

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That said. This video is a bit disingenuous. Being popular and well connected is pretty much the only way to break into upper management in much of corporate America. The popular rich kids go on to be board members and the like. It’s not what you know, its who you know.

It’s the ones that are dumb and pretty that need to worry, because pretty doesn’t last forever.

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… true, but dumb is a perpetual source of income for preachers and the like.

Or, steam heat in Detroit too.
http://www.detroitthermal.com/

In our school system the circumstances were different from the average American school because secondary school was divided into tracks and in ours college was the clear default. But I agree. In our case executives are definitely overrepresented among the popular kids and I am pretty sure there is a significant positive correlation between popularity and economic success in later life.

Hold on, I was deeply unpopular and nerdy in high school. Where the fuck’s my yacht?

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It also happens in Ann Arbor, not on campus, where there are exactly zero steam tunnels. Just sewers.

What a damned clunky website you’ve linked to. :frowning: