High school (last 3 years): We had different levels of ‘cool kids’. There were the popular, well-off, highly driven A student types who were in most cases legitimately cool (and were afforded that status, surprisingly enough). There were the violent criminals, who thought of themselves as the cool kids. Then the usual stuff - band kids, caff kids, drama kids, goth kids, etc. - all ‘not cool’ in the eyes of many (they’d be wrong, but kids are stupid).

Then you had us - the smoke pit kids, and within that my subgroup, the military brat skids/stoners and their associates. In some ways we were kind of our own thing - pretty well liked, associated freely among all the other groups, never given much shit from would-be bullies because we’d return it in kind, etc. It was kinda nice, we all had friends and good natured relations throughout different cliques.

Middle school (late)/High school (early): I was one of the most popular boys in my age bracket, city-wide. To this day I have no real answer as to why, aside from solidly hitting puberty at like 11-12 and a very early 2000s pop-punk, unthreatening fashion sense. It was cool in some respects, but weird as fuck in others (e.g. girls I’ve never met coming to my house; suicide threat because I danced with one girl and not another; friends older sisters becoming very interested in me; people recognizing and knowing a crapton about me when I had literally never met them before; parents coming to me saying 'Oh, I’ve heard so much about you from (kid x)", etc.). I’ve always kind of wondered what high school would’ve been like if I didn’t move shortly after.

Middle school (early, different province): Nerd who would beat the crap out of someone who wanted to fuck around (wrestling packed on some muscle). Unpopular but less so than elementary school.

Elementary: Giant fuckin’ nerd. Decidedly unpopular.