prurience

Funny, as we were leaving the theater tonight I said to Magpie, "Okay, now I officially know I'm old. Watching the scenes in the bedroom, mostly what I was thinking was 'This is creepy and wrong. They're children!'"

Also, thank fucking GOD high school is long past.

I can't stand to watch movies like this. Too many bad memories.

I went to my high school reunion last weekend and I realized that to the extent I feel any nostalgia for my youth, it's for college and immediately post-college, not high school. A lot of people there had not exactly peaked in high school, but were hanging a lot more tightly on to that part of the past than I ever did. It was kind of weird.

iether my maturity is stunted, or my morality is. i like them for the funniness.

They're better than stories abotu adulthood, becuase old peoples responsibilities are inherently less about the human condition than teenage socilizing is.

yoyo wins tonight's Sausagely prize. Or Becks-style?

I say 20% nostalgia, 40% schadenfreude, and 40% prurience. I had a depressingly uneventful adolescence.

I would roughly agree with Bave's percentages. Definitely, the humiliation factor was very high in this film, so humiliphobes should stay away. I am not easily embarrassed watching movies and I put my hands over my eyes several times.

I forget where I commented that teenagers' bodies are not supposed to appear like 20-somethings', as in Transformers, but all puppyish and stuff. Here, there was definitely play between the fundamental concept of the film (how porn skews teens' ideas of what others want from sex) and what was shown in the film, which was somewhat like humiliation-fetish-porn.

These movies make no sense to me. Or rather, such sense as these movies make is derived from other movies of the same type. For whatever reason, my social brain is fucked: I was a serially monogamous mack in high school, right from 9th grade. This spilled over into my very early twenties, at which point I reverted to the geek I've always been.

In other weirdly personal movie updates: I just saw Pan's Labyrinth for the first time, and get this: the ten year old girl protagonist looks just like me. Without the blemishes and extra weight etc... But still, creepy to watch. Good movie though.

I guess that's why I liked this one a lot more than others, FM. It's a very revisionist take on the "dudes totally trying to score" plot, with guys who are really interested in women they like and respect, but don't feel like they can say that without sounding lame. And it's pretty fair about the women, too, who are capable of being just as misguided about saying what they mean.

I never tend to see any of my (constantly, painfully badly flirting) teen self in teen movies, but this one hit quite a bit closer.

I really liked high school -- although the only high school movie that resembles my life is Gregory's Girl (naturally) -- but I enjoyed college a lot more.

That saying, I'd *love* it if my high school held a reunion. I'm really quite different from the way I was in high school and it would be interesting to see how much other people had changed.

Extra schadenfreude for Superbad, because it was almost pure comedy, and comedy runs on suffering, foiled ambition, and vulnerability.

That's one reason why Adam Sandler's so consistently bad. His character spends all his time showing the squares what for. A Mary Sue can work in an action movie, but it kills a comedy.

How close are other teen movies to this one, though? I've only seen the John Hughes stuff in parts on cable, and skipped the JLH stuff of my generation. Seems almost wrong to put them under the same umbrella.

Noone else had inappropriately high self esteem in adolescence?

now that you asked, it stopped me from doing all the things in life i'd have liked to, but it makes it easier to laugh at other's pain.

at least for me, the sine qua non of adolescence was a self-satisfied arrogance/esteem, precariously threatened by constant fear of its loss, fashioned as it was on external factors.

unfortunatly, the art that comes of my sort is the blase 'tortured inner lives of the uppper middle wankers' fiction that fills most bookstores

I don't know quite why, but I rarely seem to find high school focused movies or tv particularly interesting.

I thought about going to my high school reunion. The thought ran something like: "This invitation would have been a lot more useful if it had arrived before the reunion took place."

i don't really plan on going to my ruinion, mostly becaues most of my best friends were a year younger than me.

college, most were a year older.

i live in the NOW, baby

Teen movies are often annoying because the actors cast as teenagers are usually in their early twenties. I'm not sure why this is (it's not like there aren't child actors, so it can't be just an age thing), but the upshot seems to be that the American idea of what a teenaged boy looks like is more muscular than they have the testosterone to look and the girls just look too old. (Cordelia on Buffy is nearly thirteen years older than her character.)

I can't deal well with humiliation comedy too well, but I think it's around 10% nostalgia, 70% schadenfreude, and 20% prurience. Especially if it's an ensemble cast; there's always one really pretty girl.

my ruinion,
IIf my high school had one of these, I would go.

Mine is two months away. I'm kind of excited, and I realize that part of it is that I am significantly more interesting and better-put-together than I ever was in adolescence, and the people I've kept up with in HS are those who have grown and changed for the better, too. I sometimes wonder if we'll all apologize to each other--not for mean things, but for the kind of awkward stupid things done out of desire/confusion. Probably not, but this is what movies have taught me to expect.

I recently ran into a woman whom I and my two friends had been absolutely beastly to about 50 years ago, when she was about 8 and I was about 11. It was bad enough that her parents talked to our parents about it, which doesn't really happen that often around here. She seemed to be doing very well and seemed happy to see me, for reasons I still don't understand since we scarcely knew one another otherwise.

For some reason, I think it feels good to see people you used to hate but no longer do. People didn't fuck with me in HS, but in elementary, I had it really bad. Honestly, though, the kinds of things that happened, that seemed so violent and cruel at the time? It's a relief to realize what a small thing it was, now.

Maybe that's what's so charming about certain aspects of teen movies. They always contain scenes of abject social humiliation, and a lot of people can relate to/laugh at their pain, but while also recognizing that it is not the same thing as real adult pain. It's not like laughing at torture or death or poverty, which would be cruel. Schadenfreude, yeah, but of an acutely felt and nostalgic sense because we wish asking someone to a dance was our biggest problem as adults.

12: Say it ain't so, Natter Tam! I had cherished a fond hope that the movie your adolescence most closely resembled was Small Faces (Gillies MacKinnon, 1996) -- but I guess that wouldn't have been very pleasant for you. What's the opposite of schadenfreude?

I have yet to see a teen movie that's even remotely recognizable as something I could have experienced in HS. Although this makes me nostalgic for a certain kind of jaded innocence peculiar to exurban youth of the nineties and oughts (which I never personally experienced) that I suspect is doomed to expire shortly, never to reappear.

Although, obviously, I realize that you were a generation too late to be a Scottish Mod gangster.

It's never too late. Live the dream!

re: 23

I'd have to be a lot older to have lived in the period Small Faces represents. My dad grew up in the Gorbals around that time and that milieu -- the Tongs, razor gangs, etc -- is his rather than mine.

Gregory's Girl is nearer my period (although when it was filmed I was only 9). Also, it was filmed in Cumbernauld, which is only about 15 miles from where I grew up. Finally, I once went out on a (not very successful) date with D/ee H/epburn's niece. How's that for a claim to fame, eh?

However, don't let your hopes be completely dashed. I do have a couple of facial scars where I had the crap beaten out of me a few times in my teens and I went to uni with a guy who'd been razor'd by an east end Glasgow gangster. So there are Small Faces elements in there!

A universally despised guy (nerd, bad hygiene, homely, inept) from my college freshman class returned to a different school at age 30 to finish up his BS, and there he became a hip BMOC with groupies and everything.

I don't usually like teen movies, or even comedies in general, but Superbad caught my attention because the I always thought that kid from Arrested Development was so damned funny. Glad to hear it was good.

I hated high school, but have a blessedly sparse memory of it, so it's mostly the dislike of humiliation comedy in principle (I can't sit through a Ben Stiller movie), rather than personal bad memories, that make teen movies uncomfortable.

I just kinda love high school movies, period. I love the tension of mandatory attendance and lack of autonomy, with all the hormones running wild. Teachers and principals to writhe under and resent. Be all angst-ridden. College movies are boring because the kids can do whatever they want. You don't have to furtively smoke pot behind the dumpster while talking shit about your phys ed teacher, you can just sleep in every day and smoke pot every boring day in and boring day out.

My twenty year high school reunion will be next year. I haven't been back to any prior reunions, and I'm not sure I want to go to this one -- I think the odds are the people I liked won't be the ones who show, and high school wasn't a great time for me.

My dad went to his first reunion half expecting it to be awkward or gratifying as people who were mean apologized to him, only to discover that no one really remembered being cruel. It was more important to him than it had been to them.

re: 31

I think that's quite typical.

On the very rare occasions I am back in my home village or the nearby town, and I bump into people I didn't particularly like at school, or who I thought didn't like me, they seem genuinely quite pleased to see me.

We didn't have a ten-year reunion. I was disappointed.

I have a horribly embarrassing story -- I may have told it here before -- of running into a guy from my high school on the street when I was in law school, and not being able to come up with his name. He was very friendly and 'let's catch up', and I couldn't for the life of me get his name back (I knew who he was, just not his name), and he first thought I was teasing him, and then got offended. Never did tell me his name.

I feel kind of terrible about it, which is weird, given that he was distinctly more popular, or however you rank social importance, than I back in high school.

I think you set the bar low for "horribly embarrassing".

I really, really dislike feeling as though I'm being cruel to people, and I walked away from the encounter feeling as though I'd deliberately set out to make the guy feel small and unimportant.

You can just sleep in every day and smoke pot every boring day in and boring day out.

This is only true of slackers who coast through studying math. Some of us studied cultural studies and other hard stuff.

LB is a nice Catholic girl, though she tries to deny it.

That would explain the crippling burden of guilt.

re: 36

I have a friend who is completely brazen about that sort of thing.

"Shit, man. This is really really embarrassing, but I just can't remember your name, that's terrible, eh?"

Then he makes a joke about it and moves on. It usually works, too.

I really, really dislike feeling as though I'm being cruel to people,

I'm totally nit-picking, but I'd still call this "horribly unpleasant", not "horribly embarrassing".

Ttam, yeah, you mentioned your dad growing up in (the?) Gorbals before, but I like to imagine Scotland reappearing every few years with all of its nostalgic cultural cues permanently intact. (This includes everything from Rosemary Sutcliff's vikings to Irvine Welsh's schmeckers.)

Also, now that I think about it, Election (Alexander Payne, 1999) isn't really that far off from my HS experience in a lot of ways. Of course, real life isn't so dramatic, but the characterizations are dead on.

I don't run into too many classmates, despite living a mile from my high school. It's weird to see some of them on MySpace, scattered all over the planet, looking all grown up or still strangely youthful. I'm sure that, given the milieu that many of them grew up in, every couple of months that go by produce a new grandparent in our cohort. At least 3 of them are Rollergirls now. Only a couple have died, to my certain knowledge. I'm sure a depressingly high number are in prison.

But back on-topic, does anyone here really dig the humiliation-comedy genre? If so, why? (Serious question.) Is it just schadenfreude, or some kind of alchemically transmuted sympathy, or the absurdity of the situations? I've never really been able to grok what most people get out of films and television programs that rely so heavily on humiliation for their laughs. (The fact that I occasionally use the word "grok" may have something to do with this.)

Re: the Gorbals, isn't there a one-word name for the kind of place name that includes a definite article (e.g. the Ukraine, the Congo, the Gorbals etc.)? Or did I just make that up completely in my head?

does anyone here really dig the humiliation-comedy genre?

Depends how it's done. It can certainly get to be too much, so I'm not trying to stick up for the entire genre. But I'll take a stab at answering why it works, when it works for me.

It works for me when I'm clear that the actor is in on the joke. There have been movies that I did not think were funny the first time, then I saw the actor talk about the movie, and then I found it funny. I like the genre when I'm appreciating that Napoleon Dynamite is cocking his head like that deliberately to maximize how awkward he is.

I really don't enjoy humiliation comedies like "Dumb and Dumber" or "Trailer Park Boys". They remind me of too many people I've known, over two generations.

When the actor truly convinces me that they're suffering, it ceases to be funny. It can be something else, then, like in Welcome To The Dollhouse, which is an awesome movie, but a little too dark to be funny.

I hate humiliation (I don't watch reality shows at all, because it sets off the same reaction) but I get why it's so popular. The reaction to humiliation is a strong emotional reaction that's easy to set off; while you need good writing and acting to make me feel anything else for characters in a drama, you can make me wince and cover my eyes very easily. So for anyone who gets any pleasure out of it at all, it's a big button that's very easy to press for a satisfying jolt of emotion.

re: 43

Bad-ass?

I'm totally nit-picking

We don't put up with that here, heebie.

34: I think you got cheated in this exchange of offense and guilt. What kind of a wanker gets all mad because you can't remember his name? Jesus. I'm pretty much like ttaM's friend. Just saying I can't remember shit has the advantage of being true, and so if the person gets burnt about it, there was never really anything to be done about it anyway.

What remains problematic, though, is recognizing faces without knowing where from. I just recently saw someone on the subway whom I'd known in college and haven't seen since. But I looked at her and thought, "god, she looks familiar. someone I see in the halls at work? someone from my grad school institution? someone from the cape? someone from my long ago past?" By the time I figued out who it was, she was long gone and I was already up on the street. I saw that she recognized me, too, but because I couldn't connect her to a context, I didn't stop and do the "do I know you?" thing. Still kicking myself.

I apologized to someone at my h.s. reunion, and he was extremely gracious and pretended not to even remember what I was talking about.

I loved my h.s. reunion. All the quiet geeky people had grown into fabulous and fascinating adults, all the popular people had kind of stayed put and were still just as nice and gracious as ever, some guy who'd been on the football team and who I had no memory of confessed that he'd been totally in love with me all the way through h.s., and I got laid. What's not to love?

I'm actually not getting the nitpick. A situation is unpleasant if I'm not enjoying it, but embarrassing if I'm not enjoying it because I'm in the wrong. And not being able to recall whatsisface's name put me squarely in the wrong when his feelings were hurt.

Unfogged is the Olympic breeding grounds for the nit-picking event.

re: 50

yeah, I do that a lot. I saw a girl on the bus yesterday. She even sat directly in front of me and made brief eye contact. I couldn't place her.

It was only when I got off the bus I realized who she was, the long-term girlfriend of a former colleague and someone I've actually had a beer with only a year or so ago.

When conceptual lice break out worldwide, we'll be ready.

but embarrassing if I'm not enjoying it because I'm in the wrong. And not being able to recall whatsisface's name put me squarely in the wrong when his feelings were hurt.

I don't think you're in the wrong for not being able to recall his name. That's an exceedingly human failing.

Either you demand perfect memory from yourself, in which case...uh...I guess this would be embarrassing, or you wish you could have remembered his name, and since you forgot, the situation became unpleasant.

But a situation doesn't have to be my fault for me to be 'in the wrong' enough to be embarrassed. I'm in a restaurant, and a waiter drops a plate of spaghetti all over me -- not my fault at all. I'm still embarrassed to walk through the restaurant covered in tomato sauce, because walking around covered in tomato sauce is socially frowned on.

It wouldn't be wrong of me to not be embarrassed, but the emotion I feel is going to be embarrassment regardless of whether I actually bear responsibility for the situation.

re: 55

Unfogged: home to the conceptual bonobos ...

And not being able to recall whatsisface's name put me squarely in the wrong when his feelings were hurt.

It's unfortunate, but you're not in the wrong. You did something perfectly human, with no intent to harm him. You're a strange bird, LB.

Yeah, LB, and his getting *offended* was a much worse violation than your not remembering the name of someone you knew years ago.

I agree that it does not matter if you're actually in the wrong or not. Also, I genuinely believe now that you found the experience horribly embarrassing. But I still think that's an unusually extreme reaction.

If you walk through the restaurant covered in spaghetti, it's embarrassing because you infer other people's perception of the situation.

If I forgot someone's name who I hadn't seen in years and hadn't been close to, I'd infer that they felt it was a very mild crime that could happen to anyone, and so I'd be mildly embarrassed.

I was horribly embarrassed when I'd become close to a student last fall, and she was in my class in the spring, and on the first day of class I blanked on her name. It was during a little gimmick where I learn everyone's name in ten minutes and recite them back to the class, and I pointed at her and totally blanked. She looked really hurt and said, "But...but you know me!"

Her name is ALYSSA! ALYSSA! ALYSSA!

59: Actually, looking back at that, I think we just understood the description of events differently. So: still strange, but not for the linked reason.

On the subject of making good by them you done wrong, I mostly have no desire at all to go to a high school reunion, but I do kind of wish I could show up with Mr. Crat on my arm and make it up to those poor girls from whom I confusingly (to them and me) witheld my affections.

One in particular nursed a potent and longrunning crush on me; the fact that she was unpopular (poor family) and the intensity of her attention sent me running desperately in the opposite direction. Years later it's obvious that she was a really smart and interesting kid, and we probably could have been great friends. What particularly hurts about that memory is that she was widely teased as being ugly, which she actually wasn't at all. I hate thinking that she internalized that, and that had I merely realized that the only trouble was my being a little homo, it would have saved us both a lot of grief.

the fact that she was unpopular (poor family)

This keeps making me chuckle, as in "Her poor family, having to deal with an unpopular girl. Poor them!"

"But...but you know me!"

hahaha, it's so bad. I've gotten so sensitive about my name/face memory that now I clutch just out of anxiety and occasionally lose names of people I know perfectly well and see daily. Now that IS kind of embarrassing.

63: You should totally email her. In retrospect, the little homos I chased and chased and just could *not* figure out why they were so squirrelly... sigh.

What remains problematic, though, is recognizing faces without knowing where from.

My mother once saw a guy with a guitar walking through the airport and was like "Shit! Where do I know that guy from? High school? College? Oh, this is driving me crazy. Was he in some boyfriend's band? Why is he avoiding eye contact with me, since he's obviously someone I know? How insulting!" Then a few minutes after she'd passed him she realized that it was Eric Clapton.

Hrmph. When I chased a little homo, I caught him. (Story in the archives.)

65: Likewise, I am always sure I am remembering the wrong name, even when I totally totally totally know the person's name. It's Bill. I'm sure it's Bill. Well I'm 99% sure. Just say his name. You never say his name when you run into him. I'm sure he's noticed. He thinks you don't know his name. You have to use his name this time. Say his name. Do it. "Hey, uhh..." Say Bill say Bill say Bill "...uhhh, how's it going?"

I've reached the age where *everybody* looks familiar, no matter whether I've met them previously.

67: I've heard of that as a common reaction to famous people. I was in a meeting with Gloria Steinem last year, and I did have the sense "Hey, that's Gloria, someone I know. I should go over and say hi," and had to be consciously sane about the fact that I don't know her, she's just famous.

Foxytail is Eric Clapton's love child? How embarrassing.

67 is so totally awesome.

Anyway, I have the best forgetting-a-name story ever. I forgot the name of one of the guests (the girlfriend of one of Mr. B.'s coworkers) at my own WEDDING. Just after she handed me a GIFT.

Nice.

71: I never talk to celebrities, but I have to admit that I would go up to GS and ask to shake her hand.

73: Yep, I too blanked on the name of at least one of my wife's coworkers at the wedding.

My views on highschool movies are deeply colored by the facts that:
a) I didn't go to highschool
b) I was more popular at a highschool age than I was in college
c) I was christian and so didn't date then

I think b brings up the nostalgia, while c brings up the prurience (I'm still surprisingly bitter about who I didn't hook up with in highschool). But a adds a completely different element to why I love highschool movies, they're silly windows into a world I'm still genuinely curious about, however much I know it's bad in real life.

64: heh, that is pretty funny. (I sort of did the same thing upthread, too: "What kind of a wanker gets all mad because you can't remember his name? Jesus. That's what kind of wanker, a wanker like Jesus.")

I included that detail (poor family) because when this girl came to mind many years later, I was horrified when I realized why she was so unpopular (she was seriously outcast, as in, no friends at all). Kids teased her for being obnoxious and ugly, but she was neither. She was a tomboy, usually wearing pants instead of dresses, she wasn't diffident like most of the girls, speaking often in class and on one memorable occasion getting into a physical fight with a boy, and her mother was older, single, and poor. So basically, she violated the gender and class norms of my miserable little peer group of the time and was really punished for it. If she's not an addict or clinically depressed now, I'll bet she's a pretty awesome adult.

77 - Have you ever googled her? I do this occasionally to try to find out what particularly awesome or awful people I knew in high school are up to, and I rarely have any success, although I did find one not-particularly-close friend's terrible (but sweet!) wedding vows. She was easy, though, as she has a highly unusual Nigerian name.

66: if I knew how to find her, I would. Casual googling didn't get me anywhere; if I got more serious about it, maybe one of those public record databases would work.

68: eek, sorry to hear that. I apologize on behalf of my people.

69: hahahaha, yep. I totally do that one.

You all know about zabasearch, right?

I'm the only person who turns up when you google my name. If you spell it correctly. If you misspell it, then two of us turn up. Not infrequently, long-lost friends track me down.

Most recently, my freshman year roommate tracked me down a month or two ago. This is the prostitute - I've told this story here before, for giggles. She's now married, with children, and I felt really bad for exploiting her memory all these years. I've really gotten a lot of mileage out of her antics.

78: Unfortunately, she had a very common name, and is now of an age that she's likely to be married.

Now that I'm here talking about it, I'm kind of surprised at how emotional this memory is for me. And I do believe I'm sucking all the fun out of this thread, so I think I'll take my angst offline.

Changing the subject, Napoleon Dynamite: hilarious, and so weird that it didn't really trigger any humiliation-empathy in me. I got the impression that Superbad might be similar.

I haven't had so much luck the couple times I've tried zabasearch.

I do believe I'm sucking all the fun out of this thread, so I think I'll take my angst offline.

Dude, other people's angst is a blast.

God damn it, we need to find this woman. Does your high-school have an alumni database online?

I have yet to see a teen movie that's even remotely recognizable as something I could have experienced in HS.

Same here. It would be far too boring. Plus, my sort of high school (1/3 boarders, 1/3 rich local chets, 1/3 local kids on scholarship) doesn't exist in the popular culture. Boarding school? Why, all the children's families must have at least $2 million in yearly income! And it must be in New England, and filmed on a college campus, rather than the half-assed affair it actually is.

The movie that best depicted my frame of mind at around 18 years old was probably "Spanking the Monkey". Except for the whole thing with the mom.

Except for the whole thing with the mom.

OMG, that thing with the mom so, so spoke to me. I love that movie.

But back on-topic, does anyone here really dig the humiliation-comedy genre? If so, why? (Serious question.) Is it just schadenfreude, or some kind of alchemically transmuted sympathy, or the absurdity of the situations? I've never really been able to grok what most people get out of films and television programs that rely so heavily on humiliation for their laughs.

I think it's kind of a trend nowadays, driven partially by how professional critics find them to be less cliched and therefore more interesting to someone who watches fourteen movies a week.

As for me, I like Da Ali G Show, but basically only for the parts which are written beforehand, which are very witty and probably take up about 1/8 of the show. Same thing with the Borat movie.

85: Patience Ogged, she's probably a lurker.

Does your high-school have an alumni database online?

Just checked, and yes it does. However, you have to register to get access to it, and I didn't actually graduate from this school. Intellius turns up a couple people about the right age/geographic area, so if I just paid the money, I might have my answer there.

I like intelligent humiliation comedy. E.g., The Office. I think it's because I squirm in recognition; it's a kind of laughing at one's own mortifying moments + laughing at the kinds of things other people do that normally drive one into a rage. It's cathartic.

I don't like the mainstream teen movie because generally even the so-called unpopular kids would have been popular in an objective reality, because they're quick-witted and generally not poor.

In high school I had no group of friends at all. I wasn't unhappy, but now and then I had the realization "I'm friendly with lots of people at school, but never see them outside of school. That doesn't seem normal." This was pretty hard on warm weekends. But I just figured that this way it would be less painful to lose contact with everyone when we went to college.

So when I see something with a group of 5 or 6 friends who share great fun and adventures with each other and yet maintain some bizarre longing to be completely different types of ("popular") people, I think "Get over yourselves, you're happy the way you are."

Btw, I am hugely impressed, Bitch, that you got laid at your high school reunion. I would go to mine just for the awesomeness of being able to say I got laid as a result, and it almost doesn't matter who with.

Why thank you, Cerebrocrat. He was a red-headed hottie, too, who'd been an enormous geek in h.s. Mmmm.

Yeah, comedies about 'unpopular' people tend to be comedies about people in the popularity hierarchy, but uncomfortable with their status, not about pariahs. People who are really excluded from the hierarchy either have friends and are reasonably content, or don't really have friends, and that comes across as sad.

Among SBC's personas, (personae?) I vastly prefer Ali G. There's something funny about making people squirm by being spectacularly stupid himself that seems both funnier and less mean than his other schticks.

Ooh, it keeps getting better. Hot redheaded geeks. Mercy!

I don't like the mainstream teen movie because generally even the so-called unpopular kids would have been popular in an objective reality, because they're quick-witted and generally not poor.

What planet did you go to high school on? Quick-wittedness bought you nothing at my high school, and the kids at the top of the social pecking order were either not witty or kept it in check so as to not be threatening.

97: *And* a doctor.

This is another one of those things I'm not really sure about. I don't think there really was a pecking order at high school.

There were various cliques and people who were more or less central to those cliques, so I suppose there were lots of distinct (but overlapping) pecking orders. But I genuinely couldn't tell you who 'the kids at the top of the social pecking order' simpliciter were.

Quick-wittedness bought you nothing at my high school

It could make you friends with other quick-witted people, couldn't it? That sounds all right.

and the kids at the top of the social pecking order were either not witty or kept it in check so as to not be threatening.

I don't remember a "social pecking order", or the quick-witted people seeking the approval of the prom court and football team. Separate spheres of influence.

101: Clearly you weren't being pecked at.

Huh, there were different, largely independent groups at my high-school, and quick-wit was a valued trait, but it was also totally clear who the coolest kids were: the hot women and guys who were sleeping with them. At that age, cool kids are either hot or athletic or have the best social skills. You don't realize until later that the ones with really good social skills usually come from screwed up families that require the kids to negotiate interpersonal relationships at an early age.

99: the doctors I've known don't make this much of a plus, but I'll run with it because I'm enjoying the fantasy

Huh, there were different, largely independent groups at my high-school, and quick-wit was a valued trait, but it was also totally clear who the coolest kids were: the hot women and guys who were sleeping with them.

And there there were some slow-witted sycophants who were desperate for those people's approval. But any smart kid got along fine ignoring all of those people.

1. Upon rewatching Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I despised it.

2. For the love o'Doshen, go see King of Kong if it's playing near you.

Then a few minutes after she'd passed him she realized that it was Eric Clapton.

I once passed Steve Martin on the stairs at MOMA, where he was getting a private tour with a curator. He gave me a nice little "I acknowledge your fanship" smile, but I actually didn't realize who he was until later--I'd only been staring because he was amazingly goodlooking. Which I'd never thought when I saw him on tv. Of course, it's hard to look hot with a fake arrow through your head.

Quick wits end up at the top of the heap, if they actually are aware of how social systems work. Most of the time wits are just one note pianos who have no other social skills though, at least in high school.

And i'd say the way to tell which clique is on top is whichever one is least concerned with dismissing the other ones.

Hot redheaded geeks. Mercy!

Hi there, sailor.