The Preoccupancy / Tyranny of Popularity

The preoccupancy of popularity is a title I've been working on for sometime and means a great deal to me as I have, 

for the past 6 years, never stopped thinking about it since my high school ''sentence'' (a little bit of humour for you).

I had this discussion with my father a while back about my total disgust regarding the ''popularity system'' at school. 

In my mind, ''popularity'' means the quality of being well-liked by ALL people, or rather SOME people, which is the case.

Popularity never really meant much to me, and although this might sound like a pitiful attempt to slander popularity, or 

rather, the small popular mass, it is not so.

I have no problem with it, I have a problem with what the small mass thinks is socially acceptable and what is not, and 

then they take it upon themselves to humiliate and intimidate in an attempt to solve the problem.

As you might have gather by now I was not a part of the popular mass, and I was picked on incessently in school. 

I sometimes thought to myself that I could inflict the same humiliation on them as they have done on me, but as 

I have grown a little bit older I cant help as to feel a great deal of sorrow for these people, How they can day after day

do dispicabele things to other who don't deserve it as part of being popular or even worse, as part of a ''joke''.

And it seems they become so taken by the ''responsibilities'' of being popular that another persons self worth gets 

lost in the process, and it always seemed to me that they feel they have the right to rob you of your individuality.

But who is to blame excactly??, Are they to blame??. In part yes they are to blame, but one only carries wisdom from

those beyond one's years, and I feel that teachers are to blame. My High School, which I will not name for legal reasons,

was guilty of this and I can explain it in a simple example:

The so-called distinguised, well mannered, ''men'' of honour rugby players can never ever seem to do harm in the 

teachers eyes, and why is this?? I was once put in a situation where jock publically humiliated hazed a friend of mine 

to the verge of tears and when It was reported to the teacher they just kept quiet about it. absolutely pathetic

I watched a show once with my sister, a typical ''suzi-high-school'' series...I just cant remember the name, but anyway

It also,centred around a normal guy that was harassed every day of his life at school until one day he jsut couldn't take

it anymore. He decided the one day he couldn't take it anymore and took a gun to school. As the story goes he kept his

class hostage. People where scared they pleaded with him to put the gun down let everyone go and then they'll talk 

about it. What came out of his mouth will stay with me forever

...he said...''you don't know what it's like, day after day, being cursed at, shrugged aside, beaten and verbally abused,

every day is a fight to survive, I am scared to death every single day of my life to get out of bed and face it all over again''

he said this and afterward pulled the trigger and killed himself...

Until this day I can cannot forget seeing this person so terrified to go to school that he took his own life to relieve the 

burden, and to the small masses everywhere in the world...if you are someone that belittles another for fun...you 

should feel disgusted with yourself

I sometimes feel that I am alone when I speak about this subject and it frightens me, are we so far gone that these 

things don't matter anymore...

...and you should ask yourself...does it matter to you?