Popularity is a big part of students’ lives. Being popular determines how many friends you have, how many people would like to work with you, and how easy it is to ask for help. This fact motivates students to pay attention to how noticeable they are and how to make themselves more influential. However, most of these students hardly ever notice the negative effects of caring too much about popularity.

Being popular isn’t as cool as it looks, so you should stop panicking about how popular you are.

Worrying about being popular is stressful

Riley is a high school student who’s living a perfectly fine life. She has a few friends, has pretty good grades, and she’s not bullied. Though there’s really nothing to complain about, Riley constantly asks herself questions, like “Why don’t I have as many followers as Becky on Instagram?”, “Why am I not hanging out with the popular girls?”, and “Why do I feel like I’m not getting enough attention?” These unnecessary thoughts and concerns drive Riley crazy, and the fact that she frequently compares herself with others only causes her to develop insecurities and a lack of confidence.

She got so stressed out about it that she began to act strangely to try and gain popularity, which only made it worse. She would walk up to the popular girls and try to act cool, while the girls would pretend to be nice and make it seem like they liked her. Riley totally abandoned her old friends and thought she was finally popular when the “popular” girl group told her to stop bothering them. Now she doesn’t have any friends.

Just by looking at Riley’s story, don’t you feel stressed out? Don’t you see that the stress students put on themselves far exceeds the initial damage caused by being less popular? Our own egos drive us to seek popularity, and this is harmful. Students need to reconsider the value of their pursuit for popularity.

Being popular isn’t important

Yes, popularity isn’t important, though most people perceive it wrongly. If you really think about it, popularity doesn’t mean anything.

Friends: quality over quantity

In terms of interpersonal relationships, quality is almost always more important than quantity. Having a few real friends who would actually help you when you are in need is undoubtedly better than having a bunch of pretentious “friends” that only stay with you because of your popularity. When students have enough true friends that support them, popularity is only an extra that they should no longer waste time worrying about.

Popularity means nothing for your future

How popular a person is during high school barely affects how a person will perform in the future. Not to mention there are lots of other more important things to focus on during your teenage years.

Being bothered by popularity isn’t worth the effort since it doesn’t last forever. In just a few years, people around you will split, you will hardly keep in contact with them, and the popularity you gained will be in vain. If a person successfully becomes popular, of course they might be happier and it could be worth it, but considering how difficult and how long it would take to make that happen, it might not be what you would want to focus on in high school. Therefore, students should spend high school building up more practical knowledge or skills rather than something that will be wiped out later on by time.

Being popular doesn’t mean you’re better

Like other arbitrary titles and achievements, popularity doesn’t reflect how good a person is. Think about this: are the most popular teachers always the best teachers? Are the most popular employees the best employees? In the same context, the most popular friends are often not the best friends. Popularity is determined by how good a person is at interacting with others and making others agree with them. However, popularity overlooks the authentic things a real friend could bring us. Thus, popularity shouldn’t be prioritized because it doesn’t really mean anything “real”.

Popularity stops you from being yourself

People today care too much about what others think of them to the point that they begin being fake so they can live up to expectations and keep up their popularity. If students are already pretending to be someone they’re not at such a young age, the reputation they built will only limit them from being themselves in the future.

The cycle will only end when the student stops caring so much about popularity. You need to be yourself to be truly happy, which is why people should get rid of the urge of becoming popular and all the other motivations that force them to act fake.

Sure, not all popular people get popular by faking who they are, and there are in fact many who gained popularity by helping others and being nice to people. However, if teenagers constantly worry about popularity, they are more likely to copy popular people instead of becoming popular by being themselves.

Students should care less about how popular they are

In conclusion, students should care less about how popular they are. Being upset about how successful you are in social life is a total waste of time. Popularity itself is fake. It deceives students by appearing to be important, but in fact, it doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t affect much, and it only adds to stress and pressure.

Hence, if you’re a teenager who finds yourself constantly worrying about popularity, it is about time for you to realize it and stop.