Polpularity Essay, Research Paper

Popularity

The thing that strives many teens is that they have to be popular in school. It seems as though that popularity is a main issue to teens. The need to feel accepted by others in order to be the center of attention, and the need to be distinguished greatly from everyone else is a strong force that exposes itself to nearly all teens at school. We spend most of our years at school, and begin well known can almost seem to complete an emptiness that we feel.

Popularity may not always in fact be as fulfilling as it may seem. I do agree that we all have the need to feel wanted yet when is enough? Personally, I ve seen many situations when the height of popularity brought upon many other issues. Popular students usually have to create a certain personality that is diverse from their own, and they must always have that particular personality all the time to keep up with their common focus from others. This can be usually seen as the popular athletic team captain or the optimistic president of the student council. During the process in becoming more recognized, some end up hurting others for their own means of reaching that point.

I remember a time a few years back when I had a group of fairly close friends. We would always hang out with each other and we would wait the day at which we were to enter high school together. When we finally reached high school, there where now a whole new group of people that were older than me. I still had my group of friends, but gradually I started to lose one of them. My friend was going against my other schoolmate, and before I knew it I was hurling the same insults as they were. It was all part of a process; a process, I thought, was going to make me popular. I thought that if I could make someone look lower than I was, I would gain self-confidence and become more popular.

As it turned out it was not the case. I had lost a good friend, all for a selfish reason to get a good reputation at school. In the end I ended up only hurting myself. I couldn t carry the baggage I had, knowing I had hurt someone who was close to me.

There shouldn t be a need to become popular, there may be a few benefits, but it never lasts for long. I find that the many unpopular students in schools feel very content with how they are because they know that people are interested in them for who they really are, and they don t have to put on a face for anyone. It is better to have someone who likes you for who you are then going around pretending to be something you aren t.

The task to becoming popular should not be an act of the fake fun-loving president of student council or the strong athlete. It reminds me of climbing a young, thin tree. The way up can seem easy, yet at some points a branch can break. Once you get to the top there is nowhere else to go but down. The journey down the tree is harder since the branches you once had to lean on; you had broke on the way up. Now, there s nothing left to do but jump down with risks of hurting yourself.

One should become popular for who they are, and what they represent. Being yourself can be the only freedom you have to achieving true popularity. It doesn t involve being well known, or good looking, or funny. Rather it includes having faith in who you are, those that realize just how great you are, are the only people that matter. One doesn t have to be the center of attention to be the center of few people s hearts.