English Version | You can't sit with us

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As far as popularity goes, are there any advantages to being invisible? Yes. And no.

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The title of this article might lead you to believe that the kick-off will be given by some analogy to Mean Girls (2014), the ex-libris of high school tribes that places the popular Regina George as the teenage leader that everyone loves to hate, but who everyone also secretly wants to be, despite their manipulative personality and bully behavior. But, in fact, the iconic The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019) offers a better context to talk about the added value of a somewhat unpopular formation. In the series, the quartet of underdogs Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Raj are manifestly successful in their areas, despite consecutively mentioning the poor high school experience they were subjected to, full of hostility from the popular circle, with few or no party invitations and a tight-knit but meager and limited social group. Penny, in turn, perpetuates her cheerleader label, sometimes mentioning the pranks she played on the nerds at her school, and believing, in a way, that she still lives in that shell of appearances when, in fact, among the protagonists, she is the one who lives a professional experience that falls short of her goals: her ambition to be an actress is, in turn, swaped by a daily routine as a waitress. What are we trying to say? That popularity may not be such a popular attribute in the long term and that it's no random feat that it has been stereotyped that the most popular, namely within North American high school hierarchies - much more compartmentalized, perhaps, than those on this side of the Atlantic -, reach their peak in adolescence.

“Though not a psychologist, social psychologist, developmental psychologist or pedagogue, I would say that popularity, in the case of an individual person, can be harmful in the sense that it plunges that person into a context in which they may have to manage their image in the eyes of an exaggerated number of people”, begins by contextualizing António Fonseca, an engineer and researcher in complex sciences, with a framework attributed to him by his doctoral thesis that studies the mechanisms of popularity in society. Although, he adds as a disclaimer, in his research work he seeks to study popularity as a social phenomenon and not just from the point of view of the individual's popularity, he shares with Vogue his contribution linked to the science of complex systems. Popularity, he believes, emerges in the minds of individuals through mechanisms that are linked to the way we collectively communicate in society - and, obviously, an individual's popularity cannot be the subject of reflection without being in its social context. “The anthropologist Robin Dunbar discovered a number that translates in a simple way the most common number of people with whom the individual manages to maintain cognitively meaningful social relationships. This number was measured and is around 120, in the case of social networks and humans. When one is exposed to a crowd, one has less control over the impact one causes on others because one cannot meaningfully perceive everyone. The normal individual controls this impact when he is known only to his family and friends. At school or at work, he controls it in a tighter fashion, displaying a professional demeanor. But if one reaches a high degree of popularity, one can be the target of the attention of millions of people and completely lose that control”, he says, to introduce the not-so-good side of popularity. “(…) When this situation occurs in early stages of growth, it can lead to inadequate and abnormal levels of stress that are harmful to development, and can feed an inadequate and distorted construction of self-image, which, for example, harms the relationship with peers. The issue of not accepting rejection can exist, as rejection contradicts the popular person's notion of themselves as they are effectively, and in very real terms, adored by many.”

 "Everything that is popular provides us with a shortcut in our choices in the face of the multitude of alternatives, and at the same time allows us to consolidate our feeling of belonging to the group. This process emerged in the evolution of humans and other social species. It is a question of economy of means: by choosing what is popular, we are saving effort and resources in selecting many alternatives." - António Fonseca

Mitch Prinstein, appraised clinical psychologist and author of Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World, correlates the impact of these power relationships at an early age with success in later life. In a Zoom conversation with Vogue, he confirms that “people who are very popular, sometimes, they don't even see negative feedback when it’s right in front of them because they’re not used to picking up on those cues. We also need people to know how to make friends and adapt to different contexts and people who are extremely popular and don’t have to do that they really have a hard time meeting new people when it’s a context that doesn’t value the things they’ve always been rewarded for. You know, they might have always gotten lots of attention for being good looking and powerful, but when they go into a context, like in a workplace, where they actually have to perform based on skills and competences, they might not have had as much practice with that.” So why do we want to be popular so badly? In an interview with kqed.org, in 2018, the expert explained that the desire to be popular among our peers reaches its zenith in adolescence, “more or less at the same time that we start to develop a stable personality. So the messages you get when you're 14 about who you are and how the world works will affect your behavior when you're 40." This also happens because the references in the formative years help us to survive in the community, and for that, relationships are key and popularity, understood as reverence or leadership, is a kind of barometer: “I believe that popularity is a phenomenon that exists in human societies, and also in those of other living beings, to underline references that consolidate a group and simultaneously guide collective action”, frames António Fonseca. “A popular entity can be a leader or a well-known comic. If we want to know where we are going, we listen to the leader, if we want to have fun we listen to a certain individual who is known as a comic. If we want to win the public vote, we choose the most popular party. If we want a certain status, we buy a certain car that is typical of that status. Everything that is popular provides us with a shortcut in our choices in the face of the multitude of alternatives, and at the same time allows us to consolidate our feeling of belonging to the group. This process emerged in the evolution of humans and other social species. It is a question of economy of means: by choosing what is popular, we are saving effort and resources in selecting many alternatives. A constructivist [who believes that 'the subject has an active role in the creation and modification of his representations of the object of knowledge'] would say that it's a way for man to build himself, through feedback with the other and with society”. The researcher elaborates on the reason for the influence of popularity on the way we see others: “We perceiveit  this way, because we are doomed to believe that others also think like us and for us. (...) And if the others designated someone as being popular it should be because that person must somehow be important to every one. It's a question of filtering, reciprocity and mimicry. If one guides others, and if we want to live with them, then we should pay attention to that person. The syndrome called FOMO, 'fear of missing out', reveals in an excessive and radical way how important this need is. In this sense, it is clear that this process influences the perception we have of popular people. We are not only seeing the person through our eyes, but also through the eyes of others, and we trust that they have special attributes as they are preferred by many. Later, we can confirm these perceptions or even dismantle them. With the evolution of communication, the internet, etc... this process of building myths and dismantling them is increasingly dynamic. The most popular individuals are increasingly exposed, facilitating their demystification”.

“Popularity means influence, it means power, it means visibility and in these days, that has become far more important than it really should be, compared to what we should be focusing on instead, that would be much better for humanity”, says Prinstein, adding that popularity brings rewards and feelings of belonging, hence its appeal. But, he disclaims within the conversation, that it is important to distinguish the notion of popularity, because it's not all the same. For thepsychologist, it's different to be popular for status and to be popular because everyone likes us, something that he calls likability: "Likability is when we make other people feel happy and valid and included, it’s more about making connections and community. But popularity-status is really more about power and influence and actually more about creating a sense that someone has more power than others, it’s almost the opposite of creating community. It’s somewhat making someone feel like they’re distinguished or better than other people. But it really depends, there are people that can be both high in status and likable. And that can lead to very good outcomes. But there are a lot of people who just have really high status. You know, if you think of kind of like, Kim Kardashian, someone like that who really focus on creating a lot of attention directed to herself but not really connecting to the people that follow her or try to create a sense of community around the people who have the same interest that she does". António Fonseca also weighs both sides of this scale: “I believe that from the moment we leave our mother's womb and her lap that we are exposed to others and we spend our lives trying to recover that safe and comfortable place. Attention to each human being, just as he is, is an essential good, like food or the air we breathe. If the attention we receive is multiplied by several people, even better. We all want to be valued and looked up to, one way or another, by others. We spend our lives seeking this appreciation, some even beyond their end. As I said, I am neither a psychologist nor a pedagogue, but I believe that distancing from the group also has advantages, and unpopularity is also a form of distancing from the group. The distance allows less normalized and stereotyped readings of reality and sometimes more innovative and creative. It also allows everyone to work at their own pace. Sometimes it even arises because of a lack of harmony at the cognitive level, because of precocious intellectual or physical development, or on the contrary, because of a deficiency in that development. It's a very vast topic that I don't feel qualified to talk about. Anyway, as I say, temporary separation from the group can be extremely fertile and important, as we all feel, sometimes just for moments, when we seek to be alone and apart.” Prinstein adds to the conversation that “sometimes, we do [use popularity as an index to good or bad people], but we can also feel negatively about people who have just power and status, but not likability. We tend to make very positive attributions to someone that is very likable and makes us feel included. But we sometimes can have very negative attributes for someone who doesn’t”. And this can bring a lot of hardship for those who enjoy a popularity that has to do with power and not with true friendships: “People who are high in status, they will often use aggressive behavior to keep their status up.”, says the psychologist, and automatically, Regina George (Mean Girls) comes to mind. “And often don’t learn how to create community, how to have empathy and how to connect with folks in ways that are focused on others as much as on themselves. These are things that probably why we see those that are highly popular in high school actually have higher risks of depression and anxiety and relationship problems as they grow up.”

"We don’t want anyone to be victimized, of course, by their peers for being unpopular or low in likability, but we do know that it’s important to have a balance to being able to see potential threats as well as likely successes, socially. And the more you’ve practiced doing that, the more you’ll be able to do that as an adult". - Mitch Prinstein 

Does that mean being unpopular is good? Yes. And no. It depends on the context of unpopularity. If it's an unpopularity translated into invisibility in a general context, but visibility in a cohesive circle of friends and that doesn't imply loneliness, this is not only symptomatic of a healthy adolescence experience, but also brings positive consequences for the rest of one's life. If it's an unpopularity that is reflected in a marginal and friendless persona, the future implications can be disastrous and take root in such a way that it haunts us until adult life. “We do see that there’s definitely some kids and adults that spend a lot of time trying to keep up their level of status and that can be incredibly anxiety-provoking and also take a lot of work. But it means that they’re focusing mostly on themselves rather than focusing on the other people and social interaction than for whats best for them”, points out Mitch Prinstein “We don’t want anyone to be victimized, of course, by their peers for being unpopular or low in likability, but we do know that it’s important to have a balance to being able to see potential threats as well as likely successes, socially. And the more you’ve practiced doing that, the more you’ll be able to do that as an adult.”, ratifies the clinical psychologist. It also means that unpopularity to an extreme is highly negative: having no connection of any kind has, of course, harmful long-term results. In a Business Insider article from 2017, several youngsters shared their high school experience and the effect of that baggage on their experience in adulthood. Some kept the group of high school friends throughout their lives and considered that this experience had been more positive than if they had belonged to the popular group at school, because it had allowed them to experience both positive and negative emotions at an early age, counting on the friendships as a safety net, because they were/are based on “truth and honesty, so it's easier to express opinions and discuss issues within the group. I suffer from anxiety and they definitely helped me with that, way beyond what I expected. It's funny, but I think that popular kids don't keep in touch with their friends at the time, as far as I know”, shared Charlotte (not her real name), 24 years old, with the website. “I think [popular kids] stay in their comfort zone too long and when a stressful situation arises, they have no basis for comparison, it's the end of the world for them”, added Katie, 23 years old. On the opposite spectrum, Mary, 32, talked about the loneliness of a friendless school life and being bullied and how this influenced her current behavior as someone who is deeply anxious, unable to maintain loving relationships and who, in general, avoids social situations. "Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to practice being myself with other people and when I do, it usually ends in disaster or just an awkward moment." Indeed, a 2015 study entitled Social relationships and physiological determinants of longevity across the human life span (Claire Yang, Courtney Boen, Karen Gerken and Kathleen Mullan Harris) explored how our social interactions help to cope with everyday stress and how much better it can be if we have someone to share experiences with and talk to. Popular or not, it is important to take the time to cherish those closest to us. “It really is good to be average when it comes to status and it’s more important to be likable. Likability doesn't mean being a pushover and just doing things to please others, it means to be focusing on others needs as well as your own,” explains Mitch Prinstein. Something that, for example, social networks have somewhat made difficult, by placing importance on an interaction based on status: “The bigger concern for me is that if we’re starting to look at how many followers somebody has or how many times their posts have been reposted. That starts to create this fake sense of relationships and that ends up becoming a bigger deal. You know, a lot of people now around the world are even introduced as an influencer, someone who has many followers and that starts becoming kind of like a currency of status in itself, which is not good, because you can buy followers and have bots comment on your posts, it starts to become very, very artificial.”, warns the clinical psychologist. António Fonseca corroborates: “Nowadays, with the evolution of press and public exposure, such as social networks and new media, the popularity of each one has become easily increased, and even measured and compared, by the number of 'likes' and 'followers'. It has become an industry in what is called the Attention Economy. The increasing consumption of information and the vulgarization of individual expression in public forums such as social networks can lead to discomfort with anonymity and unpopularity, but I am not aware of any studies on this matter. Unpopularity, here, being understood as a lack of popularity and not as negative popularity, of course.”

And has social media also standardized popularity and its stereotypes? If popularity depends on context, geography and temporality, what happens in a world without borders? “It is a very interesting question and I would very much like to have more information to answer”, equates the Portuguese researcher. “The role and nature of popularity must certainly depend on the type of group, culture and geography. Of religion, we certainly know that Muslims do not accept human representation in public places, but they have their characters: their imams and prophets, just as Christians have their saints who appear and disseminate in all churches, and the Jews their rabbis. The role of fame and popularity throughout history and among different peoples is a fascinating subject that must be addressed along with studies of communication in these societies. Without communication, there is no popularity and this has evolved in magnitude over time. Likewise, its role and expression depend a lot on the size of the group. As we have already seen, the nature of popularity in a small group is very different from that in a large nation. Then, the ways of interpreting and reading what is popular may depend on cultural mechanisms. The acceptance of what is the norm, as opposed to individual will, depends on time, society and culture and therefore also the interpretation of what is popular and everyone's. All the more so as these worlds are compartmentalized. It is clear that in a global world without borders these differences are blurring, and therefore what is popular in Korea or Japan, such as television series and all the associated iconography, is also popular in Portugal as with young people from nowadays”, argues the researcher of Complexity Theories. “It’s still the case that popularity in any community is gonna be influenced by whats valued in that community, so if it’s a very religious community or one that’s focused on sports that will play a role in a different from than the status that emerge on things like social media, so there is some kind of influence”, says Prinstein. “We saw some of that before, and you may or may not agree with this, but a lot of people have said that abroad, they’ll often see things in Hollywood movies, for instance, so that might influente what is shown on being cool or influential on adolescence, just by seeing that. But sometimes people will adopt that or not, but it still has this global connection cause everyone would see the same movie and the same outfits and the same stars and things like that." “What can happen”, continues Fonseca, “is that we start to think more and more in the same way, to use the same references and the same quotes. On the one hand, this is positive because we understand each other better and can better mitigate inequalities and injustices. On the other hand, it is impoverishing, because we reduce variety and diversity, and the world becomes less colorful. I believe that waves of containment of this globalizing trend will emerge, as already happens with nationalisms. It would be good if it happened now with languages, which are increasingly fading in favor of the English language and all of (popular) American iconography. But the human being will have to find a middle ground: valuing what is specific to each people, its symbols and traditions, what is popular within itself, and autonomously from its necessary material interdependence, from economic and financial resources”. This will certainly involve maintaining connections outside of social networks, such true friendships that serve as a rehearsal for future life situations and that make us popular in the best way, that is, the popularity of likability and not status. Especially because popularity is not a monster, when well used - on the contrary, it is good for self-esteem and the body, confirms the clinical psychologist: “Yes [popularity brings rewards and feelings of belonging]. Both being popular and being likable triggers responses for oxytocin dopamine receptors that gives us a sense of reward and satisfactory kind of biological needs. We all care about what other people think of us. And we’re biologically primed to care. In fact, there are dramatic effects that happen in the body at the moment when we might think we are being excluded or unpopular”.

Does this mean that being popular is good after all, or is it bad? It means that there are advantages and disadvantages to popularity, depending on the context and type of popularity, and in the balance, as in everything in life, between the two extremes of the popular spectrum. The popularity that matters is the one that translates into real connections and friendships, even if they mean few friendships - but good ones. Quality is better than quantity, and likability is better than status. “Not exactly being a sociologist, but a telecommunications engineer interested in communication problems within society, I believe that it is good to be popular if this condition does not interfere with our will. Being popular, in a good way, is a sign of prestige and status, which can reveal a process of personal development. I think it's good to be popular, but never against your will. As a matter of fact, the law and the Constitution, in their defense of the right to image and private life, safeguard precisely this”, advocates António Fonseca. Mitch Prinstein is also in favor of some reasonableness in being popular: “Well, it depends on the kind of popularity. I think it’s great to be very, very likable but I don’t think it’s great to have high status. People who have high status talk about all of the things they hate about it. They can’t ever be themselves, they never trust other for liking them for who they are, or if they’re just people who like their status. I think high status is a bad thing. And being disliked is a bad thing as well. I would rather be highly likable, but pretty average in status, so I think that’s the best place to be.” So maybe we don't want the super-intelligence of a Sheldon Cooper if it means his social inadaptability; and perhaps Penny's social skills are interesting, but not if that means that what she has to offer always falls short of what the goals require. Perhaps the best is to be an average Leonard Hoffstader. But with an easier-to-pronounce surname.

 Translated from the original on The [Un]Popular Issue, published July 2023.Full stories and credits on the print issue.