Mean Girls, Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You– even High School Musical. Your favorite classic 2000s movies all feature the same thing: the harsh, stereotypical cliques that shape the halls of high school. But are these archetypes really only in the movies, or do we see the same patterns here at our own school? Is this stereotype real?

“I think it’s real, hands down,” said Eldana Aberra. Aberra is a junior cheerleader and finds herself in multiple friend groups. She said, “I just think [cliques] are stereotypical, but then they also have like sub-cliques inside of them.

“Yes, there’s the nerds, but then there’s like the band nerds and the actual math nerds…  [and] there’s the popular people, but then there’s the popular people people that know everyone in every grade…and then the people who are popular but only because they’re rich.”

Whether or not everyone agrees that these factors play into it, it’s true that there are different types of popularity. There are people who get along with everyone, know everyone, talk to everyone… and then there are others in the popular world, with a Regina George esque idolization surrounding them. You either want to be them or be with them.

Another student, Amara Ramsey, said, “I think [the cliques] are still here, especially with cheerleaders…no shade, but they always hang out together.” Ramsey herself is very active in the theater department, as well as the leadership and student council roles. “With theater kids, [the group’s] not as extreme as the movies would [show], but there definitely are commonalities,” she said. Students may not break out in dance on top of tables in the cafeteria, but many find themselves just as internally passionate about the arts.

From another cheer perspective, Presley Kao doesn’t see much of the “nerd” stereotype at Shorewood. “If anything, that has a sort of negative connotation to it. I think it’s more celebrated at Shorewood,” Kao said. Jocks and popular girls, on the other hand, may still be more prevalent. “For jocks and popular girls, I’d say yeah, that still has a negative connotation to it, and it may live up to the name.”

Different students have different perspectives, and whether their truthfulness in these topics relies on their own cliques is up to you. Would you honestly tell someone that you believe a system is a certain way if that system benefited you? That being said, people’s perspectives must be taken into consideration. Even further than that, the way students view themselves can very well be different from the way others view them.

Huey Hoff,  a senior, said, “I’m most active in band… and I try to do a lot of stuff for swim, but that’s seasonal.” However, he didn’t know where to put himself in the classic groups, such as nerd or jock. “I would say none of them,” Hoff said.

 On the other hand, Hoff’s fellow bandmate, Drew Johnson, said, “Huey is by far– he is a band kid, through and through.” Regardless of this, Johnson also said that Hoff was, without a doubt, a pretty well-known and well-liked student at Shorewood. Whether or not there is a tie between popularity and cliques is a controversial question. “I think cliques are a big part of Shorewood, and there’s a lot of them, I just don’t think they affect popularity specifically,” Johnson said.

A very active ‘band kid,’ by his words, Johnson said for himself, “A lot of the time, I can be a little eccentric in ways, and I think that kind of goes along with a lot of stereotypes of my activities, like band, and that sort of thing. So I think that’s a way people would categorize me from the outside, like, oh yeah, this kid is a band kid.”

Many people simply don’t want to give themselves the stereotypical name that the movies have no shame in using. Rowan Huff, a junior on the football team, said, “From an outsider’s perspective, people would definitely put me in an athletic clique.” With that being said, Huff is reluctant to consider himself a jock. “I definitely do other things than just sports,” he said.

But what makes someone popular? While there could be a range of answers from different people, the answer from Aberra is clear: “Looks make you more popular… There is definitely a pretty privilege around here.”

The topic itself is a bit controversial, and different answers from different people are certainly expected. However, overall, while they may be disguised with different names, many of the interviewees agree that the root essence of clichéd cliques exists still today, within Shorewood’s gates. Popular kid, jock, theater kid, band kid… Do our outer appearances still define us?

“I think the lines have been heavily blurred, but I don’t think [the clique stereotypes] are completely gone,” Johnson said.