Popularity and Unpopularity

You hear all those stories of cliques and the popular people. There’s a group of them in almost every school. And then, of course, there’s everyone else. Everyone else would usually fit into two basic categories: the ones who completely hate them, and the ones who would do absolutely anything to be a part of them. Luckily, that doesn’t happen all the time. When you are everyone else, there’s no median or go-between within the groups. When you happen to be a hater, you are disliked as well.

It’s seemingly simple, but it really isn’t. Also, the whole “You don’t like me? I don’t like you” concept makes for good drama. And when you’re a worshiper — well, you are hated too. There is something about the stalking and strange obsessions that turn the “in-crowd” to hatred.

Almost every teenager has been the victim and the predator — the one who taunts and the one who is humiliated. It seemingly can’t be helped. But those who are different, they must somehow have to be “punished” because that is supposedly the society of high school. And those who befriend the different (and are different themselves), are viewed as lower than the low in the eyes of judgmental teenagers.

And the social ladder is a frustrating thing. The popular students control the student body — or try to, at least, because some of the students believe they have had it with being mean to others. So, these students try being popular and nice simultaneously.

However, it’s not always like that. The ones below the popularity circle listen — listen and nothing else.

What do you think about popularity and being popular?

Full House: Working Girl

Holding down a job and school at the same time isn’t easy at all, as DJ Tanner found out the hard way in the Season 4 episode “Working Girl” of Full House.

I like the episode Working Girl from Full House because I learn some good things from it. Plus, I’m glad DJ decided to put her paycheck in the bank, although I smile at the part where she says to her dad, Danny, “Dad, can I have a raise in my allowance?” I think every parent in history has heard those words from their kids quite often, too.

D.J. desperately wants to buy an expensive pair of shoes called “Blow-Outs” (which cost $160 for both shoes), so when she doesn’t get the money from Danny, she asks Danny to let her get a part-time job so she can earn enough money to get the shoes. Danny lets D.J. start working for a photographer named Jack at the mall. Her job is to make reluctant kids smile for the camera. Danny allows D.J. to have the job under one condition: she must make sure her grades stay smooth. However, this is easier said than done, as D.J.’s science grade has been suffering lately. But she believes that the job will not only get her enough money to buy the shoes, but also will prove to Danny that she is not a little kid anymore.

However, D.J. ends up in a sticky situation when she brings home her science exam with an “F” grade on it (as she’d been too busy with work and a lot of other classes), and then it gets even stickier when she and her best friend Kimmy enter the Tanner home through the back door in the kitchen, and Kimmy changes it to an “A.” So after a little advice from Jesse (who had done the same thing when he was in junior high — such as changing 40s to 90s, and zeros to hundreds), D.J. tells Danny what really happened. Danny tells his eldest daughter that she wanted to be a responsible adult, and what she did was the least responsible thing she could’ve done.

“I just wanted to prove that I could earn my own money,” DJ explains.

“Well, that’s all out the window now, because you’re going to have to quit your job, and no hanging out at the mall until you pull up that grade,” replies Danny.

“OK,” DJ says. “I guess I’ll go back to being a kid again.”

“Deej,” says Danny, “there’s nothing wrong with being a kid. You should enjoy it. You got the rest of your life to be an adult.”

Luckily, despite all the trouble she got into, D.J. has gotten her first (and last) paycheck, which was more than enough to pay for her tennis shoes. But D.J. decides to put it in the bank after all the hard work she did to earn it.

Meanwhile, Jesse and Rebecca are unable to agree on where their wedding should take place. Jesse wants the wedding to be at Graceland (home of Elvis Presley), and Rebecca wants the wedding to be in her home state of Nebraska. Luckily, with some help from Joey, they come to a final agreement and decide on having their wedding in their own hometown: San Francisco.