Charlie Trent:

We’ve all seen the classic ‘80s, ‘90s and ‘00s movies that depict the football stars and cheerleaders mocking the art kids or the clichés where the edgy girl ends up falling for the jerky jock.

But — newsflash — this is not the reality of the high school hierarchy.

While it may be true that many football players and cheerleaders are friends and in the same social circles, this does not mean that they refuse to talk to other people at schoo. The majority of them are nice people who will be friends with whoever they want to be friends with.

By putting these people in this hypothetical position of power, it creates a social bubble for them — they don’t ever have to ignore anyone if everyone assumes they already don’t like them because they don’t fit the stereotypical criteria of potential friends.

In addition, most of the kids considered popular at Blue Valley are generally well-liked, which is the majority of the reason they are well known and have a large group of friends.

Arguing that cheerleaders and football and basketball players shouldn’t be friends is problematic, not only because it allows a stereotype to continue. It also creates an argument that people aren’t allowed to be friends with those they spend a lot of time with, especially if it involves school activities.

Erika Kolseth:

Teenage movies portray high school as popular girls walking in slow motion down the hallway and jocks who will steal your lunch money and dunk your head into a toilet.

Obviously, this isn’t realistic — just like popularity.

Although 21% of students believe popularity doesn’t exist, I believe popularity exists only inside people’s heads, whether students admit it or not.

It seems like students define popularity by how many followers or likes they have on Instagram or how many Snapchats they get a day. That shouldn’t be what popularity is about.

Popularity should be about radiating kindness and being a good person, that’s what makes you likeable. I will speak for the people and say that we do not care about who you hang out with.

You shouldn’t pretend to be someone else just to be in a “likeable” friend group. Guys, it’s high school. As long as you’re happy in your friend group, then who cares?

Popularity is overrated and irrelevant because we are all going to end up going to different colleges and restart in new environments anyway.

You shouldn’t change your interests and personality just to be popular.