Your high school years: ''Freaks and Geeks'' or ''Beverly Hills 90210''?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by Marlitharn and jayjay in this thread.

Mostly, I’m just wondering about selective memory. For those among us with a few decades under the ol’ belt, do you remember it fondly? For those of us who consider it a recent experience, was it really that bad?

Me? I’m in my early 30’s, and my high school tenure falls somewhere in between the two extremes.

For example, I was spit on more than once by the SAC Rats (i.e. smoker punks) while I played D&D with my friends in the Commons area.

But, I was voted “Most Likely to Win the Pulitzer Prize” by my graduating class, and photographed for the yearbook’s “Best of the Best” page with about a dozen others.

While, I couldn’t get the time of day from a single girl. I think I went on something like five or six dates all through high school. Finally, one woman started showing interest, but then she had to drop out of school a couple of weeks later, pregnant with another guy’s kid.

And yet, as a senior, I was one of the three people on the Homecoming Float.

But still, I was always humiliated to be one of the bottom 10 percentile when choosing up sides in P.E.

Nevertheless, as a sophomore, I created (wrote and staged) the most popular pep rally sketch in recent memory, one which was recycled by the school for years after I left, and also copied by several other schools in the area.

While at the same time, I endured almost daily abuse – ranging from insults to thrown gravel – for driving one of the crummiest cars in the student lot (a Chevette with plastic duct-taped over a busted window, and several rusty patches).

But, I was the lead editorialist in the school newspaper my junior and senior years, and was lionized by my peers for pissing off the entire health department with a rant about the spinelessness of the so-called sex-ed program.

In summary, it wasn’t Nirvana, but neither was it Gehenna, either. Average everything together, it was just – <wiggling hand> – “eh.”

You?

2

The first three years were Freaks and Geeks, the last two were not quite 90210, more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer without the monsters. You know, small close-knit group of good-looking, socially adept oddballs with strange hobbies who hang out together all the time with a teacher who manages to get them out of class whenever they want. I have fond memories of lunchtime card games in the resource room during those years.

3

A little from column a, a little from column b.

4

I went to 3 different high schools in 4 years (we counted 9th grade as high school), so I was never in one place long enough to find a niche, but I fell firmly in the ‘geek’ category. During my last year I was taking both advanced chemistry and metal shop. My claim to fame was being on the winning team in the Northwest Missouri Chem/Physics competition. (79/80 St. Joseph Central).

5

Freaks and Geeks. I was never popular enough for long enough to be in Beverly Hills.

I had to stop watching the former, in fact, because I kept on having flashbacks and wanting to cause bodily damage to some members of that show. They reminded me entirely too much of people I used to know until I escaped from high school.

Er, graduated. Yeah, that’s it.

6

If anything it was Freaks and Geeks & a mix of Beverly Hills. My freshman and sophomore years sucked social wise for me. I had like 4 real good friends. I don’t know what it was but my junior and senior year people got to know me and I was fairly popular. I don’t know what happened, I never really changed. I guess everyone’s idea of cool just changed and I happened to fit into it for a brief period of time. And for the record I graduated in '99.

7

I haven’t seen Freaks and Geeks, but it sounds like a documentary of my high-school years. Not that surprising, since it covers roughly the same time period (1979-1983).
I was a long-haired, pot-smoking, school-skipping straight-A student. My high school had no enriched programmes, AP, or anything like that, and I was bored silly. My friend and I would regularly place 1 and 2 in the annual math competitions, despite going to his house every day at lunch hour to get as stoned as we could, to make the rest of the school day tolerable.
What a frickin waste of time. I was never happier than to get the hell out of there.

8

High school was hell. Pure hell.

I was a total social misfit. Arrogant in the midst of it all. And to top it all off, adults who remembered their high school days with nostalgia kept on telling me that these were “the best days of my life.” Suicide time! If these were the best days of my life, that was it!

Fortunately, they lied. In general, things have gotten better as time has gone on, not worse.

But of the two alternatives, definitely Freeks and Geeks.

9

I’m still in high school (graduate in a month, though) and I’m Freaks and Geeks, although I’m right in between the two. I’m in no clique, even though our school is extremley cliquish. I hang out with people in cliques (mostly the people in the Thespians/Actors clique, and some people in the Orchestra clique), but I’m never a part of them because I don’t play an instrument and I’m not in the acting circle. I have a ton of good acquaintences, though, very few good friends. I’m a nomad, not part of anything but generally liked by the people who know me. That started only this year, though. Ninth and tenth grade I was a total loner, driven insecure by this nemisis of mine since 8th grade. Then Junior year I joined Scholar Bowl and I had a better self-esteem, but I became depressed second semester because I felt I had no friends. Then, towards the end of Junior year I quit feeling sorry for myself and just did things my own way, regardless of how anyone else felt. And that’s what I did this year and this year has been my best year of high school ever.

10

This is probably going to sound weird, but the HS I went to (and left just last year) didn’t have those two extremes. No cheerleaders, no homecoming queen, no football players, nothing. It was a school of 2000 girls and I genuinely remember everybody getting along well.

Certainly there were people who were more popular than others, but it wasn’t because they were trendy or beautiful or rich - it was because they were genuinely nice. Intelligent people were highly regarded and nobody was made fun of for being a ‘nerd’ or a ‘square’. Things like sport, theatre, D&D, homework, art, etc. were what you did, not what defined you.

Reading what you guys have written here, I’m so grateful that I went to the school that I did. So yeah - I’ll take Option C. :slight_smile:

11

Such fond memories. Simpler times. Freedom and lack of responsibility. My friends. Oh the good old days.

Terror. Fear of social stigma. Lingering embarrassment. Look at the size of that zit! Oh the reality.

Still, I’d do it all again.

12

I totally relate to the sister on Freaks and Geeks. 90210 seems like another planet.

13

Given that I got locked up midway through my freshman year I’d have to go with the Freaks thing if you include the always desirable ‘criminal’ element.

14

Freaks and Geeks without a doubt. After F&G went into syndication on the family channel, I called some people I went to HS with and said, “Watch this show”

We went to a public school in Chicago, not all that different from a public school in Detroit. We have compared similarities between the show and our lives more than once. Boy did they get our lives down to a tee.

90210??? We woulda beat 'em up and laughed 'em right outta our zip code!!

15

I don’t know the show, but something tells me Geeks is closer to the mark. I was (and am) prone to remarkable levels of geekery. Fortunately, I was also formidable enough that I was never the target of much overt cruelty. I quickly made it clear that attempts at physical abuse would result in a very painful lesson in directed violence (my first day in eighth grade I beat two football players bent on “initiating”–beating the $#!* out of–me to the ground with a broom handle), and psychological/verbal abuse could lead to rather disheartening changes in certain computer records. Every now and then, someone would target me with some petty nastiness anyway, and I would apply a bit of justice (as poetic as possible), then move on.

I was occasionally a hero to my peers (because I’d tangle with the administration just as readily as with my fellow students) and often a villain (since I blew curves to bits and got to do things other students usually didn’t). I had a few friends, but no really close ones. Some of the teachers hated me, some felt threatened by me, and one or two were distantly friendly. Since I’m a bit of a loner, that was enough to get by on.

Still, I was glad to get out of that place. It was one long siege for me–strategy, defense, counterattacks, diplomacy…it was exhausting. The 90210 twits would have been easy prey by comparison.

16

Our class (1982) had the entire spectrum of folks in a senior class that numbered about 400. I was enough of a jock (tennis and golf teams)to mix with that crowd; played Jim, The Gentleman Caller in “The Glass Menagerie” during my senior year so had a foot firmly in the drama/art/band camp; wrote a few pieces for the yearbook; was involved in student government so had the blessing of the administration; and worked about 30 hours a week as a prep chef in a restaurant so I had enough money to afford a nice car and duds (voted Best Dressed of my class). I also was not above firing one up with the heads and had several co-workers who were in that crowd so they kept me supplied with the herb. All in all, high school was a good time for me. I don’t care to do it again, but it wasn’t dreadful. I feel for people that have it rough (my SO’s son looks and acts as if someone sent him over from Central Casting with the label “Geek” plastered across his forehead)and I know that he’s going to suffer - there’s just no two ways about it.

17

Freaks and Geeks would have been a vast improvement over the reality; but jr. high was even worse. :frowning:

18

I had the same kind of experience. Well, except for the 2000 girls thing. I went to an all-boy Catholic high school and we didn’t really have the jock/nerd popular/unpopular rift there. Everybody was pretty nice, some people were more popular than others, but not in a John Hughes kind of way. The ones who were well-liked were well-liked because they were genuinely good people, not because they had money, or were stars on the football team.

I don’t remember much of high school actually (college was much more of a “best-times-of-your-life” experience for me than high school) but I don’t ever recall it being a bad time.

19

Poor missbunny. :frowning:

My high school days: Neither one. I generally got along with everyone. I participated peripherally in most of the cliques (I was a smart kid, in ROTC, hung out with popular people, was the editor of the school newspaper, was in a few plays, hung out with people in the band, though I didn’t play). I got along with jocks, probably because I was as big as they were, and could hold my own in sports. Several friends were on the basketball team.

But I was pretty much on the edges of the intrigues. I carried a butterfly knife to school, got the nickname “Undertaker” my junior year, and basically had the motto “Don’t mess with me, I won’t mess with you.” All in all, and interesting time.

20

In high school, I was the girl that no one had ever heard of that badmouthed Brenda’s dress on 90210 and made her cry. :slight_smile: