Sue: All the popular kids are in the penthouse, all the nerds playing wizards and trolls in the forest - bottom floor.
Will: Where do the glee kids lie?
Sue: Sub-basement.
Will: Where do the glee kids lie?
Sue: Sub-basement.
— Glee
What the Brain Chain is to intellect, this trope is to High School popularity. Where you are on this list determines how smoothly your high school existence goes, who sits with you at lunch, and what your role in the story is. In relative descending order of popularity:
Most Popular:
- The Ace
- Big Man on Campus
- Alpha Bitch
- School Idol
- Jerk Jock (may overlap with Dumb Jock or Barbaric Bully)
- The Beautiful Elite
- Beta Bitch
- Carload of Cool Kids (these are the people in the car)
- The Cheerleader (when she isn't either the Alpha Bitch or in the Girl Posse)
- Class Representative
- Cute Sports Club Manager
- Dumb Jock
- Extracurricular Enthusiast
- Girl Posse
- The High School Hustler is an odd one, often very popular, but sometimes a:
- The Quarterback
- Barbaric Bully (who isn't a Jerk Jock)
- The Social Expert
- Spoiled Sweet
- Student Council President
- The rest of the Absurdly Powerful Student Council (in Japanese works. In Western works they are often much lower down the chain.)
- Sympathetic Athletes
- Teenage Rebels
- Token Rich Student
Middle Ground:
- Recurring Background Teens
- Ordinary High-School Student (though other times this character can be the Cool Loser)
- The Generic Guy/The Everyman
Least Popular:
- Child Prodigy (may be a target for bullies due to being younger than his or her classmates)
- Carload of Cool Kids (the losers standing on the side of the road who are being spoken to)
- Cool Loser
- Drama Club (Depending on the type of school, may either be at the top or bottom of the chain.)
- Band Geek
- Emo Teen
- Goth (often though not always conflated with the above)
- Geek
- Loners in general
- Shrinking Violets who are Beautiful All Along
Outside the System:
- Foreign Exchange Student (usually winds up higher on the popularity food chain)
- New Transfer Student (can wind up anywhere in terms of popularity depending on the situation)
