“What Happened To The Good-Looking Ultra-Popular Kids That Had It All In High School?” (45 Answers)

The most popular girl in my graduating class (and I do mean ***most*** popular; she made an effort to make friends with literally everyone), head cheerleader, is now the head director at the local homeless shelter.

She never married, has no kids, 37. Still an absolute babe.

She went on to become a world traveler and Buddhist and now runs a non-profit providing microloans to female-owned global businesses.

She was also my first real crush, and I'm so happy she lived up to my silent pedestal.

I got voted most popular at my high school. Prom king, Captain of the football team type stuff. myb8th grade summer the best advice I ever received from my older sister was to be nice to everyone when you start high school. Geeks, loners, punkers, jocks, band kids. I was nice to all of them. I'm 38 now and people from high school put on their best face when they see me because I treated them like a friend. My life is really good because I was kind.

Prom king and queen got married shortly after high school. Forty years later, they live within 5 miles of the farms where they grew up. They made some athletic, attractive kids along the way.

One of them put a catheter in my wiener when I had surgery.

I’d do the split like this: popular and mean to others vs. popular and positive with others.
The popular and positive all did well in life and careers. The meanies lost whatever advantages they had in school to their own nastiness.

He went to Harvard. Works in finance and married a stunningly beautiful woman who works for Google.

They live in London. I’m not jealous of much in life, but his string of wins challenges my equanimity.

She became a kick a*s nurse; she was on the healthcare professionals team who helped one of my friends give birth to healthy twins.

I'm in my early 30s now and I can't even remember off the top of my head what the good looking ultra popular kids at my high school were named. If I had to guess they probably got good jobs and have successful lives, but those people had so little impact on my life that I couldn't begin to care less.

Popular guy went to MIT and shortly after got disowned by his parents for coming out as gay. He was popular for being smart, charismatic and a genuinely good guy. He and his husband are doing well for themself nowadays.


Popular girl went to a prestigious university and became a nurse. Similar to the popular guy, she is a genuinely good person so everyone still loved her. I’ve run into her several times over the years and she’s still the same nice person. She could model if she wanted to but she really does care about folks and considered it a personal mission to help others via healthcare.


We had several self-proclaimed popular people in our high school who were self absorbed a******s. The 3 most notable is the guy who got kicked out of college when he tested positive for steroids and m*******a. He was also on a full ride scholarship before getting kicked out. He never completed any higher education to this day and has fallen into addiction.


A girl who was very attractive and also self-proclaimed popular became an escort and eventually married a wealthy client. Husband recently attempted to run for Mayor of the city and lost big time.


2nd girl who was also very attractive became a model, got knocked up without knowing who the father was, got into an abusive relationship, ran away, got knocked up by another guy who left shortly after she gave birth and finally she decided to get her s**t together. Last I heard she’s finishing college to become a nurse and she lives with her parents.

Went to Stanford, became a cancer researcher, founded a nonprofit, got a PhD and MD from Harvard + MIT, now works on rare children’s diseases. Solid guy.

They went to college or the workplace and found out they were just average.

Failed musician and cryptobro who spent the pandemic posting videos of himself arguing with store staff about masks.

She became a b-grade celebrity, came out as lesbian and was lauded for her bravery, started a social justice campaign for the rainbow community and against bullying until it was revealed that she'd also been the worst bully at our school, especially towards lesbian and bi girls. She's kept her head down since. .

My friend likes to send me the prom king's latest mugshot.

The very beautiful popular girl in my grade pulled a papertowns by dropping contact with pretty much everyone and moved to South Africa where she seems to live a fairly luxurious life now. Pretty cool move if you ask me.

Deceased. Motorcycle accident. He was nice, funny, generous, and kind of a rascal. So basically everybody liked him. He was in med school when he died.

This girl was super popular since primary school. Really smart too, straight As student but also she got all the jock boyfriends., I don’t know how popular she was in university but she went overseas, came back with a law degree and then started her line of couture handbags. She was really living the high life appearing in fashion magazines, runways, VVIP parties, brushing shoulders with royalties etc. Suddenly she vanished from social media for about a year turns out she went to a rehab (a very fancy one by the beach). Then she started posting weird things on her Facebook, things that don’t make sense then turns out she has bipolar disorder. Now, she still lives with her mom.

Most of them were good-looking and ultra-popular because they came from stable if not affluent financial backgrounds. They got the acne treatments they needed, were able to buy nice clothes, were much more experienced navigating social situations, etc. So plenty of them just kept that momentum going and had good successful college experiences, and entered successful careers. Anecdotally, when I've met these people now I always get this weird intuition like they're not fully self aware?

Plenty of others peaked in high school though, and their lives went downhill afterward. And plenty of them lived privileged lives that self destructed after a point. There are some particular karmic situations I've seen.

I dunno...everything happens to everyone. I was at my lowest point ever in high school, so I get to experience life as only getting better from there :).

I'm from a small town.

So most of those people still live within an hour of that small town. Just doing regular person s**t.

The most successful person was probably the co-valedictorian. They were not pretty or popular. Last I saw on LinkedIn they were Chief of Medicine at some hospital on the west coast.