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Agreed regarding Zuck, but I think he highlights something that seems true from personal experience - discrete categories of teens, to the extent that they exist, aren't anything like the 80s movie tropes. I don't know if they ever were, but by the time I was a teenager a couple decades ago, quite a few athletes were also smart kids that played Halo and had no real qualms about playing with the stereotypical nerds. Sure, there were cliques and I assume that's a permanent part of human social structure, but the overlap between jocks and nerds was sufficiently significant that those weren't really the fault lines. The outgroup were the actual losers - the guys that seemed like they wouldn't even get out of high school and definitely weren't going to have real careers and successful lives.
Growing up, I've always associated the bully with the fat, loud guy who sucks at sports and has a bad social etiquette and rep with the teachers, not really desired by his female classmates. He thinks he can assert his dominance by picking on the weaker guy. But the jocks who are already desirable don't have to assert their dominance, they already know their worth and so does everyone. This happened a lot with this particular nerdy kid in my class who was sometimes chatty but was seen as scum by most girls in our class. The bullying he'd faced was pretty standard, being shoved and kicked around, not the extreme stuff like being stripped or getting shitty swirlys. He had a very bad temper though. Inevitably, the day came when he was truly pushed off the edge and went completely feral with no care in the world for the consequences, but fortunately he was tamed before he could get that far. Interestingly enough, this didn't raise his status. He was still seen as scum who (ironically) starts trouble, but worse: he was a feral scum who's tasted blood now, and therefore shouldn't be given the reason to do so again (read: can't be messed with without a bloody nose in return anymore). Can't say he wasn't eager to embrace this new reputation though.
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I think the difference is less the interests (although they tend to cluster) and more as a social status. You’re not a nerd just because you collect things or watch anime or whatever. You’re a nerd because you are weak, unaccomplished, socially awkward, and clearly unable to fix those problems. In other words, a loser. Jocks aren’t really jocks because they like sports, it’s simply that they are stronger, more accomplished, sociable, and generally able to handle their lives.
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