One time, in the 4th grade, I made a popularity list.
I used Weebly to put together a website containing exactly two pages: the top 40 most popular boys and the top 40 most popular girls. Despite not being particularly popular, I put myself around #15 on the boys list. It was higher than I thought to be true, and it was subtle enough that I figured I’d get away with it.
We all used AIM back then.
So, one evening, after I had spent a couple of days fiddling with the lists, I sent just two messages: one to the Most Popular Boy and one to the Most Popular Girl. The website was intentionally ‘published anonymously’, so the message was something like
hey, have you seen the popularity list? {link}
The following morning, I walked into school, and the first thing anybody said to me was “hey, did you hear about the popularity list?”
In less than 24 hours, the list had reached critical mass. Everybody knew. The entire grade was talking about it. Nobody knew who had made it. It was chaos. All day, everyone was discussing their thoughts on who got snubbed and who was suspiciously high up.
After lunch, I remember my teacher (actually a very cool guy) telling us that he had heard about the popularity list. He asked the class for the domain. Somebody told him, so he pulled the website up (on the SmartBoard!) to have a look.
He told us that it was not right, that popularity lists are hurtful, that the school administration was aware, and that they were trying to track down the source.
Anxiety had been coursing through my veins all day, but it was at precisely this moment that I wanted to explode.
I made it out alive, went home, and immediately deleted the website.