On Popularity

So, to summarize, whether one becomes popular in middle school is largely out of one's conscious control because it is mostly based on one's physical appearance during the early middle school months. If you just don't have the right look, there is very little you can do to overcome it, except if you have amazing communications skills. If you are able to be so charismatic and engaging that people think you are cool even though you look like a 12-year-old Danny DeVito, then you can join student council and crack everyone up with your humor and get people to like you and accept you into the social elite. Often times, though, you'll notice that the people with great inter-personal skills are usually better-looking, because the two complement and reinforce one another in a positive cycle: Good-looking kids get more attention and have more opportunities and incentives to develop their inter-personal skills because they receive even more rewards in terms of positive attention, and repeat …

via Philip Guo – On Popularity.