At least once a year, someone like Time or Newsweek does a feature about, “What’s up with teenagers, anyway?” They always wind up asking kids a load of horseshit questions like, “Do you think you have enough free time?” or “Are you worried about college?” They never get to the stuff that matters like, “What are punks wearing these days?” or “What happened to all the metalheads?” or “Who’s zoomin’ who?”
We were sick of this media blackout, so we went out to Vice contributor Chris Nieratko’s store, NJskateshop, to ask 
some local kids what the current high school scene is like. Then we asked some kids who started school ten years ago to tell us what the deal was when they were in high school in the same area (northern New Jersey). Then we went even further and asked a few ancient dudes (30 and 31 years old) to tell us what it was like back in the Paleolithic era. Basically, this is cultural anthropology but about stuff that we give a shit about.
Let’s start with the old and work up to the new…
Videos by VICE
Theater Crew: Goths:
Pretty Hate Machine
Early Hip-Hop Kids:
There were maybe three or four of these guys in the whole school. They were really into stuff like Gangstarr and some of the Native Tongues groups like Leaders of the New School, and wore Starter hats and jackets and K-Swiss sneaks. It was that real clean look right before gangsta rap blew up everywhere. They kind of kept to themselves and didn’t even really show up at parties. 
Popular Kids:
Z. Caravacci held sway over a good deal of these guys’ style too, though not quite with the stranglehold intensity it exercised over the guidos. The popular kids were like a toned-down, more wholesome version of the guidos. The girls all feathered out their hair instead of spraying it and wore sort of mall-ratty makeup. There was a split in the guys between short spiky hair and slightly longer feathered bangs. One huge thing with the girls was wearing a kind of baggy sweatshirt over a turtleneck, then rolling up the cuffs of their jeans and pulling two pairs of matching socks (which also matched the turtleneck) over each leg. The guys would just wear the rolled-up cuffs plain. The shoe of choice with the popular crowd was white Reebok high-tops. There was a lot of crossover between populars and the jocks, and they’d typically attend all the same parties at whomever’s folks were out of town for the weekend. All of them drove Volkswagens. 
Jocks:
For all the importance placed on football, you’d have thought we were going to school in mid-50s Texas. A little bit of Z. Cavaricci would sneak into the mix when jocks were feeling classy, but for the most part they dressed in t-shirts, jeans, and their varsity jackets. They kept their hair short and in gelled spikes and acted like they owned the place. They got up to more shit than the popular kids, who had to worry about not pissing off their parents to keep up their financial support, but weren’t quite as tough or balls-out as the guidos, presumably because they didn’t want to fuck up their place on the team.
The jocks were also generally more working-class than the straight-up popular kids, so instead of a brand-new Jetta they’d usually drive some parental hand-me-down like an old Buick or their father’s Oldsmobile. Also for some reason, every time they hosted a party you were guaranteed to hear most, if not all, of the Eagles’ Greatest Hits.
Burnouts:Nerds/Dorks:
1996 – 2000
Jocks and Cheerleaders:
The de facto heads of the school. The guys who were on the team took football really seriously, but nobody else gave a shit. About half the guys and girls in this group weren’t really involved sports, and could better be described as something like “friends of jocks.”
This was at the height of that baggy, vibrant preppy thing’s popularity with white kids, so the guys were all decked out in Hilfiger cargo jeans and big Nautica polos and jackets, while the girls wore CK or DKNY shirts under a pair of overalls or those flared black stretchpants with a Wet Seal blouse and jellies. On weekends they’d head to the house of whomever’s parents were out of town to binge drink. The biggest cars with them were Celicas and Accords—you could tell the gender of the driver from a distance by the presence or absence of a spoiler. The slightly timid girls would often go more in the direction of “cute” with one of those then-new VW Bugs or Jettas.
Hair was always pretty basic: The girls folded theirs back into an alligator clip, while the guys ran one dollop of gel straight up the front and left the rest untouched, making it look like they were wearing an invisible visor.
South American Immigrants:
Hip-Hop Kids:
hours Neohippies:
Skaters/Alternateens:
Punks and Hardcore Kids:
During this era, the punks and hardcore kids pretty much had their own separate scenes with the most prominent divider being that where the hardcore kids were all straight-edge, a lot of the punks would be completely drunk by third period at school. The clothing breakdown between the two was pretty drastic too. The punks shot for a classic look, with leather jackets fucking bedazzled by safety pins and patches on top of Dickies work pants and chucks or docs. The hardcore kids kept to baggy khakis, slightly oversized band shirts, and skate shoes (although there was one piece of flair I have no clue where the hardcore kids picked up—the cut off sleeve of a t-shirt stretched out and worn as a headband).
Since outside of playing and going to shows the only thing left for them to do was eat, the hardcore kids usually hung out at diners while the punks typically congregated in the back corner of the Dunkin’ Donuts, safely tucked away from all the jocks and guidos prowling the parking lot. 
Overweight Alternagirls:
In the same way that the skaters latched on to the cheerleaders in hopes of scoring, these pudgies followed the skaters around like pilot fish, laboring under the delusion that they’d eventually grow tired of conventional beauty and get really into girls who complain about their fathers. Their cone-like appearance didn’t do much for their chances either: Short Manic-Panic’d hair perched atop a head slightly too skinny for the rest of their body, hovering above layer after layer of aluminum bead bracelets and wooden chokers hanging over pliant, doughy breasts resting on an ill-concealed mound of belly fat, and finally fanning out into enormous pants that soaked up so much puddle-water when it rained, the damp spot would sometimes make it to the bottom of the pockets. 
Student Government & National Honor Society:
This is where nearly all the school’s Asians were situated. They took a liberal amount of shit from the jocks (though nowhere near the level dished out to the sweatpants and goths), but between all the extracurriculars and college prep and whatnot, it probably didn’t register. The guys bore all the classic indicators of devotion to schoolwork and little to no social training: Poofy hair peppered with dandruff, visible eye crust, and necks in need of shaving. They typically wore shirts from Old Navy or whatever school orgs they were involved with over regular jeans and running shoes. The girls were similarly plain and wore basically the same shit, though were far better about hygiene and grooming—save for the odd downy sideburn.
Goths:
2006 Jocks:
Preps:
These are mostly the girls who hang out with the jocks, though there are some dudes mixed in who just aren’t that into sports. Abercrombie and Fitch is based out of our town and they all work at their stores, so that’s seriously the only thing they’ll wear. The prep guys do the same pretend-tough-then-suckup-to-the-teachers thing as the jocks, and the girls just pretty much suck up all the time. Each of them gets a new car from their folks as soon as they’re old enough to drive, usually either a Mazda 6 or a Celica. All the girls wear a ton of makeup. Even though it’s generally the kind that’s supposed to be “natural looking,” they slather on so much of it you can see it in this thick layer coming off their face. There are a few who go all out and wear blue eyeshadow and all that.
All the preps listen to is mainstream rap, and they’re constantly trying to impress the thug kids, but the thugs don’t give a shit. While the jocks smoke a good amount of weed, the preps are mostly just drinkers. Everybody hangs out at each other’s houses because the cops have become really uptight about giving out $80 tickets for loitering. Even in the park across from my school, if you’re not out of there 30 minutes after classes are over, POW!—ticket. 
Thugs:
Everybody in the area is pretty rich, or at least upper-middle-class, except for this one little part of town that’s sketchy. All the thug kids come from here and they are all constantly in trouble for dealing weed and coke and beating up other kids. I would say that the only reason half the guys even show up to school is because it’s their selling territory. All the different groups buy weed off them, but they’re the only ones who really do coke. There was a weird period for a few months a year ago when all the jocks got really into blow and were buying it off them, but that kind of died away. There’s a pretty good deal of gang activity that’s been getting bigger recently, so they usually wear either blue or red tees and a fitted cap or a bandana with Ecko pants. They keep their clothes really neat, and seriously come in with a fresh pair of sneakers every week. They will only wear Nikes. The girls wear the same clothing as the guys, just really short and tight, with their thong sticking out in the back. Sometimes a few of the less nerdy Asian kids will go through a phase where they try to buddy up to them and act tough, but that rarely lasts and I’m not sure the thugs even notice. 
Dumb Kids:
Almost anytime there’s a fight it’s between some of these guys. They all dress really plainly, just like t-shirts and jeans, and are all into Zeppelin and Floyd. The girls are typically just kind of losers who hang out in groups and go to the mall or the movies together or whatever. The dumb kids and the skaters tend to rag on the freak kids a pretty good deal though. 
Skaters:
The skaters dress pretty regular these days, just like plain or band shirts, jeans or pants, and whatever skate shoes they’re into. Everybody wears their hair pretty long, but not parted, and is into stuff like Evergeen Terrace and Comeback Kid. There’s a small group of kids who are strictly into hardcore, and they usually dress in skate clothes and keep their hair a little shorter. There are only three straight-edge kids in the whole school. Skaters all pretty much just go to shows and the local skatepark, and every so often hang out at the mall. Occasionally they’ll get with preppy girls who think they’re cute. Ever since that Mark Ecko video game came out, a bunch of the younger ones are going nuts with the graffiti. 
Punks:
There are only a few punks and they kind of fade into the goth kids. They all get their shit at Hot Topic and are only into “classic” bands like Dead Kennedys. The whole thing is really fake and contrived. They’ll dye their greasy hair blue or green then go hang out at the mall to try to wig people out.
Asians/Indians:
These guys make up nearly 40 percent of my school and all their parents are fucking rich. They’re all kind of nerdy and stress out about getting into an Ivy League school. The slightly less nerdy ones like to dress really flashy in Armani Exchange stuff and drive around in their parents’ BMWs and Mercedes blaring mainstream rap. The nerdy ones are buried in their schoolwork. That’s seriously all they ever do. The guys don’t shave at all, and they’ll just buzz their hair like once every couple weeks so they don’t have to deal with it. Both the guys and the girls wear like button-up shirts and regular jeans or khakis with old beat-up sneakers. They’re the only group that really doesn’t smoke and—completely serious here—they’re really into classical music. 
Goths/Nü Metallers:
These guys say they do a bunch of different drugs like E or acid or shrooms, but it’s all a lie. The biggest deal with them right now is Slipknot, and they’ll generally wear a really big t-shirt with skulls on it with black baggy jeans and vans. They try to grow their hair out to be cool, but then they brush it really straight and part it down the center so it kills it. 
Ultimate Losers:
They aren’t poor but they dress really shabby, like in the same clothes they’ve been wearing since middle school, all worn-out with holes in them, and spike up their hair like in second grade. It seems like they’re caught in a time warp from like the end of elementary school. These guys are the bottom of the food chain.
