Species, Genus, Family, Order, Class

In my high school there were distinctive social hierarchies. Being in central North Dakota, I’m sure there’s a difference in nomenclature from where you went to high school. So I’ll provide some basic translations:

• Jocks: Dumb boys who used the word “fag” a lot.

Muffins: Typically cheerleaders or those girls who dated the jocks.

Preps: Although all Jocks and Muffins are also preps, not all preps are jocks or muffins.

Loads: Potheads, burnouts... typically the smokers. They liked heavy metal.

Goaties: Short for “goat roper”. These were the cowboy hat, Wrangler jean wearing crowd.

____ Fags: Play fags were in the theater, band fags were in the band, art fags were into art… you get the idea.

Everyone Else: The normal people who quietly went about their business, formed their little micro-cliques generally unnoticed by the defined classes. The smart nerds, the female athletes, the crazy misanthropes who would grow up to work in the post office… all sort of fit into this class. No doubt this class comprised 80% of the school.

These classes are listed in order of popularity (the currency of high school social life).

Like D&D you could play with a multi-class character. Say, a Jock/Prep, or Band Fag/Paladin… but generally you had to choose. There were classes of characters that one simply could not combine: Jock/Play Fag? No.

If you didn’t know already, I was a Play Fag.

I imagine it’s very much like prison where you must choose a gang for protection. It was vitally important that everyone be immediately categorized, preferably you could tell one’s class simply by looking at them.

Almost twenty years later, I still see a degree of social stratification. But now it seems more formalized. It happens at work and your class is clearly defined by your job title. As a society, we have more or less learned to apply the principles we learned in high school to our adult professional lives. Maybe it’s just inescapable human nature. I’m not sure. But it got me thinking. Do all professions have these cliques?

Do homeless people have a class hierarchy?

Yesterday I saw this homeless man collecting cans, but he had this pimped out, multi-level cart with big wheels in the back and smaller ones in front. Is this the homeless guy equivalent of driving a Lexus? Does he look down on non-can collectors? Does he get together with his friends and talk smack about the guys who stand on the on-ramps with a sign asking for money?

I bet he does. I bet he’s just like the rest of us. I’d wager that if you took 400 homeless people and put them in a high school cafeteria they would organize themselves by class hierarchy and begin hazing freshman.

Homeless Jock: "Check out Frank. What a loser. Look at his shopping cart! The wheels are all fucked up and he's using paper bags! What if it rains dipshit! What a fag!"