By Annie Liang & Shivani Khanna
Gargoyle assistant editor & staff reporter
Published Friday, Dec. 16, 2005, Gargoyle, in depth

Walk down the hallway of a stereotypical public high school and you'll see an array of different groups: Jocks. Preps. Goths. Nerds. Outcasts. You name it. But what about Uni, a school famous for its small classes and intimacy? One would think that students at Uni would be shielded from the stereotyping and cliques that dominate the popular conception of high school. That's not the case.

In the past five years Uni High has seen the rise and fall of an assortment of cliques.

It began with the “dC” back in 2001, a group of sophomore boys who called themselves the “Dirty Crew.”

“The dC was a prevalent, outspoken group,” recalled senior David Boyle. “The idea of having a named group [in subsequent classes] occurred because the dC was so well known.”

The dC was followed by the creation of the SS two years later: the “Scuba Squad,” another group of sophomore (now senior) boys. That same year, a group of subbie (now sophomore) boys formed the RIK, rumored to be the “Realest Illest Killers.”

The year 2003 also saw the birth of two female cliques: the “Six-Pack,” a group of subbie (now sophomore) girls that has since broken up, and the “Glitter Crew,” a group of now graduated senior girls.

Uni students are now witnessing the rise of the newest member to this already long line of cliques: the BC, a group of freshman girls.

While Uni promotes an inclusive social environment, it's undeniable that Uni has had a substantial history of groups that feel the need to separate and name themselves. And a lot of Uni students have a problem with that.

The backlash

“Contrary to popular belief, Uni is already subdivided enough, and considering the fact that we all have so much in common, I think it's ridiculous to build up walls by naming a group,” junior Lydia Ansermet said.

Ansermet is one of many Uni students with strong feelings against the cliques at Uni. The reasons she and others offered us were focused around the exclusive and flamboyant image they feel cliques project.

Despite the fact that students in cliques continually asserted to us during interviews that they're “not better than anyone else” and “aren't trying to send that message,” the message is being sent.

A number of Uni students also see cliques as immature, the kind of thing you'd do in elementary school. “Cliques, especially the BC, seem a lot like in the fifth grade when you have your friends and your enemies and if you hang out with someone else then you're totally not one of their friends anymore,” Ansermet said.

[Note: The quotation in the preceding paragraph was inaccurately attributed to Lydia Ansermet in our original print article. The speaker was actually freshman Lor Sligar. We apologize for the error.]

Above everything else, however, Uni students are disappointed with the behavior of existing cliques. Their comments, including criticisms of the SS for “flaunting themselves,” are aimed at specific cliques and not at the notion of cliques in general.

“I think if the SS had kept their whole ‘thing' to themselves, it would only be a bit immature,” Ansermet said. “But because they're so public about it, I think they're pretty thoughtless of how that makes other people feel.”

Are cliques really that bad?

“The BC is not meant to be a clique. I admit that having a name does make it seem that way, but it's not at all meant to exclude people,” said freshman Natsuki Nakamura, a member of the BC. “Right now the BC has a really bad reputation, and I don't think we've really done anything to deserve it. People who don't even know us or who the BC [is made up of] just assume we're immature or slutty or something. A lot of people have said negative comments too, like all we like to do is put people down, but I would honestly like to say that that is not true at all.”

The RIK agreed. “We don't do this to exclude people,” sophomore Austin Rundus said.

“It gives us an identity,” said Kumars Salehi, another member of the RIK.

The members of the SS were unwilling to comment too heavily on their clique, but SS member Al Renner did say: “The SS isn't exclusive at all; anyone can join. We don't invite people, but it's easy. All someone would have to do is submit a five-page, single-spaced application stating all the reasons why they feel they should be a member. Then we will have a conclave at someone's house, and the awaiting member will sit outside. If they are admitted, we start a fire and send up white smoke; if they are rejected, black smoke.”

Uni guidance counselor Sam Smith said that cliques in and of themselves aren't harmful. In fact, the dictionary definition of cliques is just “a small exclusive group of friends or associates.” Once all the negative connotations are stripped away, cliques are simply the grouping of people with similar interests.

“I don't think that they [cliques] are a bad thing necessarily,” sophomore Sarah Pfander said. “Identifying yourself with a group of people can raise confidence and make you feel like you always have someone to turn to.”

Things start going wrong when cliques begin excluding people or feign superiority, but students in Uni cliques don't feel they're guilty of either of those faults.

“The BC is not meant to be exclusive at all,” Nakamura continued. “We all have many other friends who don't call themselves part of the BC. We're not trying to say that people in the BC are in any way superior to others or that they can't hang out with other people. The members in the BC are all just really close. We all have lockers together, like each other a lot, and really enjoy spending time together. These are people who we feel that we can really be honest with.”

What's wrong with that?

The name

So what makes these groups so different from other groups of friends?

Senior Tom Wiltzius feels that it's the name.

Freshman Allan Kessler agrees that the difference is in the name and the exclusiveness that it suggests.

Concerning those groups of friends that are unnamed, students feel that they present an air of flexibility, which is probably why they are not the target of public attention.

“Having a name causes a weird separation [between members in the class],” Kessler said.

Indeed, the visible distinction between groups such as the SS, BC, and RIK and other groups of friends is the alias they assign themselves. While many students don't have a problem with the SS members, the name is what disturbs them the most.

“It [the name ‘SS'] was a pretty poor choice of nomenclature, but since they don't seem to align themselves with the ideology of the Nazis, I really just feel that they are just so ignorant that they chose the name by accident,” said Wiltzius.

Where cliques go wrong

“I think groups of friends are wonderful … but when you start trying to feel better by denying others the right to belong with your group, then the societal structure has degressed,” senior Rose Kory said.

In and of themselves, cliques don't have to be negative. It's when what Sam Smith called “crowd mentality” persuades students to do questionable things, or when cliques start becoming too exclusive, that problems begin to arise.

The difference between a gang and a clique, Smith said, is that gangs are disrespectful and malicious, whereas cliques are not.

Not all problems come from within the cliques, however. Rumors and public attention can cause otherwise innocent groups to become shrouded in misunderstandings and slander.

“People are making us a big deal,” said Lizzy Warner, a member of the BC. “We're not any different from other groups. We have a sign. That's the only difference.”

Attention — both positive and negative — from other students causes the topic of cliques to resurface over and over again, with public opinion becoming more firmly negative each time. Groups that otherwise aren't too different from your average high school friend circle are molded, even forced, into the usual clique stereotype.

“In my opinion, cliques become what they are because of the stigma that surrounds them,” senior Julie Chen said. “It's just the fact that these groups are discussed and constantly brought up that makes them known and have even more people have problems with them.”