Speaking as someone still in high school...
It seems to me there are 3 layers of popularity.
Popular - people who do all that stuff like going to parties, getting drunk, having all teh sex etc., they're not actually popular than anyone else but they're a separate social group.
Normal - Title says it all, everyone who is likeable in any way, I'm in this category, along with the majority of everyone else in the school year. My fellow Normallers still get it as much as the Popular crowd do, we just have less stylish haircuts and stuff. This section is home to many social groups but everyone stills gets along nicely.
[no mans land]
Unpopular - Everyone who's boring or a dick ends up over here.
And interestingly in our school there is another group, on the same level as normal:
Popular
Normal ----------- Outcasts
[no mans land]
Unpopular
That's the group I guess my friends and I are in, we're kind of the nutjobs of the school :lol: it's basically because we're basically the only people in the school who like metal, we also have someone who is somewhat of a sociopath among us (just to give you an example,
this is his Facebook profile picture, he is a nice guy once you get to know him though), and we also have possibly the biggest arsehole in the school, I guess that's where the No Mans Land section comes into play - he's likeable, but he's an arsehole.