Ask a Tween: What Does It Mean to Be Popular?

This is the second installment of The Atlantic's "Ask a Tween" series, where we ask tweens for their thoughts about pretty much everything. We interviewed students at Alice Deal Middle School in D.C., who told us what popularity means in 2015. Social media presence can have a big impact: "You're putting yourself on the web, so that allows people to see who you are, so in order to be popular people have to like you," says Rashida, a 12-year-old. However, "popularity at school is, like, different than overall or on Instagram," adds 13-year-old Dylan.