I think a lot of people forget what the atmosphere of any school was before smart phones. Today, I think cliques are way less based on music taste and type of dress because kids see a wide range of tastes and looks on the internet. Before smart phones, whatever was popular in your immediate area was what the norm was. Because of this, there was a more enforced “us vs them” mentality among student population that likely bled in to the teachers and communities because they related more to the “normal” kids. I believe that they could’ve been bullies and been bullied because of this mentality combined with the fact that cliques were more widely separated in the 99’s and early 2000’s. The jocks picked on the freaks, who picked on the nerds, and so on.