The narrator, Terry, recounts his difficult time in high school, where he navigated a social divide between the wealthy "Hillwalkers" and the poorer "Bottom Dwellers." As a Bottom Dweller, Terry initially associated with his neighborhood friends, Ray, Bobby, and Jimmy, but began to drift away from them as he started to focus on his future and joined the wrestling team.
Terry's friendship with a Hillwalker, Manny, from middle school, also played a significant role, but ultimately, Manny was pressured by his friends to distance himself from Terry after a false accusation of theft led to Terry's removal from the wrestling team.
Terry then tried to rekindle his friendship with Jimmy, but their conversation highlighted their different aspirations and values, leading to a falling out. Feeling isolated and unwanted, Terry spent the rest of his high school days eating lunch alone in an abandoned stairwell.
The video concludes with Terry's graduation, where he proudly walks off stage, leaving his high school experiences behind. In a post-story commentary, Terry acknowledges that his video came across as dramatic but emphasizes that it captures the overall feeling of his time in high school.
Here are the key facts from the text:
1. The narrator attended a high school with two main groups: the "Hillwalkers" (rich kids who lived in the hills) and the "Bottom dwellers" (poor but tough kids who lived at the bottom of the hill).
2. The narrator was a "Bottom dweller".
3. The narrator's best friend, Manny, was a "Hillwalker" who they met in middle school.
4. The narrator had three close friends from their neighborhood: Ray, Bobby, and Jimmy.
5. The narrator was closer to Jimmy, whom they also met in middle school.
6. The narrator and their friends from the "Bottom dwellers" community didn't have much money, so they had to find their own ways to have fun.
7. The narrator skipped school, fought, and got in trouble with their friends.
8. In their freshman year, the narrator wrote an essay about what they wanted to study in college and chose to become a structural engineer.
9. The narrator started thinking about their future and realized they needed to make different choices.
10. The narrator started hanging out with the popular kids, including Manny.
11. The narrator joined the wrestling team and made new friends.
12. The narrator's friendship with Manny was affected by the divide between the "Hillwalkers" and "Bottom dwellers".
13. The narrator was accused of stealing a teammate's iPod and was kicked off the wrestling team.
14. The narrator remembered learning about the law in an AP history class and realized that the evidence against them was null and void.
15. The school didn't want the incident to get out and offered the narrator a choice: accept being kicked off the team or be suspended indefinitely.
16. The narrator chose to accept being kicked off the team.
17. Manny was pressured by his friends to drop the narrator as a friend.
18. The narrator realized they had no friends left and eventually reached out to Jimmy.
19. The narrator and Jimmy met up, but their conversation revealed that they had grown apart.
20. The narrator stopped talking to Jimmy and went their separate ways.
21. The narrator couldn't wait to graduate and often ate lunch alone in an abandoned stairwell.
22. The narrator graduated and never looked back.
23. The narrator, also known as Anime Terry, acknowledges that their high school career wasn't all drama and that they had happy moments.