Not a happy tale but I understand the why these days: we all hunt for acceptable behaviour that will include us to a group or tribe. I think it's rather an instinct. So when it caught-on that I had "cooties" via a couple kids at random, the rest of the class slowly followed suit, and I saw them do this with other kids over the years, so I knew it wasn't simply "me". Of course this made for awkward encounters in adulthood because they knew they had been mean and didn't know why and were still looking for being approved of by me. Weird.

Similar thing happened due to my online "infamy" in entertainment and a church I attended. Yes, we truly believe we are enlightened but as it turns out we aren't. (Oops!) ^_^