The kids "somewhere in between" "strive to become popular and have all sorts of angst"?

That's a pretty big claim for ALL the kids who are neither nerds nor popular. I speculate that a great deal of those kids don't obsess about highschool drama, don't "strive to become popular", and don't end up with "all sorts of angst."

Also, one could safely consider that perhaps the author of a lengthy article about middle school and high school popularity has some undealt-with angst issues...

I'm just saying that I'd be careful about making sweeping generalizations, unless you want to come across as harboring that angst yourself.