It seems to me, being "popular" is more an attained status rather than any kind of quality. What I mean is, the kids who went along with the group gave the group an opportunity to evaluate the newcomer - and gave the newcomer a chance to build some level of likeability, trust, respect.
One may be all of those things, but without giving the group an opportunity to discover that for themselves, they aren't going to listen to your suggestions. Or one may start by going along with the group, but be abrasive and obnoxious, and no matter how much time they spent with the group, they won't be popular.
It doesn't mean anything if you are "right" but nobody will listen to you. To effect any change you have to not only be "right" but also be able to convince others around you of what you are trying to do.
This used to be one of the great ways that tech was different. You didn't have to convince people through social means. Often there were purely technical merits that could be objectively proven. And people cared about the code more than "being right." Obviously that's not a blanket statement, but it did used to feel representative of the overall culture.
Over the years we've backed away from considering the value of things on their technical merits. I'm not saying we shouldn't be thinking of business value, but you have to admit that's far more subjective. I'm not always sure it's a good thing. I'm convinced that maximizing business value and ignoring technical value is one of the main reasons so much modern software is crap.
One may be all of those things, but without giving the group an opportunity to discover that for themselves, they aren't going to listen to your suggestions. Or one may start by going along with the group, but be abrasive and obnoxious, and no matter how much time they spent with the group, they won't be popular.