What is "popular kid"?

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There are kids at my school who I consider "popular" because they are:

"1.Liked, admired, or enjoyed by many people or by a particular person or group", and they have many friends, hang out with my friends, and go to a lot of parties. They are also really nice and polite to me and my brother. They included him in their phone game on the bus, and I didn't want to, but I could've joined as well.

There are other kids who used to be "high school stereotypes" in middle school as "popular", and were mean, now they just ignore me and are polite when we do come across each other.

I consider my friend at my school "popular" because everyone in school likes and hangs out with him. However, he is not what one would consider "stereotypical", he's slightly overweight and marches to the beat of his own drum. My mother said that a "popular kid" is not necessarily the kid with the most friends, but a kid who was a "mover and shaker" of the school they were in, i.e, class presidents, prom kings, cheer captains...

So what do people mean when they talk about, "do you like the popular kids"? Do they mean the ones who are closest to the stereotypes, the kids with the most friends, or the "movers and shakers"? In my case, the well-liked kids tend to be the "movers and shakers" as well, so are they the "popular kids"?

Has my school outgrown such labels?

At my school most people hung out with groups of friends.

The 'popular' kids were clearly the biggest group made-up of the most people, along wit having friends outside of their group and/or being liked by people outside of their group.

The popular kids group also coincidentally consisted of the most physically attractive, confident, charismatic, friendly, extroverted and outgoing people.

It also consisted heavily of those that enjoy contributing to the school in some way - school leaders, athletes that excel at their sport, talented artistic types, etc. and those that generally contributed to the school and community.

To answer your question, I'd say it's all three.

While like I said the popular group at my school did tend to be the attractive, charismatic types, even the more plain or shyer types got plenty of attention as well.

I've found this essay to be very enlightening: Why Nerds are Unpopular.