the.com/clique
a fortress built from inside jokes, with no door and a very long memory.
means A small, tight-knit group of people who keep to themselves and tend to exclude outsiders.
from Straight from French, where 'clique' meant a clatter or a noisy crowd — born from the old verb 'cliquer,' to click or make a sharp sound (a cousin of 'click' itself). It started as an echo of bodies clustered and chattering, then narrowed over time into the cooler, frostier sense of a closed circle. English borrowed it in the 18th century, keeping the snap of that 'click' in both the sound and the snub.
- french root
- From a word meaning a clicking sound or claque
- clap squad
- Originally hired crowds paid to applaud plays
- brain wiring
- Humans cap stable social bonds around 150 people
- size sweet spot
- Tightest cliques hover between three and five members
- exclusion sting
- Social rejection lights up the brain's pain centers
the fab four — beatles inner circle of 4 members who dominated 1960s music and culture
the rat pack — frank sinatra, dean martin, sammy davis jr. and others who ruled las vegas in the 1950s-60s
the bloomsbury group — virginia woolf, john maynard keynes and intellectuals who shaped early 20th century london