High school is such a shared experience in North American culture.

Coupland’s remark points to how “high school” functions in North America as a near-universal rite of passage: a standardized institution that many people pass through at roughly the same age, absorbing similar social scripts (cliques, popularity hierarchies, sports, prom, graduation). Because so many share this framework, it becomes a powerful common reference point in conversation, nostalgia, and popular media—an experience people can invoke to signal identity, belonging, or trauma. The quote also implies that high school’s cultural weight exceeds its educational role: it is a social sorting mechanism and a memory factory that helps produce a broadly legible “teenage” narrative across regions and classes, even when individual experiences differ sharply.