Every actual human with lived experience in society knows, that real life is much more diverse than school. In school, there’s at best a few cliques and mostly a single social hierarchy. After school, even during student years, but even more so when entering the workforce, there’s incredible variety of social hierarchies to climb, skills to learn and excel within, and career paths to take.
Children are just really bad at it so it is extremely obvious. The rituals do not disappear when you turn 18. They do not disappear when you turn 98.