Yup, 100%. I don't know if some people just (fortunately) lack the experience with these type of situations, but at least during my time in middle- and high school in a shitty suburban hellscape, the reality at my school was that being a social pariah was a communicable disease.

This created an environment where once someone was made a social pariah, being seen giving the time of day to or being friendly with a social pariah had the chance of conferring their status onto yourself. However, bullying the pariah kids was seen as socially acceptable or even rewarded by people higher on the popularity food chain.

So under those circumstances, you'd get kids in that pocket of "not really popular, but not ostracized" being especially cruel to the outcast kids in hopes of either climbing the social ladder or protecting themselves from falling down further. Under those circumstances, you would definitely get kids saying something benign then being met with unbridled and unwarranted hostility.