When I was a kid the kids I played with periodically would pick on me, why?

They pick on you periodically as you are the most entertaining part of their lives and it makes them laugh with your funny answers.

I also used to be in this position. However, it took quite some time before they started picking on me. On the first year of high school, we spent time for quite a while. When new kids joins the grade throughout the year, some of them brought the "toxic" mood. They started doing terrible things, such as hanging out late at night or smoking. I chose not to join them on their afterschool activities. From this point, it was obvious that they would think I'm not a part of them anymore. In the group of friends, I would be the most innocent boy because I chose not to do those things. I would say that the kids picked on me mainly because they don't value or respect me. They might have looked at me as someone who is weak. They started to leave me out as if I'm an outsider. And the reason of why they do this? In my case, they probably were just wanting to make to feel themselves better by making others feel worse. They don't completely abandon me because they would lose someone to make fun of. But of course, there are a lot of reasons why people would pick on you.