I just don’t get it… Why is that important, especially for kids now, that feel like they need to do a YouTube video asking for a date or doing some meme stuff. Some teens even hire the hottest celebrity or ask them to appear in their prom? This is so bizarre for me, all that just for a frivolous night.
In my country prom was a thing but nowhere near as theatrical, I didn’t went to either my prom trip or the party. Also skipped half of my middle school trips.
The education system is primarily promoting degeneracy. Prom was a good way to start it.
I don’t know, why do Japanese schools have culture festivals? Is it not enough to say that some countries have different cultural norms and traditions?
A school dance isn’t just a date, it’s a social event. The US doesn’t really have a lot of public social rituals, so a school dance is a unique kind of social experience that doesn’t really exist outside of school. It probably wasn’t as big when there were town festivals and church holiday events where everyone knew each other, but over time the school dances have become the only thing left.
It’s ridiculous and goes along with the gender reveal parties and outrageous destination bachelor/ette parties. Opportunities to post pics of yourself and say ‘look how cool i am’.
I though that as well
Haterade
Prom is fun. You get to hang out with all of your classmates, ask someone out. A subset of people are always going to go overboard, but keep in mind that you don’t see the “normal” cases. Most people just walk up to someone and ask them out. They find a date from the school or go alone.
I’m from Canada so I don’t know if the US is wildly different, but here it is a bit of a big deal, but I think part of that is what makes it fun, you sort of build a bit of hype around what would otherwise be just another school dance.
Is just weird for me, in my country nobody ask anyone dates is was just a party. And even like that I didn’t went… Always had the impression that USA gives this idea that you must get a date to go
FWIW I think it is actually a valuable social skill to be encouraged to ask someone out to prom. A lot of people don’t have many similar experiences throughout their lives.
I’ve never been with anyone in my life. I highly doubt it has to do with not going to a dumb party though.
You might consider what’s driving you to put people down who are having fun
I don’t put anyone down just because I think a party is lame dude. They can do whatever they want, I can’t stop them.
When you call an event where kids get together to celebrate the end of high school “frivolous” and “dumb,” it really comes across as putting other people down.
I don’t really mean literally to practice asking people out. But there are times in your life where you need to ask people for things. It is hard to get over the anxiety, risk of social embarrassment and practice showing confidence (even if you are not). These are valuable skills in all sort of social circumstances.
I asked sometime to the prom and got turned down. All I learned was that rejection hurts a lot more than I would have thought.
Yeah, being rejected can destroy someone’s confidence
The rituals started in the 1950s. At that time, in order to go on a date with someone, your parents had to chaperone you. It was the wisdom at the time. Prom and homecoming were the only exceptions, so it became a really big thing. Then those people grew up, impressed upon the next generation how homecoming and prom were the best times in high school, started making nostalgia movies about homecoming and prom. That created pressure to live up to this, girls started getting overly fancy dresses, guys started doing elaborate prom-posals, the wedding dress industry jumped in to fill the gap, and now it’s a whole capitalism-fest like Christmas and Valentine’s Day
you must get a date to go
You really don’t, it’s where the phrase “going stag” (To go without a date, or with a group of friends rather than a date) is commonly used.
Also, HS is important for developing social skills and prom is usually for seniors. The end of the last stage of childhood and an opportunity to flex those skills out as graduation is usually within a couple weeks after prom at which point you’re ejected into the adult world.
It’s just a fun event for teens to be teens before they go fully into the workforce or college
Yeah, with my kids and their friends, it was mostly one or two couples and then their girl and guy friends all went together as a group without dates.
Have you seen all those high school movies? The US is obsessed with high school. I guess prom is just part of that.
You think prom is weird. Do an image search for Texas homecoming mums.
For a lot of high school seniors, prom is the last big event before graduation. It’s an event where you can hang out with a lot of your classmates away from school and parents and such. There aren’t too many opportunities to just hang out for a lot of teens, what with the homework and extra curricular activities and such occupying a lot of their free time. That being said, it’s not uncommon for people to skip the prom and some schools make it a bigger deal than others.
It of course varries from one school or area to another, and from different age groups.
I ended up going to 4 proms, my own junior and senior proms, the senior prom my junior year because a girl asked me, and then I ended up dating a girl at another high school after I graduated and ended up going to her senior prom (in case anyone’s getting skeeved at that, we were both 18 at the time we started dating, just a few months difference between us, I just barely made the cutoff to be part of the previous grade and she just missed it)
That last prom was the only one where I was actually dating my date, the other 3 we just went as friends, although I did have a pretty big crush on the girl I took to both of my own proms but could never quite work up the nerve to ask her out.
There were never any elaborate promposals or anything, that was just starting around that time and hadn’t quite caught on yet, my sister a couple years behind me did it, nothing too elaborate I think she gave her friend a cake and balloons.
The promposal thing is mostly just that it’s silly and fun, and nowadays I guess it probably makes for a funny tiktok.
Prom was not a particularly big deal in my area, if I had to attach any particular significance to it, it’s just that it’s kind of your first “adult” formal event that you’re attending for your own sake, not because you’re going to a cousins wedding, not something like your first communion or bar mitzvah or whatever when you’re still very much a kid. You get to dress up, you get a fancy meal, you rent a limo, maybe you go to a cool post-prom party and you’re going to be out till the wee hours of the morning mostly left to your own devices. It’s fun for its own sake, and the kind of event most teens don’t really get to experience very often.
You’re only seeing the most outrageous edge cases. It’s a weird kind of survivorship bias.
Prom was kinda like graduation to me. It’s a school event, I mostly went because it was important to someone else, and it’s a very common and relatable event in American life. All in, it was a waste of 50 bucks and a few good hours of gaming/relaxing with my GF.
Proms were around for ~50 years before we started seeing “promposals”, where guys would ask girls out with 3 minute-long choreographed dances in the middle of the quad for the whole school to see & record for social media. I’m not saying it’s stupid to put effort into asking someone, it can definitely be cute, but it can also be ultra cringe if you take it too far
Prom is part of the culture and teenage experience here. Some people are more into it than others. It’s ok not to totally understand or like it. I’m sure there are things that we don’t understand about other places too.
Can someone explain me [ X country] obsession with [ X celebration] and similar [location] rituals? Why do different cultures have their respective rituals? Why do some people prioritize certain values and act on them? Is having more reasons to celebrate life a bad or good thing?
Nah, I think it’s more; “as someone who consumes 90% of culture X, and gets 90% of the X references, what is the significance of this 10% X reference which has no analog in my native culture?”
based and human nature-pilled
In Germany we have this stupid tradition with Maibäume (May trees) were young people carry a tree around and place it in front of the house of their beloved ones. The bigger the tree the better.
I think it’s important to remember that the USA isn’t a single culture. Things vary dramatically even within a single state to say nothing of differences between states.
In some areas prom is very important. In others, not so much.
Only one of my three kids went to prom (Eastern PA).
Prom in my high school was a relatively big deal. You rented a tux or bought a dress. Some people would rent a limo. The prom was held in some kind of banquet hall with a fairly fancy meal. There’d be a DJ and dancing.
My wife was one year behind me in high school, and we attended FOUR proms (my junior prom, then the next year her junior prom and my senior prom, then the next year I came back for her senior prom).
I think for most people it’s just an opportunity to get dressed up, have a good meal, and dance. If you’re already dating someone, it obviously has more significance, but I had plenty of friends who just took another friend as a date for the prom and others who didn’t go with anyone. However, there was a lot of pressure to be a “couple”, even if you weren’t actually romantically involved with your “date”.
Typically the parents take pictures of the kids in their dresses and tuxedos. From the parents’ point of view, it’s a moment to sort of take note of how your kids are maturing and think about what the future holds for them. Lots of thinking about how old you are ;-)
Often there’s an after party that goes on late into the morning, and for many kids the after party is more important than the prom.
I think social media has had an effect on what prom is, but it also has the effect of distorting what it is to people who only experience it remotely. When you’re seeing the crazy YouTube videos and Instagram posts, you’re not seeing what prom is. You’re seeing a snapshot of what those particular proms are.
Thank you, that was a really good explanation!
