We live in an age that if you are a good kid getting good grades and going to class as usual you just don’t get noticed but if you jump off the roof of a garage in your underwear and get it on social media you will instantly get hundreds of likes and who doesn’t want to be liked by hundreds of people? I blame judgmental places like Facebook for the downfall of society in general. People have a hard time being judged anyway we don’t need to be judged publically as well. So, this rant brings me to the age old tradition of Prom for every high school student to deal with as well as Dad’s checkbook to pay for the date.

Prom is the ultimate rite of passage from ordinary teen to cool adult. For many worrying about a date is as old as the whole Prom thing is. Because of social media the Prom Proposal is being tweeted and sent and becoming a more creative process in order to get those cool likes we all crave. The epic asks gives a poor guy a lot of social pressure. Is the Prom proposal for love or for likes? The simple task of asking someone for a prom date is now a spectacle on line. You can see sweet serenades to flash mobs featuring over the top chorography to tender private moments. The worst or the best is the open refusals to laugh at the poor broken person who gets refused and now in years of therapy because of those damn likes.

The videos and pictures get millions of views and are shared around the globe. This quest for social media fame is making some teens spend lots of cash and time on a simple proposal. It is an escalating game of one upsmanship. In my day the best Prom moments happened in the movies. There was great dancing in the movie called She’s All That. Or that kiss at the end of the night in the movie called Pretty in Pink. Now the Pram dram  ;a starts well before the night of the event. The average proposal costs more than $300 to bribe the girl with flowers and stuff when you pop the question.  Then add the dress, tux, tickets and limo, Prom spending can easily top $1,000 dollars or more.

Once a Promposal is booted on line it gets a Twitter handle like @Prom or @bestproposal for that viral boost. Rent a skywriting plane and you are locking in 160 likes on Instagram. This all just adds to the pressure for kids to pressure they already have to just fit in life. Then there is the problem of being able to afford to attend. Thanks to organizations like Operation Prom that is a nonprofit that donates free dresses that could be worth hundreds of dollars to girls who can’t afford a dress. The competition to do bigger and better each year is crazy.  It is ideal for single parent households that just can’t afford the expense.