this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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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.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 180 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

The main thing is that prom didn't start to become big until the 1950s. This was a high water mark for conservatism in the U.S., and in order to go on any date ~~at least one parent, usually the girl's dad, had to be present~~ I have been corrected that this is reductive. Chaperoning was still commonish in this time period, depending on your area, but the 50s dating scene was beginning to look somewhat similar to what we have today with a guy picking up a girl in his car to go somewhere. Dancing would have been an uncommon activity because of how "adult" it was seen to be, so for horny teens Homecoming and Prom were a big deal. The biggest thing you notice looking at the dances of this time period is that the dresses are relatively simple, because it really wasn't that big of a deal back then. It was literally just a school dance, organized and overseen by the teachers and school staff.

Then, those kids grew up, had kids of their own, started making movies, and on doing so impressed on the following generation that homecoming and prom were the most fun nights in all of high school. This created pressure to make your proms and homecomings be as cool as the ones your parents told you about. This led to a lot more effort being put in. Dresses got way more expensive, tuxes became pretty much mandatory, guys began doing elaborate prom-posals.

This created a big economic opening in the market. Somebody needs to make colorful dresses for the girls and tuxes for the guys. The wedding industry immediately took over this area, and homecoming and prom became rush time for that industry. Somebody needs to play music. Back in the 50s they would hire bands, but by the 70s and 80 we started getting disc jockeys and now the party dj industry is fully enmeshed in high school dances. Then there's the decorations, which became themeing, which feeds into the party industry.

Now you have the cultural snowball rolling downhill, building up speed, slowly getting bigger. It is encouraged by a growing industry that advertises to teens how cool their prom will be if they just wear this dress, and then social media happened. Now teens are advertising prom to each other, and feeling they need to be better than that TikTok they saw earlier, so the social pressure to have the coolest prom ever is more ubiquitous that it has ever been.

[โ€“] [email protected] 38 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

We really are in our "let them eat cake" era

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿฝ thank you

[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

the 1950s. This was a high water mark for conservatism in the U.S., and in order to go on any date at least one parent, usually the girl's dad, had to be present.

Perhaps this was a regional thing.

I was born in 1970, but from what my parents have described, dates were not chaperoned in the 50s unless you happened to have particularly strict parents. Like maybe if you were Amish or something.

Here's the only thing I was able to find online about dating in the 50's

https://www.plosin.com/beatbegins/projects/sombat.html

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Thanks. Gonna edit my comment since another commenter said he was going to save my comment to copy-paste later if it becomes relevant. I dont want to spread misinformation.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Funny, in Australia we have school dances and they don't get anything like American proms, with the possible exception of girls' debutante balls which we dress up for