We all know that the world of media is just an extension of high school. It's filled with the same cliques, backstabbing, and petty drama you'd expect from a group of overgrown teenagers. So maybe that explains why we've seen so many news stories about proms lately. Here's one today about teens spending thousands on prom dresses to look better on Instagram. Good get. You probably saw the one from earlier in the week in which a girl was sent home for inspiring "impure thoughts." The list goes on and on. Rihanna cyber-bullied a teen for her prom dress, teens held an NFL-style draft to pick prom dates, an Ohio teen took his great-grandmother to prom, a North Carolina teen was kicked out of her prom for wearing pants. And those are all just from the past week or two.
Granted, some stories about proms are of actual news value, like the sadly too-frequent ones about gay students being discriminated against by their schools, but by and large there's no reason for adults to be interested in any of this. It's a tawdry sort of clickbait that plays upon our ingrained titillation by anything remotely suggestive of teenage sexuality. Frankly, it's kind of pervy.
All of these stories pale in comparison, however, to the most ridiculous type of prom story, one which we've seen more and more of lately: A teen asking a celebrity to the prom. The latest comes from Massachusetts, where a 16 year old squired Jenny Dell, a long time NESN reporter and girlfriend of Red Sox star Will Middlebrooks, to his prom. Earlier this month a Texas boy brought a Houston Texans cheerleader to his prom after asking her if she'd go if he got 10,000 RT's on Twitter. Last year, a boy who was turned down by Kate Upton got a pretty good fallback date in model Nina Agdal. It works for young women as well, like this Philly teen who who got a surprise date from Shaun White for her prom. And last month a Pennsylvania student was infamously suspended for asking Miss America Nina Davuluri to his prom.
To which I say: Good. He should be suspended. It's time kids like this learned a lesson.
There are two reasons why this sort of behavior should be discouraged among students, and especially young men. First off, to put it bluntly, fellas, when you ask a celebrity to your prom, you look like a huge, hapless dork. I know it seems like you're the cool guy who managed to score a date with a model or an actress, but no one is actually thinking that. They are thinking that you couldn't get an actual date from one of your peers, and had to resort to a goofy social media prank to guilt someone into going with you. That's why these women have shown up. You realize that, right? It's not because they want to go on a date with an underage civilian, it's because they're worried they'll look bad in the public eye if they say no. You wouldn't want a pity date from someone your own age, right? So why make yourself look like a pathetic fool in a stunt like this, not only in front of your own school, but in front of the national media, who will inevitably cover the story? I know the he adlines will read like this:
Student Brings Celebrity to Prom
But the subtext is actually like this:
Dateless Loser Guilts Self-Promoter Into Standing Near Him for an Hour
And this part should not even need saying: They're not going to hook up with you.
Ever.
The second reason this sort of thing is troublesome may be a little more complex, but it's an idea worth exploring, especially for young men. Let's consider what the Massachusetts teen Cameron Stuart had to do to get Dell to go to his prom.
"I thought it was fantastic," Dell said about Cameron's relentless attempts to woo her over Twitter. "When you see someone that puts that much time and effort into something, you have to take the time and give him the benefit of the doubt," she said. "There's been people who have tweeted out here or there, 'Will you come to prom with me?' 'Would you be my date to this wedding?' but nothing like the effort that this man put in right here."
In other words, he wore down her defenses.
The message that these type of stories send to young men everywhere is that no matter how little a woman is interested in dating you, if you painstakingly erode her resistance, then eventually your efforts will pay off. It reinforces the idea that women are objects meant to be won, regardless of their level of interest in you.
Here's a lesson that many of you, being young boys and probably new to the world of courting and dating, probably don't fully understand yet: If a woman wants to go out with you, you will know it pretty early on. No amount of begging or pleading or goofy stunts, no number of RT's or likes on a Facebook post will magically convince someone to fall for you. The idea that you can get a date through force is exactly the type of thing women are talking about when it comes to our ingrained climate of gender disparity and even rape culture. That may sound extreme, but behavior like this is an early symptom of boys who will grow up into men who view women as some kind of entitlement, not as human equals.
It's not just the boys to blame here. All young boys are idiots, what do they know about the world? The rest of us who conspire to put a cute spin on these type of stories are to blame too. It's time we start calling them what they really are: evidence of young stalkers in training who get a pat on the back for pressuring women to submit to their will.
Update: It also just happened to Joe Biden. Jeez.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Via Esquire
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