2fer #7

Deja Winfield

April 17th, 2018

English 3

Ms. Pahomov

Does this Year’s Prom Really Matter?

Prom season is here! It’s on everyone’s mind. Juniors and seniors alike are questioning who they should take? What should they wear?  What type of corsage do they purchase? Who will be prom king and queen? Will they look beautiful or handsome? Prom is a great time to answer all these questions and more, but as a large high school event prom, it is overhyped, cruel, and overpriced. High schools should be limited to only a senior prom because it cuts down on the number of disappointed students.

Senior prom is looked as the last big memory in high school. It is when they see the last few grains of sand in the top of the hourglass of childhood. In comparison, junior prom is placed in one of the busiest school years in the academic career.  Junior prom is used as a stepping stone to popularity in high school isolating the dateless and giving status to the couples at prom. Junior prom is a preview of senior prom. In previews you never see the full story, you get to experience a small part of the real deal. Looking from the experience of Julia Murray (BHS), a now high school senior and experienced blogger, who attended her junior prom last year and did not have a great experience. While also not having a bad one this is what she had to say “The lesson here … although prom feels like a big deal, it isn’t. Prom is what you make of it. It might not be what you expected, but as long as you… And girls, you don’t need to spend all your money on a dress, there are much more important things than a dance.” She experienced spending thousands on everything, she “needed” for prom. And not going home happy. She didn’t get the experience of laying in bed and thinking about how amazing the night had been but thinking of all the other things she could have experienced with the money and time that she had spent. Knowing this would be repeated next year with a larger more expensive dress, she wasn’t satisfied, deciding that attending her senior prom would not matter. But for many, this is not the case. They decide that junior prom is the one that does not matter and attend senior prom to experience the night with friends. More students overall go to their senior prom in comparison to a student who goes to their junior prom. Like Murray, students who decided to go to junior prom have a chance of being disappointed twice. But at least she wasn’t ridiculed and mocked for the dress she wore like many are.

High school is a time of changing the body and changing appearances. The way your body changes can ruin your high school experience due to the mockery of young adults who are changing and developing as well. Prom is the time for many to show of their changing body with a suit or a beautiful dress. The way they look will always bring up their confidence initially. Until the comments unfold. Tayja Jones thought she looked beautiful in her junior prom dress (and she did). But as she opened her mobile phone to look at social media and the pictures from last night. She had seen she had gone viral. In the span of a few hours, her picture crossed the screen of hundreds of thousands of people making cruel commentary on her body and the way she should look at seventeen years of age. She even spoke out on how she felt saying “ It was just really hurtful because I was so confident the day before”. All of her confidence was dropped until she felt hallowed. And even the enjoyment of the last night didn’t make up for the abuse she had to endure. She deserved to feel the after joy of prom. She deserved to continue to love herself without question.

Prom is considered a right of passage for so many people. For some prom tells them that they are almost done with their high school career, as well as almost finished with their childhood. But for some prom is a night of horrid people locked in a room together for hours. It is the anticlimax of their high school career. Being forced to pay hundreds to even thousands of dollars for a night of ridicule and disappointment is what they expect.  And for those who decide to attend their junior prom haven the chance to allow this to be their prom experience twice. To cut the number of children who are disappointed with their prom experience we should only allow high school have a senior prom.

Work Cited

Murray, Julia. “My Junior Prom Experience.” The Roar, 15 June 2017, bhstheroar.org/6733/opinion/my-junior-prom-experience/.

Jideonwo, Peter. “Tayja Jones Prom.” BlackDoctor, BlackDoctor.org, 3 May 2016, blackdoctor.org/488232/weseeyou-teens-message-after-being-bullied-for-her-viral-prom-photo-i-will-continue-to-be-the-voice-for-those-who-cant-speak-up/13151404_1723399244598664_6492225213850044604_n/.

This essay is my best two fer essay because I looked for deeper sources that spoke on a event that was current for us as students. We are preparing for prom in this upcoming week and it tends to be the thing on all of our minds. And we all know the struggle of the stress and hearing the nightmares of prom past. I spent a lot of time on this two fer as well, and spent a hour editing my grammar and word structure.