Evan Alaudini
School dances used to be an event students loved coming to: the dancing, photos, fun outfits and impatiently counting down the days until your ‘night to remember’. What happened to the appeal of that? Why would most students rather skip the dance altogether and head straight to an after-party, or not go at all?
Sophomore Hayden Widman spoke about her opinion on school dances.
“Everyone is judgmental and rude about everything, and I think people are so scared to be themselves. It comes out in a really bad way where everyone’s scared to do anything,” Widman says.
Dances are meant to be a place for everyone to get together and have a good time. For some students, they are, but for others, it is a judgmental and socially intimidating environment.
According to a Seattle Anxiety Specialists article about the rise of social anxiety disorder, the prevalence of social media is affecting more and more people in a negative way, . Sstarting with the younger generations.
“Social media inherently offers us so many methods for connection that don’t require any face-to-face interaction, our over-reliance on it is causing us to become more socially anxious every year. This is especially relevant when it comes to younger generations, who have increasingly liberal access to social media at younger and younger ages,” the article explained.
Gen Z is active on social media more than any other generation. This plays a big part in the way people interact with one another.
“It’s not the idea of dances I hate, it’s just that I feel like it’s a waste of money to go. Especially for homecoming, to stand under a tent for half an hour just to not dance, talk or interact with anyone else. I like getting dressed up and going out to dinner, but actually being there is not fun,” Widman said.
Dances are sometimes seen as an excuse to get dressed up, go out to dinner and have an after-party. But sophomore Ellie Snider explains why she loves going to school dances.
“There’s a time of the night when everyone’s gone to dinner, but not everyone’s left the party yet. You’re with your friends, but also, you see people that you didn’t go with, and there are also teachers,” Snider said.
There is a lot of work that goes into putting together dances. Student council presidents, Kevin Feng and Reagan Hunt, spoke on what their responsibilities are for organizing homecoming.
“If we don’t sell enough tickets, student council members are gonna have to, in the winter, sell flowers. And that’s normally not a really fun event for them. I don’t mind it personally, but that’s just where we make up the money that we didn’t earn,” Feng said.
Hunt explained how students react when they disagree with the theme or start questioning how the student council will decorate accordingly.
“I think people are always gonna have different opinions about the theme. Especially when one theme wins and they’re like, ‘how do you decorate for that?’, ‘what’s that gonna look like?’, but then most of the time when people get to the dance, they realize that it’s more about the dance itself and the energy and hanging out with friends. So they kind of forget about the things that they were upset with before,” Hunt said.
Hunt also shared her opinion on why most students don’t have any interest in attending dances.
“I think, especially in Upper Arlington, after parties are just such a big thing. I think that’s a lot of people’s priorities when it comes to school dances instead of the dance itself,” Hunt said.
Though students have different opinions on school dances, their stance is most likely a result of social norms and influences, whether that’s from social media or their peers. But student council members and staff put so much effort into organizing dances because they should be a valued part of the high school experience. Despite our differences, school dances are a long-standing tradition that continues to bring students together.