Carmel High School Tour

Submission 2,469

Part of a series on Viral Videos. [View Related Entries]

About

Carmel High School Tour refers to a viral video tour of Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana. The video was uploaded to the Carmel High TikTok page in February 2023 and went viral as viewers criticized the size and luxuriousness of the school, with many comparing it more to a college campus than a high school. The video inspired discussions about school funding and skits parodying the tour by students at smaller, less luxurious high schools.

Origin

On February 9th, 2023, TikTok^[1] page @@carmeldeca, the official page of Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana, posted a video where several students offer a tour of the high school. The tour showcases rooms including the auditorium, planetarium, library, cafe and market, a weight room, a dedicated wrestling room, several gyms and a radio and news recording studio (shown below, left). The video gained over 6.6 million views in a week and originally had the comments turned on, but they were turned off as the video went viral and viewers began commenting on the size of the school. On February 10th, they uploaded a second part of the tour to TikTok,^[2] gaining over a million views in six days (shown below, right).

Spread

On February 10th, 2023, Barstool Sports Twitter^[3] page @barstoolindy posted the video, writing, "This tour of Carmel High School is going viral on Tik Tok. America cannot believe how big it is 💀," garnering over 48,000 likes and 16,000 quote-tweets in six days. The account also posted a selection of comments from the video where users discuss the size of the school (shown below).

On February 11th, TikToker^[4] @driplos3 posted a duet to the video touring his high school, showcasing its smaller size and budget, garnering over 34,000 views in five days (shown below).

The video also inspired discussions about school funding. On February 13th, 2023, Twitter^[5] user @HolderStephen retweeted the video, writing, "The issue isn’t that these kids have too much at their disposal. Rather, it’s that so many kids (and other districts) have so little," garnering over 840 likes in three days (shown below, left). On February 14th, Twitter^[6] user @GoodVibePolitik made a post about how Carmel High "demonstrates the problem with how we fund U.S. public schools," garnering over 31,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

That day, TikToker^[7] @jericoseriousv2 posted a duet to the tour video claiming that he saw no Black people in the video, suggesting that schools in Black communities don't get as well funded as majority white schools, garnering over 230,000 views in two days (shown below, left). On February 15th, TikToker^[8] @sanilarena posted a video reacting to the tour with disbelief, garnering over 2.5 million views in a day (shown below, right).