2020 Prom Cancellations

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Part of a series on COVID-19 Pandemic. [View Related Entries]

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Overview

2020 Prom Cancellations refers to the Coronavirus Outbreak causing highschools to cancel senior proms. As teenagers began discovering that their senior dances were cancelled in early March 2020, they began posting skits to TikTok and rants on Twitter and Reddit regarding their frustration.

Background

As early as March 1st, 2020, reports of prom cancellations circulated online.^[1]^[2] That week, high school students began announcing their frustration on Twitter. For example, on March 3rd, Twitter user @yourstruly_majd^[3] tweeted, "Everything is cancelled?? School trip? All our senior events? Our dinners? Maybe even prom? And possibly graduation itself?? Can corona really just not fuck with us? Like damn im just tryna enjoy my last year in high school" (shown below).

Developments

On March 7th, 2020, TikToker @allibear uploaded a it's corona time video regarding her prom (shown below, left). The next day, TikToker @urfavoritebigtoe also uploaded a video regarding her prom being cancelled (shown below, right). The video gained over 720 likes in eight days.

On March 11th, actor and Twitter user @MatthewLillard^[4] responded to a request to borrow Shaggy's suit for prom with "I would’ve… Prom got canceled?" (shown below). The tweet gained over 4,600 likes in five days.

On March 13th, Twitter user @TheJakeneutron uploaded a short screaming clip with the caption, "My sister found out Prom was canceled because of the corona virus and her reaction was to scream like:" and received over 1,500 likes in three days (shown below). On March 16th, Redditor atlaslapis posted a rant to r/teenagers^[5] stating, "There is rumor going around that Prom and Graduation for us will be cancelled. They have mentioned just shipping them and such. My senior musical has already been cancelled and for now and my family has officially cancelled their trip to see me and senior trip maybe cancelled as well. I’m overall upset. Like I get it why we should stay in but this hurts horribly."