If They Can’t Dance, They Can’t Kiss!

Welp, the town elders from Footloose have finally won.

Look, I’m not one of those people who loved every part of the high school experience, but there were certain parts that seemed like important coming of age moments while you were in it. Like getting your license. And the first time you’re honest with yourself and admit that Doc Martens are really uncomfortable. And also school dances. Why? Because like most coming of age moments it felt more momentous while you were in it because ’80s and ’90s television and movies told us it would feel that way (shout out to Paul Pfeiffer’s Bar Mitzvah!).

I am saying this as a person who attended school dances during the height of that unfortunate white-girl cornrows in butterfly clips era and living in a time of slowdancing to the City of Angels soundtrack then it fading out and transitioning to the Thong Song then having to get all romantic again cause Will Smith’s Just the Two of Us came on. Now that I think about it, school dances were really the worst. Except the times when you were having so much fun and wanted to enjoy every second cause college was coming way too soon. Like most of high school, it was probably the very best and the very worst all at the exact same time.

Apparently high school dances are becoming a thing of the past in any case. In Caroline Moss’s piece “My High School No Longer Holds Dances Because Students Would Rather Stay Home And Text Each Other” her younger sister explained:

Lucy told me she thought the reason students didn’t attend was because everyone would rather be home texting, Facebook messaging, or Snapchatting each other.

“Kids don’t need to go to a dance to interact with each other when they can sit in their bed with their laptop and phone and text them,” she said. “It’s basically like being with that person. You don’t have to show up to a dance hoping to see someone anymore. You can literally Snapchat them and see them on Snapchat.”

This bums me out a bit, but at least we have the greatest video of all time.