The Homecoming Proposal Sign Epidemic

Samuel Ellis, Reporter

Homecoming is an event circled on the calendars of most high school and college students. It’s a treasured annual celebration of school spirit headlined by dances and football games.

Since the beginning of time, dance proposals have been an essential part of the tradition. More recently, kids are expected to to ask out their date with decorated signs.

“Oh this is definitely something new,” teacher Amanda Hawkins said. “This is something exclusive to this generation, people weren’t doing this when I was in school. You would just go up to a person and ask, these signs weren’t a thing.”

The signs can’t just say something bland like “Will you be my homecoming date?” The point is to make it a cute and creative pun. Bonus points if it has a theme that relates to one of her interests. It sounds cool in theory, but the reality is we’re in the midst of a proposal sign epidemic.

It’s impossible for a sign proposal to not be awkward. Walking up to a girl in front of a bunch of people with a sign that says “Be my snack that smiles back” can’t be an easy thing to do. Not to mention the embarrassment if the girl says no. All those hours looking for corny sign ideas on Pinterest would be for nothing.

This epidemic has spread to Lake too. At least twice a day, falcon lunch is interrupted by the applause of a successful homecoming proposal. There aren’t mums or flowers either, just two kids and a sign they have to carry around for the rest of the day.

Obviously, this whole thing isn’t all bad. It provides a way for teens to unlock their creativity and spend some time working on something they normally don’t. It beats sitting around and scrolling through the endless depths of TikTok.

The signs aren’t always low effort corny jokes, there’s some pretty creative signs out there.

In the end, for better or worse, these signs appear to be the newest part of an old tradition that’s here to stay.