It used to be that you would just ask someone to go to prom. It’s not like that anymore! Recently, high school students have been jumping on the “promposal” bandwagon. Promposals these days are almost as fancy as marriage proposals. The first time the phrase “promposal” was ever used in a newspaper story was in 2001 according to the Washington Post. Scott Rodgers and Amanda Gibson were the first documented pair to prompose. Scott asked Amanda with a rewritten version of a song Adam Sandler sang in “The Wedding Singer.” When this first promposal, which took place in Dallas, Texas, went public, the trend started spreading like wildfire in the South. As time went on, the phenomenon reached the East coast, and it eventually spread all over the U.S. Now, Generation Z has changed the simplicity of promposals and seems to have turned them into a competition to see how luxurious and public they can be.

Through the years, promposals have become more and more elaborate. Simple posters and writing “Prom” with sticky notes on cars are things of the past. Now teens are asking their significant others in extravagant ways. One of the most recent extravagant promposals that has gone viral is a boy asking his girlfriend to prom by taking her on a helicopter and having “Prom” written out on the ground with umbrellas. It was voted one of the most elaborate and expensive promposals documented.

Promposal costs range between $30 to $324, adding significantly to the already high cost of prom, which averages around $919 per couple. Even though high schoolers are spending lots of money on promposals, since many fear rejection, they often ask the person they want to go with through a third party or text message first to see what their response would be. Unfortunately, these expensive promposals aren’t really a surprise to people anymore. Promposals seems to be staged for the picture to post on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. They are essentially pointless if you know a person is going to ask you. It seems as if promposals are here to stay, although it is hard to imagine promposals becoming more complex.