Female seniors creates toxic environment in anticipation of prom dress season

As the second semester commences at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, several exciting events are on the calendar for seniors including Grad Bash, prom and graduation. As this time approaches, prom dress shopping has started. The stress of searching for the perfect prom dress has created a toxic environment for seniors.

In the beginning of the school year, an Instagram account launched for seniors that uploads pictures of the dresses seniors have already purchased for prom so that others won’t buy the same dress.

Even though the Instagram account was made with the intention of ensuring that two or more girls don’t have duplicate dresses, many have found it to cause tension between seniors.

“I understood the intentions of making the Instagram page for the prom dresses,” senior Julia Danois said. “However, it feels like it created some sort of tension between the female seniors. I feel like we’re all comparing ourselves to the other and trying to one up the other person’s dress.”

Overhearing conversations between girls bashing the dresses that have already been purchased has been a common discussion. This conversation is causing girls to be skeptical of the dresses they are planning to buy, hoping that they wouldn’t get judged or wanting to look better than others on prom night.

The need to think that one has to look better than their friends or any other senior on prom night is setting students up for negative thinking and stress.

“It wasn’t surprising to me that prom dress shopping would be stressful, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad,” senior Elaine Chen said. “It’s so overwhelming to get my prom dress, I feel like people are just going to be judging me if the dress doesn’t look good enough.”

Shopping for dresses with friends has also created tension within the prom season, feeling anxious of what peers will think about the dress the student wishes to buy or feeling judged when it seems that peers are lying about how they feel about the dress.

“Even a few of my friends have been a little judgmental towards me when we’ve been dress shopping, it’s getting exhausting for me since when I feel like I find the dress I get criticized,” senior Marlo Perkins said.

The cost of prom dresses have also contributed to judgmental discussions between friends, having peers judging you based on the cost of the dress purchased. These possible discrepancies in costs make some students feel guilty for spending whatever amount of money on their prom dress.

“I feel like getting criticized for how much money you’re willing to spend on your prom dress is absolutely ridiculous,” senior Trinity Pelaez said. “It has been done to me once and now I’ve decided to keep the cost of my dress private. If there’s a certain amount of money that you and your parents are willing to spend on your prom dress then buy the dress.”

The prom dress shopping season is meant to be a fun experience for girls between their family and friends. The feeling of judgment and bashing on dresses has been clearly evident within the MSD senior female body and hopefully will come to a rest before the shopping season is over.