Last week, a viral video began circulating of a large group of teens dancing in a ballroom back-to-back with masks on. The video, which has over three million views, has since been used to critique the absurdity of coronavirus restrictions, with the original tweet caption reading, “a prom dance in the age of the global COVID scam”. According to a report by Insider, however, the video is a joke – so put down your pitchforks, people.
The 28-second video, which shows a bunch of young people dressed in suits and gowns while slow dancing with their backs facing each other, was actually filmed at a Czech dance school as a joke. This didn’t stop TMZ from commenting in a post that “they’re turning spacing rules for young couples on their head for COVID”, while Twitter users deemed the video “dystopian” and resembling a “brainwashing exercise”. But a representative for the school told Insider that the dance was supposed to be a funny "exaggeration" of COVID-19 safety measures, noting “it was just a dance game”.
While the virality of the video reminds us to not believe everything we see on the internet, it also points at how quickly people tend to jump on the internet bandwagon. In the meantime, more concerning (and real) problems to focus on include the UK government’s epic mishandling of the arts (read: dystopian cyber ad), the sinking cinema economy, and the very unsexy boom of coronavirus erotica.
Watch the prom video below.