Hello and welcome to the Anthropocene Reviewed, a podcast where we review different facets

of the Human-centered planet on a five-star scale.

I'm John Green, and today I'll be reviewing two complicated stories that we like to imagine

simply, the Stanford Marshmallow experiment and the Teenage Celebration known as PrOM.

My high school had no PrOM, but I did attend one in 1994 in my hometown of Orlando, Florida.

My date, a band-gay could go on to become an accomplished classical musician, was as profoundly

uncomfortable with the whole experience as I was.

I recall her dress being blue and extremely complicated.

It was a floor-length, poofy ball gown with many layers, and all night long I kept looking

at her dress, and wondering where she was inside of it, how and where it connected to her

actual body.

I wore a rented tuxedo with a sparkly gold cumberbund and a matching bow tie.

It was my first time ever wearing a tuxedo, and I swore it would be my last.

The things smelled of other people's sweat, and its thick polyester was stifling.

Whenever I find myself in a tuxedo at an awards banquet or a fundraiser or at my wedding,

I feel certain that I lack the qualifications to be doing whatever is expected of me.

Although today PrOM is a global phenomenon, it has its roots in 19th century America.

In fact, the first recorded use of the word PrOM was in an 1894 diary entry written by

an Amherst College student named Dwight Moro, who wrote that he had been, quote,

invited to the Smith Jr. PrOM.

At the time, PrOM's, short for the word Promenade, were sort of democratized debut-taunt balls.

Now we're not here to review one and a half star debut-taunt balls in which rich people

...