Today's Exercise in Comparing US/Canada Trivia

Last night was the prom at my daughter's old school in Montreal, where folks graduate after 11th grade.  So, we took her back.  What did we learn?  Well, for one thing, there are no Kings and Queens named at the proms in Canada.  At least my Canadian friends on twitter have yet to disagree with the generalization. UPDATE: Ok, far less prevalent up here.

So, to figure this out, I went to my favorite source on all things monarchic: Phil Lagassé:*

@smsaideman @journo_dale on the contrary: we respect the institution, so we don’t throw the titles around loosely.
— Philippe Lagassé (@pmlagasse) June 23, 2013

* Phil now says he was being sarcastic.  Oops.

This sounded interesting to me--that the Americans continue to be rebellious by giving the titles Kings and Queens rather frivolously to the teens at dances who happen to have the fewest zits and/or the most sycophants. But Phil's response was mocked by another Canadian:

@pmlagasse @smsaideman @journo_dale did you say we respect institutions with a straight face?
— mark d. jarvis (@markdjarvis) June 23, 2013

Given the state of Canadian institutions these days (hey, how are your mayors doing?), I see Mark's point.

Others pointed out that homecoming queens/kings are legacy of the surge in football culture

@pmlagasse @smsaideman Homecoming Courts are tied to 1909-10 rise of US Football culture. Homecomings were big highschool & college matches.
— Anna Anthropologist (@AnnaAnthro) June 23, 2013

The general concept is subject to scorn by those who never had a prayer of getting nominated to such semi-August titles, including myself and

@smsaideman @pmlagasse A piece of Americana I'm delighted never to have experienced. High school "popular for being popular"...
— jtlevy (@jtlevy) June 23, 2013

We who never were popular in high school like to heap scorn on the folks who were, hoping that they got fat, did not succeed, and perhaps had seven kids before they turned 21.  High school is kind of like that--breeding envy, disdain, and intolerance (good preparation for politics), at least in the US. I am sure the absence of such titles is what makes Canada such a polite place.... that and the training everyone up here gets by having to wait in incredibly slow/long lines at Tim Hortons. 

Without such quasi-monarchy and the competition (a game of thrones if you will) that ensues, we would not have this:


And that makes it all worthwhile, right?