Dress-up day themes and student participation this year have been sub-par. The participation has been lower than usual it seems, and it does not do the job anymore of trying to unify the student body as one for a day.

There have been years in the past that a lot of people have participated in the themes, but something about the dress-up days just seems off.

Now there are multiple reasons why the participation may be lower than usual. There are students who simply do not participate in dress-up days, there is the theme itself, and how the theme is getting advertised to the students. 

During red ribbon week especially, there was very low participation because it seemed like a lack of advertising and there were some very specific themes, such as biker/surfer and “crazy” day. First of all, how old are we? A “crazy day” in high school? There might be better themes out there. 

Second of all, the biker/surfer theme sounded like it would be a hit, but I think it is hard to find a large number of people that have biker gear in their house that is either clean, fitting right, or not old.

For pink out, there were so few people wearing pink, even though the whole dress-up day consisted of building support for awareness of breast cancer.

On the contrary side of the argument, the “Barbie vs. Ken” theme seemed to have hit it out of the park. There were a lot of people dressed up for it and it was neat. But for pink out, where was all of the pink? Where was all the pink that people wore for the Barbie theme but not the Pink Out Cancer theme?

I am not trying to bash the people that make the themes, the task that y’all are given is difficult to deal with because you have to take into account the whole school. My suggestion for dress-up themes is that “less is more”. The less specific a dress-up theme, the more people will be able to participate. 

For example, a simple “jersey day” is easy for a lot of people, whether their siblings or parents have a jersey. That would get a lot of participation because it is easy, and a lot of people may have them in their house.

Another one would be a simple color day, such as white, black, red, or camo. Those days always seem to get people dressed up because it is simple. At football games especially, it is amazing to see everyone in the crowd wearing the same color.

Of course, there should be themes that are not just a color, neon has always gotten high levels of participation, along with the western theme.

Advertising is also a key way to get people to know about the theme. Social media works, but only for the people who follow certain accounts. For the people that do not follow the accounts, use the announcements and use a ton of posters around the school to make sure students know about it. 

Remember, “less is more.”