Let’s Not Raffle Off Our Moms As Prom Dates For Our Friends, Ok Teens?

In a story that has caused me to create a new sound that combines both “ugh” and “ew” into something that sounds something like horrified constipation, a teenager in Virginia launched a Twitter campaign to take his friend’s mom to prom. And posted pictures of her. In a bikini. Ugeeeeeew.

High school student Anthony Pinnisi of Patriot High School asked his friend Chloe Albright how many retweets it would take for her to let him take her mother to prom. Chloe, whose mother is both very hot and apparently voiceless in this, agreed that if he got 500,000 retweets she would let him do it. Well, young Anthony got right to work, posting photos of Chloe’s mom in a bikini along with the message, “Help a dude out.”

In 24 hours, he had over 80,000 retweets. That’s when his school got involved and told him to take the tweet down. Now the story is making news around the world and men — grown, adult men — are giving Anthony virtual high fives. Because, I don’t know, vaginas and sex and stuff? I don’t understand how penises think sometimes.

Now, I realize that this was more or less harmless, and a lot of people think it’s funny. But posting racy pics of someone’s mom and then asking the internet to vote for you to basically get that ass is pretty gross, as far as I am concerned. The fact that the mom doesn’t appear to have been consulted about this at all also bothers me more than a little bit. If he had tweeted her and said, “I think you’re beautiful. Can I take you to prom?” She would have said no thank you and it would be adorable. But doing it with those pictures (that I assume the mother did not give him permission to use), and essentially saying to the internet, “Give me props for being a horny teen” doesn’t quite cut the mustard with me. As Mark Shrayber from Jezebel so perfectly sums it up:

Pinnisi is disappointed he’s “letting everyone down” by not taking Chloe’s mom to prom (because this is all about him and who cares what anyone else wants or might be embarrassed by) but says that he’s not a “pervert” and is upset that people are labeling him as such when he has “so much respect” for the woman whose bathing suit photos he circulated all over the internet in an effort to force her into paying him attention.

So let’s just not, kids. Okay?

(Photo: Twitter)