It all started as a quirky story coming out of sleepy-hollow upstate New York, but before we knew it, Dylan Meehan and Brad Taylor—who had been voted the “cutest couple” for their high school yearbook—were big stars on the Internet. It was the senior class of Carmel High School that elected the two boyfriends to receive this traditional paean to heterosexuality. A first in America? In any case, the news quickly “went viral” and all that that implies. These days, it implies vast numbers of views on YouTube, zillions of “likes” on Facebook, countless tweets on Twitter, etc. etc. So these two high school dudes are now famous.
I think much of the appeal lies in the fact that Dylan and Brad really are the cutest couple in their class! (This observation is based on the many class pictures that were released on the Internet.) Had one of them been even slightly dorky looking, the selection could have been seen as ironic—which would be part-and-parcel for this generation, one gathers—and that would have left just a hint of homophobia, a soupçon of snarkiness. But no, the vote was a sincere acknowledgment of what was perceived to be the case. They’re the cutest! The “first” is that the graduating class saw fit to acknowledge this state of affairs when voting for this year’s superlatives. And that’s a sign of the times.
