It was two weeks before Homecoming, and the yearly surge of proposals had begun. It was almost as if once one person started this domino effect. It was like the first birds flying south, and when Junior Kevin Dockendorf saw the signs, he got to work. He was driving home one night, thinking about how to ask his girlfriend to homecoming.

“I needed to think of something,” Dockendorf said. “Because I didn’t have anything planned yet.”

He knew that he would need time to perfectly enact a proposal, so he needed a good idea fast.

It was at that point that a song came on, called Falling For You. It was by a band called The 1975, who Kevin’s girlfriend loved. It was then that Dockendorf had the idea.

“I looked at my phone and I saw the [album art] and I thought it looked like a poster board.” said Dockendorf.

It was that moment that birthed the idea, which would evolve into a viral tweet that would be seen by over half a million people.

A week later Dockendorf had assembled nearly everything he needed for his sign. Posterboard, four thin letters spelling HOCO and a vase of pale pink roses. However, he was missing one crucial piece; the lights. He was at his girlfriend’s house when he received a text from his mother. Dockendorf knew that the pink neon lights he ordered had arrived. He knew it was go-time. He left his girlfriend’s house and sped home to assemble his proposal. He was gone for an hour.

***

Cleaning with her mother, Junior Analyse Gordon heard a knock at the door. Wondering who it was, she looked out the window to see pastel pink flowers.  Her boyfriend, Kevin stood outside waiting for her response to his homecoming proposal which he knew would be a yes.

“The fact that he would go through that effort and put so much thought into it [meant the most],” said Gordon.  “Because most people just do some cheesy little pun but he put the thought into it, and listened to all the times I would talk about [The 1975] and how they’re my favorite band.

As per every hoco proposal, a picture was taken and posted on Gordon’s twitter. The likes began, climbing higher than the norm for both of them, but nothing outrageous.

Analyse texted a friend a screenshot of the tweet, with a text that read “WHAT IF IT GOES VIRAL”. As the tweet reached a thousand likes, and then two thousand likes, that thought became less and less outrageous. Once the 1975 Updates account picked up Gordon’s tweet the thought was a legitimate description of what had occurred.

What had begun as a simple hoco proposal became the subject of everyone’s envy, and snowballed from 80 likes to over 11,000 in less than two weeks. What was first thought of as a simple online post would eventually, bring them even closer as a couple.