The high school prom used to be a simple rite of teen passage. Now, it’s part of the latest phenomenon to go viral on the internet and have a reality television show built around it.

“Promposals” — those elaborate, very public and sometimes cheesily creative ways of asking someone to the prom — are all the rage on YouTube. And while some are condemned as an inevitable result of a narcissistic teen culture, others are unexpectedly sweet in bringing together those qualities of awkwardness and bravery that make the rest of us recall those moments of angst.

For one such trick in Pella, Iowa, five senior basketball players at Pella High School used the occasion of a home game to “pop the question” to their dates-to-be. Their dance routine, set to a song by One Direction, delighted the crowd and has been viewed more than 300,000 times, not an insignificant number given that the school has enrollment of around 700.

“If you think about these things, in the past, the only way to get seen is at school or at work or at home,” said Pella High School Principal Eric Nelson. “Now they get seen everywhere. Some people want to make sure that they get seen, and some people thrive on that. They’ve got to connect.”

For a similar overture in Amesbury, Massachusetts, a student enlisted the help of the local police department. Drew Everett asked Amesbury High School pole vault coach John Lannon — who also serves as an Amesbury police officer — for help in asking Chelsea Lynch to be his prom date. Lennon was happy to oblige, pulling the couple over and asking Everett if he had anything unusual in his car.

“I told him there was nothing in the back but he said he’d check anyways,” Everett told the Newburyport, Massachusetts News. “It was pretty hard to keep from laughing.”

Lannon asked Lynch to step out of the car as well. With the cruiser’s blue lights still flashing and Lannon’s flashlight shining in her face, Lynch walked over to Everett’s trunk to find a bouquet of flowers waiting for her, with a sign asking her to prom.

“She was pretty shocked,” Everett said. “Then she just stood there for a little bit, looking at it.”

Lynch stood by looking at her prom proposal long enough that she never realized who it was that had pulled them over in the first place.

“She still didn’t piece it all together that I was standing there and it was me,” Lannon said. “It took about five minutes after it was all done for her to say, ‘Oh my God, it’s Johnny!'”

Here are some other creative “promposal” examples: