The high-school reunion is, as far as popular imagination tells it, dead—or, at the least, in extended hospice care. The New York Times declared it a vanishing institution in 2011; it was “deflated” ...

"Sure, I'd go to my high school reunion—if I could go as Carrie." This quip often elicits a laugh, one that's usually followed by a high school horror story that legitimizes the sentiment behind it.