“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” one the most iconic films of the 1980s, is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Writer and director John Hughes spun a classic story: Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) realizes life is too short to watch it go by, so he and two friends, Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck) and Sloane Peterson (Mia Sara), decide to skip class and spend a day having fun in Chicago. While doing so, Ferris’s sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey) and Dean Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) are hellbent on exposing Ferris and his truant ways.
Ferris Bueller does what each of us would like to do. How incredible would it be to completely skip a day of school or work and go into an amazing city with two of your closest friends and mess around all day with no consequences whatsoever? Would it even be possible to take a day off like Ferris and not get caught in 2026? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. Well, at the very least, it wouldn’t be as easy.
Practically everything we do is documented online. For the trio to not get caught, it would require all parties involved to go off the grid in terms of social media with no posting about their adventures, either during or after. It would also require their friends to keep quiet online should they find out about it. Furthermore, anyone can be tracked at any moment in time. Think about applications like Life360 or Apple’s Find My; how many people’s locations are you able to see right now? Ferris would have to leave his phone behind at home, but that raises many other problems. So many tickets are digital and tied to our phones, so leaving it at home would be impractical. Also, should he turn off location sharing, his parents would see this and find it suspicious.
Calling in the fake illness would also be harder, as schools have stricter absence policies today. Most classes at Notre Dame require proof of illness, such as a doctor’s note or proof of medical appointment, for an approved class absence. Even in high schools today, parents must sign their children out on a clip board to pick them up from school. Ferris would be unable to stand at a distance when Rooney walks Sloane out of school; he would have to risk blowing his cover by going up to Rooney and physically forging Mr. Peterson’s signature.
In a post-Covid reality, it’s easier than ever to work from home. Ferris’s mom likely would have been able to work remotely, and her constant presence would have made it increasingly difficult for Ferris to sneak out. Also, because of Ferris’s nine-time absence track record, it is not far-fetched to assume that the high school would have required him to work remotely, calling into classes and submitting assignments online.
Today, many businesses are electing to go cashless. As we see in the film, Ferris goes on a bit of a spending spree, and digital tracing would blow his cover. There would be a log of every transaction he made, from lunch to the Art Institute and Cubs tickets, and his parents could see this. Now, either he lies about his card getting stolen, or he is in a tough place to talk himself out of why he wasn’t at school.
One of the best running gags of the film is how Ferris’s medical condition rapidly escalates by word of mouth. Students sport “Save Ferris” shirts and companies are quick to put it on their marketing and billboards. Today, inevitably, this would become a fast trending #SaveFerris. While it is humorous that, in 1986, the parents did not see any “Save Ferris” signage, it would be near impossible for them not to in 2026. Communication is far easier today; Ferris’s parents would likely have concerned family and friends reaching out to check on him. Even opening up Instagram would likely cause Ferris’s parents to realize something is up.
The scene where Ferris commandeers a street parade and sings “Twist and Shout” is one of the greatest in the film, but is also one of the riskiest, as it easily could have done him in. Today, as soon as he got on that float, a minimum of ten YouTube livestreams would have documented the whole ordeal, and it would have been trending before the song even concluded.
One of the funniest and most tense scenes of the film is when Ferris is running home, trying to beat his parents and sister so it looks like he was in bed all day. Throughout the pseudo-chase scene, he sneaks through houses, jumps over fences and crosses through front and back yards. Even this is an opportunity, today, for someone to track Ferris. So many people have doorbells with cameras that are constantly recording. Many neighborhood communities are also connected via a forum or Facebook page. Inevitably, several people would post: “Who is that crazy kid running through our yards?”
In 2026, more than ever do we need to take the Ferris Bueller perspective that “Life moves pretty fast.” In such a fast-paced, online world, it is imperative we stop and take everything in, else it passes us by. While it may not be feasible to skip work or school and not get caught, we can still foster his attitude of making the most out of every moment.
