To advertise for the 22nd season, Comedy Central aired commercials saying "Cancel South Park (1997)" as an obvious gag to stir up audiences.
In order to make a statement, this episode parodies many famous school shootings, including: the February 14, 2018 shooting in Parkland, FL, where 19-year old Nikolas Cruz, who was expelled, opened fire and killed 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School; the 1999 Columbine Massacre in Colorado, in which 15 students were killed, including the perpatrators Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who took their own lives; the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut where 28 students were killed by Adam Lanza, a possibly psychologically unstable individual who suffered from a mental disability; the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas that killed 10 people; and the 2007 Virginia Tech Massacre, where Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people before taking his own life, which is still the deadliest school shooting in US history.