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The death of partying in the USA

derekthompson.org

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Re: The death of partying in the USA

#201

Post by foobarian »

Dusseldorf wrote: post #104
lurking_swe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

context: i’m in my early 30’s and i’m not a parent the behavior you described of the 25-35 year range is appalling. and those aren’t my kids so that’s saying something. Call it what it is, antisocial. Baffling to me…why are people so weird?

It's the phones. No one has anything to talk about anymore because constant scrolling leaves you with nothing to show. And then it's self perpetuating --easier to keep slamming the dopamine button than trying to make conversation with a completely atrophied social muscle.

I think the Internet full of sewage with phones as delivery funnels has destroyed society. I would ban it all if I could

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#202

Post by HEmanZ »

jcranmer wrote: post #175
Apreche wrote: post #28

This article isn’t wrong, but it neglects to mention real estate, transportation, and lodging. A party needs a venue, and it needs guests. And the guests need a way to get to and from the venue. If they stay a long time, they need a place to sleep. People these days don’t own real estate. Wealthy people own it all. Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. It’s kind of hard to throw a big party witho…

> People these days don’t own real estate. Wealthy people own it all. Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. If you look at a graph of home ownership in the US by cohort at various points in time (see, e.g., https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/08/homeownership... ), while the rates are somewhat lower, between the highest point and the lowest point the difference is at worst 10 percentage p…

That’s the absolute percentage difference. Look at the under 35 category, it’s literally down 25%. That means 1/4 people that would have owned a house in that age group don’t now. Under 45 is a relative drop of ~17%, so about 1/5. One in four to one in five people is more than enough to see an effect.

I doubt it’s the only cause at all, this anti-social (“Bowling Alone”) trend has been going on for generations, and probably has multiple causes. But the US housing crunch on young people is adding to it.

And this damn attitude of “the younger generations are just entitled weenies” about housing is about the most infuriating attitude in the world. My parents bought their first house on a single earners blue collar salary at the age of 27. That house, with almost no updates, now literally needs a top 1% salary and payments for 30 years to be able to afford. Don’t tell the kids to stop whining when they’re watching older generations gobble up their future in the name of preserving property values.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#203

Post by throwawayq3423 »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #153
Apreche wrote: post #28

This article isn’t wrong, but it neglects to mention real estate, transportation, and lodging. A party needs a venue, and it needs guests. And the guests need a way to get to and from the venue. If they stay a long time, they need a place to sleep. People these days don’t own real estate. Wealthy people own it all. Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. It’s kind of hard to throw a big party witho…

"People these days don’t own real estate. Wealthy people own it all. Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. " This is only true in some HCOL places ands big cities. Plenty of people own homes.

Not in high-density areas like cities. People own homes in low density areas (middle of nowhere), which makes them isolated, hence no communal activities like partying.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#204

Post by ludicrousdispla »

0_____0 wrote: post #182
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #158

Let's be honest. A lot of previous partying was made possible by lots and lots and lots of drinking and driving. That of course still goes on today, but nearly at the levels of the past.

People were drinking and driving in 1800s New England?

Well, they had self-driving transportation back then so more like drinking and riding.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#205

Post by taeric »

jppope wrote: post #91
taeric wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect they didn't know each other that well back in the day, either. We just tell ourselves that they did. When we've lived in apartment complexes, as an easy example, there were a lot of people we didn't know. We just also got to know a few that we would see on a regular basis, as well.

I think theres probably an uneven distribution on this... I can think back to my childhood in a small town in new england and I can still remember everyone on my block, the block across the street, and every kid's house within a half mile or so. I even remember some of the 4 digit phone numbers (b/c almost everyone had the same area code and city code). When we moved though we didn't know anywhere near that many peop…

Agreed on the uneven distribution. I would posit that this is probably even uneven in the communities, as well? Just because you knew everyone in your block doesn't mean they knew each other that well.

Similarly, I expect most kids in a classroom to know of each other, but I doubt they all know each other. If that makes sense. Such that, it is easy to think this is also a by product of how much more you can do inside your houses? Back when you would see folks outside more often, it was common for you to know of a lot of people. If you only had a few "shut in" type people, you knew them as the shut in type people. As it becomes more and more of us, it gets tougher.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#206

Post by foobarian »

jppope wrote: post #51
taeric wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened is that everything turned into playdates? When we were kids, the general direction was GTFO, and don't be late for dinner. Who did you go play with? Whoever was at the park. When you got older, you hopefully had access to the skating rink. Or maybe a bowling alley. Before that, kickball at the park. Pretty much every day. Maybe see if you can over shoot the swing again.

Totally valid observation, but things definitely changed. Neighbors don't know each other as well, so the grandma keeping an eye out the back window doesn't exist anymore. It was a village watching the kids before, its not that way now.

Is it because of less churchgoing? Church is basically one large standup (and sit down, and stand up, x a few times :-) ) for the community.

Or maybe kidnapping paranoia fueled by years of crime news programs?

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#207

Post by bluGill »

MisterTea wrote: post #197
0_____0 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were drinking and driving in 1800s New England?

I am sure there were plenty of sauced stage coach drivers and horsemen.

Your horse knows the way home and will be happy to get your there without help from you (hoping that when you are there you are sober enough to get the harness off so he can finally enjoy a rest at home)

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#208

Post by dylan604 »

Tainnor wrote: post #191
libertine wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Berlin is a good example because partying is kind of part of the city subculture. People travel there literally to party.

People travel to Berlin to go party in clubs, not for home parties. Partying in someone's apartment is a thing in probably every reasonably sized city in Europe, not just Berlin. Although you should probably alert your neighbours.

you could alert your neighbors, or better yet, invite them. alerting them is nice, but they could still get annoyed and complain, but someone at the party isn't going be doing much complaining

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#209

Post by pelagicAustral »

0_____0 wrote: post #182
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #158

Let's be honest. A lot of previous partying was made possible by lots and lots and lots of drinking and driving. That of course still goes on today, but nearly at the levels of the past.

People were drinking and driving in 1800s New England?

I would gamble that people were drinking and driving hours after the invention of the wheel.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#210

Post by api »

esseph wrote: post #132
luckydata wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in my opinion the largest effect is how we build cities. Having to drive everywhere and the separation between commercial, residential and industrial areas of american cities is very clearly a driver of this isolation.

Maybe. But everybody hates everyone else online.

Hate, fear, and other very basic brain stem emotional responses maximize engagement.
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