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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

#371

Post by StefanBatory »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #249

This was a post on the GenX subreddit (from a Gen Zer) from just a couple days ago asking about if parties as portrayed in late 90s/early 00s "teen movies" were actually a real thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenX/comments/1lu102v/were_parties_... The responses from the Gen Xers were a mix of bewilderment and sadness, stuff like "What do you mean parties like this, it's just a normal teenage party!? I feel so ancient…

I grew up very sheltered, my mom had anxiety and I was a single child.

I remember being unable to comprehend how in media, people could just go somewhere without issues to met with people or even go for a walk. I knew that was a thing, but I could not imagine what it's actually like and if it's real.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#372

Post by fundad »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #11

My grandma was the head of the local Air Force wives' club. Their house was always stocked like a full bar and at least several people stopped by for a visit just about every day. They knew at least 10 of their neighbors well, and some former neighbors too. Find me community like this anywhere in America these days. Immigrant communities perhaps? Most Americans these days won't interact with their neighbors unless it…

I bet military service-members still socialize and get hammered.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#373

Post by sorrynorry22 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #249

This was a post on the GenX subreddit (from a Gen Zer) from just a couple days ago asking about if parties as portrayed in late 90s/early 00s "teen movies" were actually a real thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenX/comments/1lu102v/were_parties_... The responses from the Gen Xers were a mix of bewilderment and sadness, stuff like "What do you mean parties like this, it's just a normal teenage party!? I feel so ancient…

[dead]

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#374

Post by ryandrake »

NotAnOtter wrote: post #290

I used to throw loads of parties. At somepoint I realized.. 1. It's expensive. I never once got a reasonable contribution from my friends. I knew this at the time, but eventually I was over it. Paying $100-250 per event just to deal with all the work and drama that comes with it.. not worth. 2. It's a lot of work. Hours of prep, hours of hosting, hours of clean up after. At the end of the day ~12 hours of effort for…

I don't think the point of a party is "ROI" either in terms of the dimensions of time, effort, or money. When I decide to host one, this kind of "cost" is assumed. I don't worry about it because I can afford it (in all three dimensions), and the point of hosting a get-together is not to make a profit on any of those dimensions or break even. I look at it as: I'm spending time+effort+money, and the return, for myself and everyone who attends, is not any of those three. It's getting some much needed socialization and a fun experience. I guess your point is that you're not getting as much fun out of it to justify the spend?

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#375

Post by zparky »

HPsquared wrote: post #266
dg08 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s tough. We also bought a house in a nice suburban community right outside of NYC and it’s been amazing. We know all the neighbors, exchange gifts during holidays, and a ton of kids come out for Halloween. What I really liked about the neighborhood when house hunting was seeing kids ride their bikes around on the streets unsupervised. I don’t know if it had any correlation, but the vibe felt right.

"Vibe" should be a top criterion when house-hunting.

i wish that was a search filter...

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#376

Post by esafak »

api wrote: post #344
parineum wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Starting in the late 1990s... How old were you then? People have a tendency to remember some time period when everything was carefree and you didn't have to worry about how much stuff cost and all this new, great stuff was happening. And then you find out they were 12 and the time where they think all that went downhill was when they were 20.

18-22 I've asked older people about this for this very reason, and they've generally agreed with me. There's always been an allure to big cities but it went into overdrive starting in the late 90s - early 2000s. As for real estate prices, that's objective. You can easily look that up. RE prices went insane starting in the 2000s with the 2008 crash only being a brief pull-back in a long bull run. You can also clearly…

PC technology consolidated, as things naturally do. Remote work should enable decentralization again.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#377

Post by jamiek88 »

qualeed wrote: post #361
cmckn wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your kid know your phone number?

The older one, yes. The younger one, no. So I do the cringe method of writing my information down. But I didn't realize that it was "risky as fuck" and making my kids "stand out" so much to have my contact information on some paper to give to their closer friends. I must be way more socially inept than I thought. (I guess my eldest must be too, because she thinks handing a card to a friend is convenient.) So please,…

> contact information on some paper

Is not the same as handing your dad’s business card around to your friends (and is a borderline disingenuous way of summing it up, business cards have business implications i.e., formal implications it’s kinda in the name of them, kids aren’t business people aren’t used to using them socially like you might and don’t see it as a scrap of paper) if you can’t see that then yes I agree with your conclusion on your social skills.

Hey let me give you my mom’s number or add her on Facebook / instagram (how old are these kids by the way?) is not the same as handing out and having handy your moms/dads business cards.

It just isn’t.

It ain’t rational and yes technically they are ‘both pieces of paper’ but the vibe is simply different.

It ain’t cool. It comes across as desperate and forced and it’s embarrassing as a result.

The tone of your reply intimates anger at my responses, that’s unfortunate but I stand by it.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#378

Post by qualeed »

fundad wrote: post #337
lawlessone wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents Yeah if i was a kid i'd be mortified at having to do this.

It would be one thing if it worked. The OP admits that their kids don't initiate socializing but also claims they aren't poorly socialized. Blaming every parent but themselves when their parenting resulted in kids that don't seem to try hard enough.

>The OP admits that their kids don't initiate socializing

Either you are I are reading it wrong, because I don't see anywhere in their comment where they say their own kids aren't initiating.

What they do say is that other parents are rarely initiating play dates.

Can you quote the part where they "admit that their kids don't initiate socializing"?

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#379

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #163
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…

US suburbs have not changed. I grew up in US suburbs (in the 70's and early 80's) and there was partying. My own personal theory? Music sucks now, ha ha.

The consumption of music has changed.

I almost never meet people who like the same bands as I do. I can listen to new music that I love at home. If I go to a bar or a party I'm going to mostly hear music I don't like, and if I do like it, I could have already heard it at home.

Maybe that is part of it

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#380

Post by ryandrake »

pjc50 wrote: post #166
phendrenad2 wrote: post #142

People are introverted and have no social skills thanks to smartphones. People have no shared interests in general, because there are so many niches. People have low self-esteem and body image issues. People are afraid that they'll get drunk and their behavior will be filmed and go viral. Previously available "soft" party drugs are too dangerous. People have no place to host a party, because they're all renters (not…

> People are afraid that they'll get drunk and their behavior will be filmed and go viral. I think this is an underappreciated "phones killed socialization" angle. People used to post partying pics on social media. Then employers started going through social media to screen candidates. Facial recognition and automatic tagging means that it's not sufficient to not post party photos to your own social media, you need t…

I don't know how this didn't become a serious taboo. People who post pictures and video from a private event without everyone's consent should be shunned, but somehow this became normalized. I've heard of the recent trend to hand out stickers for everyone to put over their cameras during events, and that's a really good development, but we shouldn't even need to do that. It should be socially disgusting to even take the pictures in the first place.
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