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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

#391

Post by qualeed »

jamiek88 wrote: post #386
qualeed wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is not the same as handing your dad’s business card It's my general contact information on business card stock. Maybe it's a regional thing, but when I read the comment, I just assumed they meant "business cards" in the general sense. Like how there are "joke business cards" that say "yes I'm tall, the weather is fine", etc. Mine are business card size, on business card paper, made on a business card generation web…

Social risk is real. You have derailed this by applying it to your different situation but have taken on the emotional offense. Giving your work business card to your kids is different than writing your number down. Again. For the fourth time. Do you get it now? It is social risky whether you like it or not and getting angry and offended on other grown adults behalf, again making it about you when it wasn’t when you…

>Giving your work business card to your kids is different than writing your number down. Again. For the fourth time.

Do you get it now?

You must have skipped over the entire middle of my comment.

>making it about you

It's a conversation on a public forum, I do more or less the same thing, I'm chiming in with my experience, yes.

But this is obviously unproductive. You're right that I'm defensive over it, which is probably a sign for me to step back.

>Also he literally states there is a class list of numbers all parents have anyway!

Side note, but my kids have friends in other classes and I'm not allowed to see those class lists because my kid isn't in the class. I know, I know, I'm making it about me again. But, perhaps there are similar rules elsewhere.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#392

Post by Apocryphon »

Auracle wrote: post #341
Aurornis wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really sad to me how we have completely fucked a lot of youth with social media, smart phones, You have to be careful with Gen Z threads like this on Reddit and Twitter. They are inherently biased toward Gen Z people who are chronically online and deep into social media. If you spend time with kids in the real world, you learn very rapidly that most of them aren't on platforms like Reddit and Twitter. Of those…

That's true. However, I worked as a photographer for about 10 years (quit about 2 years ago) and high school senior photos were one of my specialties, so I got to know a lot of teenagers. Overscheduling is, I think, the biggest issue. Most of the teens I worked with had something going on almost every night, to the point where rescheduling due to rain or heat was an absolute nightmare. Sports were the biggest offende…

I have to wonder if what's happened in the U.S. is something akin to involution [0] where increased scarcity in what were stable middle class environments leads to seemingly endless and fruitless competition. You used to hear stories about how students at Palo Alto High School work like first year investment bankers, leading to high rates of suicide. Seems like that's ubiquitous now.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26027673

"conditions in which a society ceases to progress, and instead starts to stagnate internally. Increased output and competition intensify but yield no clear results or innovative, technological breakthroughs." "more competitive with little corresponding rewards"

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10605329

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#393

Post by taeric »

Auracle wrote: post #382
mock-possum wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa what?? I had no idea about this.

While well intentioned, car seat laws have gotten a bit insane. Minnesota recently implemented some pretty nonsensical ones that are dependent on if they've outgrown their seat. How are cops supposed to know if they outgrew their seat? It also means that when they move to forward facing or a booster seat depends on the car seat you bought, not their height, (only their) age, or weight. For older kids, here's the new…

I think a lot of this should have fallen back to liability setting in the laws, then? I feel safe saying cops should not be ticketing people for kids being in the seat wrong. However, I can see your rates going up if you are found to be in violation of some of these rules during an accident?

Sucks, as this isn't as easy as saying it will be your responsibility and fault if the kid is injured. Odds are high this will just make a bad situation worse.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#394

Post by colinwilyb »

acquiesce wrote: post #253
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…

No. The “new generation” now knows what the outcasts and the undesirables of the “old generation” felt like. The more I speak to the younger crowd the more parallels I find which just means the “default” shifted towards a society of people who don’t know a different way, but are unaware of what goes on around them. The undesirables of the old knew, but couldn’t do anything about it. It’s like people who are bewildere…

What's newspaper? ;)

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#395

Post by wil421 »

Aurornis wrote: post #252
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…

> It's really sad to me how we have completely fucked a lot of youth with social media, smart phones, You have to be careful with Gen Z threads like this on Reddit and Twitter. They are inherently biased toward Gen Z people who are chronically online and deep into social media. If you spend time with kids in the real world, you learn very rapidly that most of them aren't on platforms like Reddit and Twitter. Of those…

I get the same vibe from HN and other places on Reddit. Lots of folks are online in multiple places at all times. If I bring up a random internet topic in real like people give me weird looks.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#396

Post by darth_avocado »

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…

Over protection and coddling are definitely a cause of lower social skills. When I was a kid, parents with leave children with a babysitter who was essentially an older child, sometimes just by a couple of years. Other times the kids would just be wandering around by themselves while parents didn’t care until it was dinner time. “Parties” weren’t just alcohol induced sex fests like they show on TV. Often it was 10 kids bunched around a single computer with $5 worth of chips and soda trying to beat a boss fight. A lot of those things are not only frowned upon now, but as a parent, could land you in jail.

If you wonder why children no longer grow up with a different outlook to life, then that’s probably it.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#397

Post by VLM »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #13
eplatzek wrote: post #2

With COVID partying meant that someone could kill you with an illness. That's a pretty hard lesson to unlearn. They carries a lot of momentum. Like with World Wars there's been a generational impact that changed how people relate to one another. The tribal momentum, of one monkey teaching the next, gets lost.

>With COVID partying meant that someone could kill you with an illness. Given the mortality rate for people typically in the partying age group (and especially those under 30), you were more likely to die in a traffic accident on your way to or back from the party, or from alcohol poisoning, than from a case of COVID acquired there. Let's not exaggerate. From the NIH: The median IFR for COVID based on age groups: 0.0…

Its the wrong statistical analysis of the situation. The death rate does not even remotely depend on infection source IIRC. Last stat I saw (from some years ago) was in excess of 96.7% of the population had blood antibodies for covid. You are going to catch covid, your only decision is when and what you can do WRT personal health to lower the risk (aside from "do not be old" there's "do not be fat" "do not be out of shape WRT cardio" etc) If your local hospital is swamped with cases it would be irresponsible to throw a rager and infect 100 people, at that moment. If your local hospital is empty and all the nurses are doing at work is posting tiktok dances for karma upvotes, and the odds of catching it eventually are 97%, you may as well have a good time; if you're going to get just as sick regardless if you have fun getting there or not. Almost all of the "lockdown time" was the latter not the former and only something approaching a civil rebellion ended the latter era. If it were not for that we would still be locked down today in 2025. The situation is not at all even remotely like smoking where not smoking means you're probably not going to get lung cancer. You are getting covid, and you have minimal but not zero control over when, if now is not a bad time, don't worry, if now is a bad time, out of an abundance of caution you might want to slow (not eliminate) the spread. You're getting it eventually, you can either be brave and happy and social on the way... or the opposite. A lot of people chose the latter.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#398

Post by SubmarineClub »

Aurornis wrote: post #252
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…

> It's really sad to me how we have completely fucked a lot of youth with social media, smart phones, You have to be careful with Gen Z threads like this on Reddit and Twitter. They are inherently biased toward Gen Z people who are chronically online and deep into social media. If you spend time with kids in the real world, you learn very rapidly that most of them aren't on platforms like Reddit and Twitter. Of those…

Except the data repeatedly bears out that younger generations are spending more and more time online and in isolation.

The idea that the internet remains the province solely of a few loner geeks is a total fantasy. Reddit is one of the most popular websites in the world.

Also, I was a shy nerd in high school who used reddit, and I still partied. Fuck, I made my own booze to take to parties.

Meanwhile my youngest brother - who is super social - graduated high school in the last few years and reports that partying is totally dead compared to my day.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#399

Post by kjkjadksj »

1shooner wrote: post #388
germinalphrase wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a HS teacher for about a decade. The demands on kids and families around youth sports (especially private/club leagues) is out of control. I had students, 14/15-years-old, going to their school team practice then club team practice, not getting home until past 9 pm every night. Families from three states away would enroll their kids in my school half of the year to play on the hockey team (staying with local sp…

>The demands on kids and families I'd like to understand this more. Families like this that I know talk about it as though it's as unavoidable as their mortgage, but functionally isn't this entirely self-imposed? Is it a lack of vision for an alternative? Are whole families succumbing to peer pressure? I don't relate to it.

From what I observed about these club hockey players I saw growing up, mainly the kid loves it and made it into their identity. So the parents are probably feeling pretty forced into paying for it. That being said every family I knew doing this sort of thing could easily pay for it.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#400

Post by jalk »

tlogan wrote: post #278
breakyerself wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean normal teen parties when I was a teenager were places for teens to get blackout drunk and make bad decisions. I empathize with your position somewhat, but it wasn't all good.

Not all parties were like that. Or at least I was never invited to those. We geeks stuck to LAN parties, got drunk, and played games. Since there were no girls around, we managed to avoid making any bad decisions :) But we did party way more than kids today.

The majority of the bad decisions we made, was when there were no girls around. It's sheer luck that no one was seriously injured or arrested
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