The death of partying in the USA • Hacker News Board

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#431

Post by lapcat » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:01 PM UTC

yubblegum wrote: post #258

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…

Basically, the kids who were socially marginalized in the prenetworks era also did not get to see the parties the socially active kids were having, and would have wondered at it all. It would have certainly been also 'a new experience' for them! Except back then they didn't have a place like reddit to go to and wonder out loud.

> the kids who were socially marginalized in the prenetworks era also did not get to see the parties the socially active kids were having

What do you mean exactly by the distinction between "socially marginalized" and "socially active"?

There was a social hierarchy where some kids were considered "popular" and others "unpopular", though really the distinction was more accurately between the beautiful/attractive kids and the average/unattractive kids, and certainly the unattractive kids did not get invited to the parties of the attractive kids, but the unattractive kids had plenty of parties among themselves, to which the attractive kids were usually not invited either.

Perhaps there were some kids who were truly marginalized, with no friends at all, but unattractiveness by itself did not necessarily marginalize you socially.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#432

Post by esafak » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:01 PM UTC

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.

People rarely like music made decades after they were young; tastes settle.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#433

Post by ethan_smith » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:01 PM UTC

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…

Digital socialization has replaced many functions of physical parties - Discord hangouts, gaming sessions, and video calls offer connection without the logistics burden or social risks. The question isn't whether socializing has died, but whether its digital evolution provides the same developmental benefits as in-person gatherings.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#434

Post by lapcat » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:03 PM UTC

conductr wrote: post #424

lapcat wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Wouldn't Gen X responses on those threads also be inherently biased toward Gen X people who are chronically online and deep into social media?

Maybe but they had a pre-internet life to reference and this topic is specifically discussing it

Yes? That's the point. Even the Gen Xers with strong geeky/nerdy predilections had parties back in the day.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#435

Post by verall » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:04 PM UTC

tlogan wrote: post #345

I have a politically sensitive but potentially insightful question. I live in San Francisco, where we have a desegregation busing policy. In practice, this means kids don’t attend their neighborhood schools. They’re assigned to schools across the city (Instead of investing in improving schools in underprivileged neighborhoods, we (voters) decided it is better (and cheaper) to bus those kids to schools in more affluen…

It is common and it is coupled with investment in improving schools in underprivileged neighborhoods.

A school in a poor area gets heavy investment and then can pull ("magnet") a certain percentage of their students from a much wider area. Involved parents apply for their children to go to these schools since they have the best art or theater or robotics or whatever programs.

This acknowledges that an important part of a successful school is parental involvement and a general culture of students that are interested in learning.

In practice, at least in my childhood, the schools largely self-segregated by the classes they took, i.e. AP or not, more or less challenging tracks ("honors" classes).

I still think it was a net positive. At least students in the underprivileged areas got access to these advanced programs, even if there were still social barriers. And as a kid from the suburbs, I got to meet kids outside of my suburban cohort - I think this was really valuable to me as a bit of a misfit.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#436

Post by fundad » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:05 PM UTC

qualeed wrote: post #378

fundad wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

I did read this wrong.

> My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa.

I read that as his spouse and he were organizing rather than the kids organizing with friends when they're together at school or camp. That's what my kids do unless it's a birthday party or carpool.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#437

Post by aaronbaugher » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:06 PM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #35

parpfish wrote: post #25

I wonder whether housing plays a factor. Young people aren’t becoming homeowners at the same rate, so there’s a sense of transience to their living situations that make forming neighbor communities seem like a waste of time.

nah, we partied plenty when we rented and not knowing someone for long is not a reason not to hang out. What has been eroded is the habit of hanging out because there's no easily accessible third spaces. I'll give you an example: when I lived in Spain I would just walk in the corner bar for a quick beer or a coffee or something to eat, I would very likely run into a neighbor and would chat. The chat would lead to "he…

In my Midwestern US town, there are still lots of third spaces. The mall, bars, bowling alleys, an arcade, and even some new things like a trampoline place. People just aren't using them nearly as much, to the point that the mall is a tomb and the stores are going away. But the people stopped showing up first.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#438

Post by conductr » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:06 PM UTC

pantalaimon wrote: post #155

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…

I'm not convinced. I live in Berlin and everyone is living in a flat, yet I've had my fair share of home parties, even in small two room apartments where half the party spilled out to the stairwell.

I don't think Berlin life corresponds much to USA life in this regard. We mostly have suburban sprawl and many areas that would be similarly dense, are not very populated with children/teens (because parent's often move to the suburbs)

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#439

Post by OkayPhysicist » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:06 PM UTC

arkwin wrote: post #282

I was a teenager in high school around 2005 and living in the Midwest. There were lots of underage drinking and parties going on during that time. That being said, most of it was "cool parents" that allowed such behavior because we didn't own anything as teens. We would have rules like, if you're drinking there, you have to stay the night or call your parents to pick you up. I think it was just a different time; it s…

Elaborating on this a bit, I think it's less that things are less forgiving, but that our risk tolerances have dramatically shrunk. Millennial parents are less risk tolerant with their kids' safety, and Gen Z / A kids and young adults are more careful about the rules.

The root cause of this risk intolerance might be dispersed, just a cumulative result of cable news scare tactics, dropping birth rates and more investment per child, but I suspect a big aspect of it is that risk taking is no longer the only way to get a dopamine hit. Prior to the modern internet, if you avoided all the normal risk-taking behaviors associated with teenagers and young adults, you'd just be bored to death. Now the reward side of the risk-reward balance is just the difference between high-quality fun from meatspace shenanigans versus lower-quality enjoyment derived from social media and online gaming.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#440

Post by volkl48 » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:07 PM UTC

lawlessone wrote: post #12

lr4444lr wrote: post #6

The parental part bears special mention. My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa. I'd like to think it's not that my kids are poorly socialized or misbehave - they've always received glowing reports at school. I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents, and there is also a class list whe…

>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.

I'll suggest you are thinking of the teenage years where anything involving your parents is mortifying.

That's not really the case with elementary school age kids.