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The death of partying in the USA

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Re: The death of partying in the USA

#511

Post by starkparker »

millipede wrote: post #455

I've been throwing moderately large parties the past 2 years (12-40 people) and the lack of partying is definitely noticeable. Most people don't reciprocate, making it disheartening to keep doing it. I wanted to build friendships out of it, and hopefully get invited to more parties myself, but so far it hasn't happened. It's a decent amount of set up (cleaning, buying food, coordinating), and a lot of clean up after…

> The ROI isn't where I want it.

I know this is HN, but sometimes - maybe, hopefully, sometimes - neither R nor I is involved in an action.

If you aren't enjoying doing it then by all means stop doing it. But throwing a party isn't supposed to have deliverables or action items.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#512

Post by yndoendo »

germinalphrase wrote: post #364
Auracle wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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…

Was talking with a bartender at a restaurant, also a teacher. She would get home around 23:00 and have to wake up around 5:00 while tendering during week days. Her daughter just turning 16 and is signed up for all basketball teams she can be in a hour drive radius. Her daughter was going to be working as a cleaner at the local hotel this summer. As she said, "Basketball is her daughter's job and volleyball is her outlet where she can be a kid."

Most likely is she living vicariously through her daughter's basketball experience or it is seen as an economic improvement, for her daughter or both. Her daughter likely sees that being a teacher doesn't pay well and multiple jobs are needed. This helps push for this "sports is a job" mentality.

Tiger Woods a the Williams sisters promote the idea of making it big if your just work at the same sport over and over at a young age. This is often a case of Law of Small Numbers.

Others might have the worst kind of parent. One that only loves their child if their good at sports.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#513

Post by Auracle »

mcgrath_sh wrote: post #465
Auracle wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We only have a 3 year old and a baby, but my wife and I have already argued a bit about this. She's all in on the sports train - it was a large part of her life growing up for her and her siblings. I, on the other hand, did a lot with my free time as a kid/teen. I think part of the problem is that for people like her they can't imagine their kids not being in all sorts of sports, but they don't realize just how much…

There is a happy medium between the "hotels every other weekend year round" travel/club sports and no sports, which is sports for your school or community teams. If I ever have kids I absolutely want to enroll them in sports. It will absolutely not be the travel/club teams that means us going to hotels every other weekend. I am probably naïve in thinking that it is possible to play for your high school without club s…

Apparently in our school you straight up won't be able to play in the regular school teams unless you do the travel teams starting in elementary school, because everyone else does it. Therefore, your child won't be as good as them unless they're an absolute savant at the sport.

They'll still get to be on the team, but actually playing? Probably not.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#514

Post by standardUser »

A an older millennial, I have been pleasantly surprised by how vibrant my social life can be as long as I put in some effort. One key is living in a reasonably dense urban area. I have friends who make art and music, fiends who do standup comedy, friends on municipal sports teams - the ways to connect with people are expansive. And people in my age group (early 40's) seem only a little less inclined to make plans and go out compared to my friends in their 30's.

Even with my oldest friends, all of whom are busy with their kids, mortgages and spouses, we still prioritize taking trips to see each other and for everyone to get to know each other's kids.

So if you're anything like me (grown, mostly single, living alone in a dense urban center) I refuse to believe any social or technological developments have ruined our chances at human companionship.

But that's millennials. I have absolutely no idea how Gen Z will navigate this world. The fact that they seem to be choosing the least useful, social or pleasurable vice in the world (vaping), which also happens to be among the most viciously addictive vices (for many people) does not bode well in my opinion, no matter how enlightened the anti-alcohol stance may appear.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#515

Post by frollogaston »

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 in the 90s-2000s in a place were people were very serious about school. Very few kids were getting drunk etc, there were very few couples and 0 teen pregnancies, but there was still a healthy amount of socializing. That chart showing going out with 2+ friends was still a high % then, and it matched my experience.

This completely changed after iPhones and Facebook became popular enough. It ruined even the regular socializing. Even the few boy bullies started doing this lame-ass cyberbullying instead. Sometimes I wondered where the cool kids were on weekdays, then I checked my Minecraft server logs.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#516

Post by rgblambda »

starkparker wrote: post #508
Aurornis wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 without a big home, a yard, a big kitchen, etc. Small apartments are for small get-togethers that probably don’t register as parties. This is baffling to me. Most of the parties I went to in high school, college, and my 20s were in people's tiny apartm…

Gen Z in particular is deathly afraid of having an earnest but unflattering moment captured in someone else's TikTok and distributed to the entire planet.

Whenever I watch movies/TV shows set in the future but released before the invention of the camera phone, I just insert some headcanon that future society realised the evils of uploading a recording of someone to social media without permission, and decided to ban the cursed devices.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#517

Post by spiderice »

lapcat wrote: post #482
glxxyz wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 now, yes, but not 20+ years ago when they were younger and going out and partying.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make?

The point: If you survey Gen-Zers on Reddit to find out how many Gen-Zers are on Reddit, you'll conclude that 100% of Gen-Zers are on Reddit.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#518

Post by ngruhn »

konart wrote: post #497
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…

As a millennial - I'm also amazed by these parties. Some of my peers had this kind of experience, but for me this is something from parallel universe. Mostly because I never really understood the fun part.

It was my favorite activity in the world. But that also makes it tough to "let go" when your 30s approach. Even when the hangovers get worse. I'm kinda grateful for the pandemic shutting everything down for a while. Before that I had massive FOMO when I "did nothing" on the weekend. I know a bunch of guys who did nothing else with their lives.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#519

Post by Auracle »

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…

As an addendum, my wife just messaged me about getting our daughter a worse child seat because ours is rated for 50 pounds. In Minnesota's new laws that means she needs to be rear facing until she's 50 pounds. She's a few months away from being 4 years old and she's 33 pounds or so. Her legs are getting incredibly scrunched up and we can't extend her leg room even though our car seat is made for that because there simply isn't room in our car to do so. I saw comments on a Facebook post about it from our county that someone's 7 year old was going to need to go back to rear-facing.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#520

Post by MisterTea »

ryandrake wrote: post #366
efields wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels right. More than anything, it's the function of the Internet.

I don't think it's right. Despite the Internet, we really aren't in a constantly connected society. In fact, I'd argue we are less connected now than we have been for a long time. Everyone's "on" Social Media, but they're not socializing on it. They're spouting into the void, promoting and advertising themselves, tunneling themselves deep into echo chambers, but it's not really social. People write and write and writ…

Its not all screaming into the void. From my point of view people broadcasting their lives in real-time leaves little to catch up on. Why call/meet Joe to talk about his trip to Antigua if he already posted his trip in real-time including video? You know what all your friends are doing.

The twitter scenes is out of my wheel house. Never had an account or knew anyone on it that I cared about.

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