Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The death of partying in the USA

derekthompson.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 756 posts

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#571

Post by pjc50 »

ryandrake wrote: post #380
pjc50 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It used to be fine! It used to be great, even. People like having photos of themselves having a good time. Back in the film era there would always be one person who wanted a picture at every event.

It's just that connecting it to the panopticon ruined everything.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#572

Post by autoexec »

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…

It's also true that it's "chronically online" GenX folks who are replying to the "chronically online" GenZ folks.

Even if we assume that "chronically online" people and reddit users are nerdier, less social in the real world, tend to be more introverted, less likely to go to parties in general, etc. we're still left with teen parties being normal for the GenX nerds and alien to the GenZ nerds.

As an old, chronically online, more introverted, nerd I can say that I absolutely attended parties in my teens and early 20s (only some of which were lan parties or BBS meetups)

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#573

Post by floren »

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 have no place to host a party, because they're all renters

I've seen this repeated in several comments and I just don't get it -- renting a place, be it a college apartment or a full house as an adult, has never stopped me from throwing a party. Maybe if there was a "no parties" rule in the lease (which I've never seen, and I've rented at least a dozen different places) and the landlord lived in the building, but otherwise rentals are fair game.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#574

Post by carlosjobim »

LeanderK wrote: post #41

Purely anecdotal, but I was recently reflecting at the current trend of people posting really extensive morning routines. Waking up, meditation, yoga, gym, shower, eating breakfast, meal-prepping,....having a whole day before your day starts. While they should impress you with their healthiness and discipline, I just thought how utterly lonely and sterile most of them look like. And you're completely done after work…

What are they supposed to do instead? If you can't get together to drink with friends in the evening, this is a very good option.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#575

Post by JSteph22 »

vitaflo wrote: post #429
1shooner wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 talking to many parents they want to give them activities so their kids aren’t bored or sitting inside on their phones all day. Sports is one of those things and lets them also be with other kids. The problem is kids being bored can be a good thing but they are never allowed to be. When I was a kid the internet didn’t even exist let alone cell phones and the only rule was “be home before sundown”. Kids now have…

If you let kids today "explore their own world" they'll just end up glued to phones.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#576

Post by JSteph22 »

RyanOD wrote: post #524
jonathanlb wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this sentiment, but there have been cases of families who have had CPS called on them for letting their kids walk home alone from a nearby park [1]. It's frustrating to know that neighbors, schools, or authorities might interpret normal childhood independence as neglect and report parents to authorities. [1] https://archive.ph/ZISnH

Sure, there will always be edge cases. That's just how the world works. Let your kids go out and ride bikes and you may end up with one getting hit by a car. Those are the risks every parent has to manage. But if we let the edge cases dictate how we raise our kids, we end up with what we don't want - overly managed bubble-youth kids who can't think for themselves.

Unless you have some compelling evidence to the contrary, this cannot be dismissed as "edge cases" when cultural norms have changed across the board and all it takes is one complaint...

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#577

Post by skeaker »

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…

Had a similar situation when I was young. Living far away only really impacts your ability to host events which can suck for things like your birthday parties, as getting a large number of people to all go out of their way is pretty much impossible. Other than that it doesn't affect your ability to socialize or attend events hosted by others.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#578

Post by supportengineer »

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.

The pressure to get into college starts before birth. A 4.0 grade average isn’t good enough anymore.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#579

Post by burnt-resistor »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #19
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 that if the head of the local Air Force wives' club did exactly that today, they'd get the same results.

I guess we're missing the local social super-connectors that were more numerous 40+ years ago. Perhaps we need to be mentoring, educating, subsidizing, and encouraging people on the little skills and techniques to bring others out of their hideaways.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#580

Post by janalsncm »

9rx wrote: post #540
janalsncm wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural solution would be to increase the number of teams to also accommodate people who are interested but don’t want to or are unable to dedicate their life to sports. But if schools need to cut costs, it’s tough to do. It’s a common trend in many domains: universities, housing, jobs. An underabundance of resources means people need to gear up to fight over the things that still exist.

Or, given the real-world constraints schools are usually up against, pick the worst participants instead of the best. Those who are skilled in a given sport are almost certainly engaged in the sport outside of school, and thus are taking away from those who are much more likely looking to learn about a sport they otherwise don't have access to.

Interesting/amusing thought. How do you propose to determine the worst athletes?

Maybe another approach would be to use a lottery among applicants.

Post reply on HN