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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

#601

Post by e_y_ »

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.

I never went to parties in high school, but based on my experience going to parties in college and as an adult, I imagine your individual experience at the parties would be very different depending on your social groups, social skills, and so on.

Although even as a non-participant, witnessing a party first-hand would be more informative than the filtered version you get from Hollywood.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#602

Post by dlcarrier »

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 swear the more Xanax people get, the more they overschedule themselves and their kids. I think existence of anxiety prevents people from overexerting themselves, and pharmacologically removing it just lets people, and the children they live through, take on more responsibilities, beyond what is healthy.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#603

Post by peterangular »

Aurornis wrote: post #257
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…

> 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…

> were in people's tiny apartments, small rented houses, and small yards

Anymore this feels impossible due to neighbors, landlords, and police. I have so many anecdotes... I don't think it's "getting ready" as much as it's an intolerant society of chronically entitled people. Also, it's increasingly expensive to go out + I truly believe we're experiencing the destruction of "3rd places"

My 20's had a good amount of that too... but it was increasingly at odds with real consequence and risk. I'm just safer at home with my SO, in my space. It's getting much worse for younger generations :(

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#604

Post by mpyne »

tlogan wrote: post #289
yubblegum wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Socially marginalized kids were partying too. The only difference was, we weren’t invited to the “cool” parties. These days, there’s definitely a lot less partying overall.

Well, not all of us.

I was the 'coming-of-age-in-the-late 90s' teen and went to exactly 1 party. And it wasn't even the backup party, it was the cool kids' party. Outside of that I hung out with close friends and that was enough, I wasn't interested in parties.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#605

Post by treis »

scelerat wrote: post #584
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.

> natural solution would be to increase the number of teams Reminds me of my dad (b. 1945) talking about his HS sports experience in the early ‘60s at a large (~3500) Southern California public school. Not only were there varsity, JV and frosh teams, in high-interest sports like football and basketball there were multiple teams for every grade. Competition was still high if you wanted to play at the highest level, bu…

Per pupil spending adjusted for inflation is up significantly since 1960s.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#606

Post by defrost »

treis wrote: post #605
scelerat wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> natural solution would be to increase the number of teams Reminds me of my dad (b. 1945) talking about his HS sports experience in the early ‘60s at a large (~3500) Southern California public school. Not only were there varsity, JV and frosh teams, in high-interest sports like football and basketball there were multiple teams for every grade. Competition was still high if you wanted to play at the highest level, bu…

Per pupil spending adjusted for inflation is up significantly since 1960s.

That's total into the system divided by number of students though.

Is there any measure of how much of that reaches pupils and improves their education versus the amount sucked up by middle layers, consultants, prestige buildings, etc?

It might be similar to the US health spend .. high per capita spend, low outcomes per citizens (compared to, say, Australia) .. with a rich middle layer of providers, insurers, etc.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#608

Post by onetokeoverthe »

JSteph22 wrote: post #576
RyanOD wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

[dead]

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#609

Post by MrFoof »

kergonath wrote: post #549
broost3r wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

check out this article (gift link) from yesterday about private equity in youth sports https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/business/youth-sports-pri... > For many families, the money they spend on sports is an investment in their child’s future. Roughly two in 10 youth sports parents think their child has the ability to play Division I college sports, and one in 10 thinks his or her child could reach the professional…

> one in 10 thinks his or her child could reach the professional ranks or the Olympics That is properly insane. The delusion…

Agreed. For anyone thinking the above comment might be mean spirited, here's why it's not:

* In 2017, there were ~1,108,400 US high school football players.

* In 2017, there were ~67,800 US college football players.

* In 2017, 255 players were drafted into the NFL.

So from high school to playing in the NFL, odds of 0.023%, or about 1:4346.

Even then, the average tenure of a professional NFL player is 39 months.

--

Football is one of the easier sports to go pro in as well.

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