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The death of partying in the USA

derekthompson.org

681–690 of 756 posts

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. About 2/3 of households in the US own the home they live in. Renting is the minority, not the majority.

Thank you for mentioning this! There's this weird, persistent meme that large corporations are buying up all the housing and nobody owns homes anymore, which is fundamentally not supported by the data. There are shifting trends in generational home ownership rates, but these are still just initial trends we're seeing. If you look at the data [0] owner occupied has gone down from the 2000s housing bubble, but in the g…

It's another example of mistaking the current trading trends for the overall asset reality. Like NFTs, TSLA, and house prices, a relatively small amount of daily trading money can move the "market cap" quite a lot.

And those old folks that took their home equity and used it to buy property for an AirBNB are in fact an example of the rich/old folks screwing the young generation hard. (Other examples: vote to reduce taxes, to increase tuition, stop the free market from building more housing, do nothing on global warming, let the economy be swallowed by health care and financialized scams). As are the people that own and rent 3 houses, while their grandkids have to move far away. (Disclaimer: I live in San Jose, and my adult kids will never be able to live near me).

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my hyperlocal area, lacrosse is pretty serious. There's a lot of private schools that fuel it. And, football is our main sport in terms of popularity but a lot of parents are afraid of injuries and don't allow it so lacrosse fills that void. The NFL driving flag football has been interesting to witness, the kids love it and it's fun to watch. I think it could get pretty popular.

Interesting that lacrosse is still popular in your area. The popularity in my area is waning, which clearly has affected my viewpoint. I like flag football a lot. There are adult leagues too, coed and men’s only. The NFL is smart to push it; kids that excel can eventually transition to the real thing while the rest enjoy it and learn the finer details of the game and likely become bigger fans of NFL teams.

To be honest, lacrosse was popular here well before it became a trend a decade or so ago. I am in the affluent part of my city and every kid goes to private schools so I think it an aspect of that subculture. The girls play field hockey, it's really popular but my middle-class public school self had never even heard of it until we moved here.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's more like its being sucked up by special education, ESL, etc.

...or by sports.

My HS spent millions on a completely new athletics complex. our math and reading scores were in the dirt, classrooms had 70s era carpet growing crap I don't want think about, the band had 30 year old uniforms...but we had a gorgeous basketball complex.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#684
post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having two teenage daughters who are athletes, much of this will play out for them depending on how much they really love the sport and whether they are able to play it at the highest levels. If you listen and observe your kids, you'll get a good sense of what THEY want out of the sport. Support them in THEIR journey. And remember at the end of the day, the most important aspects of being an athlete aren't one's perf…

It depends. My dad pushed me to play a sport I despised. Hated it from when I was young all the way to my last games. But thank god he did. Changed my life completely. As a mediocre student, I could pick any school I wanted. Love my dad, and he knew what was best. Even if I hated playing, it was all worth it. Parents should set their kids up for success, and parents do know best - even if that means upsetting your ch…

It sounds like you had innate talent or aptitude that could be honed and take you places. Not all kids have that though, and can probably take it easy with sports and focus on growing other strengths.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#685
post #676
post #672

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Or maybe they are less of assholes in that regard. It is actually ok to not start fires where you should not. And starting them does not make one courageous, just jerks.

> Or maybe they are less of assholes in that regard. What's the difference? There has been nothing to suggest that the kids today are afraid of fire itself – with earlier implication that they would have bonfires in parks if allowed to – so, what else could they be afraid of other than to upset someone else? Perhaps you forgot to read the thread before replying? > And starting them does not make one courageous, just…

> so, what else could they be afraid of other than to upset someone else?

People, including teenagers, can and do act in pro-social and non assholish ways for reasons other then fear. Simple as that.

> Now you're going off into la-la land. Did not read the thread confirmed.

I did read the thread. The thread projects fear on them, because quite a few people on HN cant explain teenagers not destroying things or not breaking the "no fire in the park rules" by anything else then the fear.

Quite a few people here assume that since they were jerks, everyone young was a jerk and everyone who is not a jerk must do so out of fear.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#686

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…

Millennial here - they definitely were real! Even back in 2008-2010 when I was in high school.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#687
post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having two teenage daughters who are athletes, much of this will play out for them depending on how much they really love the sport and whether they are able to play it at the highest levels. If you listen and observe your kids, you'll get a good sense of what THEY want out of the sport. Support them in THEIR journey. And remember at the end of the day, the most important aspects of being an athlete aren't one's perf…

It depends. My dad pushed me to play a sport I despised. Hated it from when I was young all the way to my last games. But thank god he did. Changed my life completely. As a mediocre student, I could pick any school I wanted. Love my dad, and he knew what was best. Even if I hated playing, it was all worth it. Parents should set their kids up for success, and parents do know best - even if that means upsetting your ch…

Have you ever considered where you would be if all the hours you channeled into the sport you hated had been channeled into something you loved? Maybe you could have had the best of both worlds? Who knows...

But I totally understand what you're saying, I can't say I ever (EVER!) enjoyed going to practice, but I stuck it out and ended up making it to the Big Ten level as a walk-on. I'm very proud of that accomplishment.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#688

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…

>cleaning, buying food, coordinating

Food? A party's just booze and music, maybe even move some furniture out of the way for a dance floor.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#689
post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't stress this enough to new or soon to be parents. Hold off on giving your child a phone as long as possible. Once your kids are old enough (your choice...but it's before they are teens), send them outside, shut the door, and go about your business. Tell them to come back for lunch. Then send them outside again and tell them to come back for dinner. I mean this in all sincerity. Don't plan their day for them. M…

It’s different now if the other kids aren’t also outside.

Yes, that can be a problem for sure. It's incredible how few kids I see outside these days where we live. It's even worse if their friends are all on devices all day and your kids are hearing about that. Parenting is hard.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#690

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…

I graduated high school in 2001. During the summer before my freshman year, I signed up for the soccer team. We trained 6-hours/day, 6-days/week during the summer. I thought it was grueling, but I also understood that was part of what made our team one of the top contenders in the state. Even still, we were very much in the shadow of the middling football team.

But I put up with it. Summer in the rural south in the 1990s could be a deeply boring affair, without something to occupy us. I was easily in the best shape of my life at the end of the summer (I could run 11-miles in about an hour without stopping). But then, after school started, I met someone else who enjoyed the same obscure punk music I did, and who owned a drum set, and quickly decided I wanted to play music much more than spend all day every day on the soccer field. So before the first game, I quit the team. I think they went on to do pretty well. My band was terrible, but we had fun.

I guess my point is that—in 1997, at a rural school in the south that very much cared mostly about the football team, playing soccer in high school was still a full-time commitment.

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