Just post something π
The quality of life of kids has degraded at least in the US and no not primarily from smartphones and social media.
The answer is simple, life is harder for parents.
And also the lack of third places making it a lot harder for both adults and kids to get together with friends in person without having to spend money
Also the move towards car-centric infrastructure. Which is somewhat related to the lack of 3rd places.
A lot of the movies with these parties had the kids showing up by walking or biking, which just is not feasible anymore. I
I also think about all the teen movies that were largely set in shopping malls. Most of the malls around me have shut down, so what's next? Pretending people hang out and socialize in Wal-Marts for the sake of the movie?
Yeah the effect of that is really insidious and far reaching, I know it hurt me growing up no question.
The thing is, all the fun things that adults used to be able to do to blow off steam away from kids, keep getting ruined by going more "family friendly". When I was a kid, there was a thing at the boulder reservoir with music and events, and people would drink and smoke weed and be mostly left alone. They made it family friendly and it started to die, then they decided it wasn't eco-friendly so they killed it off.
Ragrbrai in Iowa happened the same way. A weeklong ride across the state that changes stops every year. Used to be drunken debauchery at the stops and now it's family friendly and no fun anymore. Concerts are the same way. I know kids listen to slipknot, but why the fuck should I watch my mouth now that kids are around, when the singers saying much worse (in context) on stage? I'm sure everyone everywhere in America has a story like this. 4th of July on Apple River, in Wisconsin, back in college it was a blast. Alcohol and titties everywhere. I haven't been since cops started going and enforcing shit.
Cameras on phones killed it.
We definitely had to regulate this in college. We threw some ragers where we specifically knew it couldnt be documented where we collected phones and had a whole coat check system. Thankfully, facebook was only for college people, so nothing catastrophic ever happened
This π
Yes, but ours were usually much much more casual and in much smaller houses. TV makes everyone look rich. Broke people have parties too, but they're chips/dip and BYOB. Also, without the jocks vs. nerds.
My husband was just telling a story this weekend about when he was "ninth grade cool". Right before a party a cute girl asked if he had the new Prince album. He said yes and then begged his mom to take him to Sound Warehouse to buy it. Unwrapped it, shoved it in his pocket, and got dropped at the party. "Cool! What's your favorite song?" "Uhh, the first one."
Sad that kids now don't have that experience.
Do kids still go parking?
Do kids still go parking?
So many kids today don't want to drive or learn to drive π€·ββοΈ And based on my partners' kids, they're much less sexually driven than we were. We did a bunch of stupid shit if there was a hint of a chance of getting laid.
That's sad. The hours we spent talking, laughing, and making out in cars were the best part of high school. I wonder if some of the disinterest is from anti depressants.
It's probably from the world burning down around them. Hard to be horny when you're full of existential dread.
Yeah, absolutely no existential dread from the Cold War. And we all just instantly stopped believing that the world would end in a nuclear holocaust just because the Soviet Union collapsed. Then there was the Gulf war, then 9/11, then another Gulf war. And we've known about climate change and how capitalism is killing our planet for practically the entire time, that's not new. Oil crisis? That's been a slowly building crescendo of apocalypse since like the 70s.
I'll buy existential dread as an excuse for not wanting to breed, not as an explanation for teenagers being less horny.
Wait there arenβt parties anymore? What
Apparently kids are socializing in general less. Like it's a real trend.
My neighbors gen z kids for the last 3 years had parties like this all the freaking time.... so yeah they still happens. Maybe its just less common.
Home security cameras probably don't help for house parties. Parents can see everything now.
Gen Z stopped havin house parties, cause fewer of them live on their own / with a small group of roomies -- a lot more stick around with the parents, and parents aren't as keen to have a bunch of youth doing drugs and lightly misbehaving all night ;p
Sorry I was too busy being a geek to go to parties full of people I absolutely hated. That was back before gaming was popular and cool, when you had to EARN your geekdom.
Depends on how stereotypical of a portrayal is in question, but yes, I've been to what would definitely be my country's equivalent.
Houses full of people. Around when people where 15-19 or smth, sometimes even older, but average was prolly 16-17. A couple of 15 year old moped boys for every 18 year driver, but for everyone 18 year driver, prolly 3-4 16-17 year friends with them.
Houses so full you'd strike up a chat with a random person every few meters. Always at the slightly less than responsible parents who allowed their kids to be alone for the weekend in the house.
But like, pretty similar as those depicted, but with our culture, not US, so slightly different.
Gen X. Grew up on an acreage and went to highschool in a small town a few kilometres away.
There was always some kind of party on the weekend. Either at someone's house, or a bush party/pit party. This was the early nineties. So no phones/cameras.
I'm amazed we survived.
I went to one in the early teens. I imagine it's harder for teenagers to have a secret party when their psrente are out of town these days
Its hard to through a secret part when your parents are out of town when the ring camera will let them know.
I'm slow, were these actually a real thing then?
(Younger) GenX here.
Yes, we partied hard, and we had a lot of fun. We got into tons of shenanigans, and thereβs zero video or audio evidence of any of it remaining. We said and did a lot of dumb shit, and were free to roam and make minor mistakes.
We hung out at each othersβ houses, at the mall (back when malls were cool), in parking lots, coffee shops, at railroad tracks, parks, the woods, swimming pools, whatever. We just talked for hours and really connected. Weβd hop in the car and just go somewhere, sometimes far away, just because. And we werenβt tethered to any monitoring devices in our pockets keeping us glued to messages.
We were free.
I really do feel sorry for the younger generations. Kids these days really do have it very rough. It sucks for yβall, and I do wish I could destroy the internet so you guys could be free, too.
That's a perfect description! Hanging out on empty playgrounds, running around downtown and climbing on statues, parking by the lake, going for a drive with no destination just to talk and listen to music. No phone, no texts, be home by midnight. I wasn't allowed to go to the mall and it was devastating.
Yes
Very common. The vibes and people varied based on the people throwing the party. Maybe it was a house party when someone's parents were out of town. Maybe it was a kegger at the lake kinda outta the way in the dark. And everything in between.
Also, Hollywood wouldn't have been making films in the 90s and 2000s to make you feel bad if this wasn't the case. They'd be making the contemporary teens of the day feel bad, which they certainly didn't because they could identify with the scene.
I mean, I'm a millennial in mid-thirties and I'd never heard of anyone actually doing a party like this either, so even in the 90s/00s these were things that seemed like 'stuff they used to do before'
House parties were awesome. I was never cool, but there was always room at a house party. It's a shame that these died out.
Yeah I never had this as a kid. Maybe I just wasn't invited though lol
I'm older than 40 I didn't go to these parties in high school because I was a nerd. I definitely went to and hosted parties like this in my college years. It was basically, invite everyone you know and then those people would bring their friends. Bring booze and snacks.Great way to meet new people.
In the 90s teenage me was way too uncool for these and never got invited once either.
Believe it or not, even adults had home parties. It wasn't just a kids or teens thing. So maybe you missed out as a teen but you can make up for it as an adult. Potluck dinners or game nights are a good way to start. We went to a potluck dinner for 8 people in a studio apartment a couple times when I was at uni.
Social media. People got used to not meeting up IRL. Also kids don't get wasted as much these days, possibly because they are actually dealing with their trauma and don't feel the need to drink/smoke the pain away. Of course if you do cut loose these days it'll end up being filmed and sent to your mum on Facebook. I know half the shit I did as a kid would have been flagged for inappropriate content.
Average millennial here. Yes, amongst other parties, I had a college friend who hosted a party like this twice a week and everyone (30-50 people) would be shit faced, his dad had a night shift job so we stayed up all night playing N64, beer pong, and other fun filled debauchery. It was magnificent. Each day we'd tape plastic over the floor to keep things clean and reduce wear, guy was a social genius. Actually I eventually got bored of it but they went on for years.
I used to throw massive house parties. Yes. It was a vibe. I did terrible things at those parties and I am sorry what I put my family through. Silly parties to be honest.
I never knew any parties like that (or at all, haha), but Iβve skimmed through the comments and am surprised people havenβt mentioned Covid.
Gen Z went through Covid lockdown during school ages. Itβs possible such parties would have occurred for these people, but they got screwed out of opportunities for wild ragers because of a pandemic.
Yeah all the time. Every Thanksgiving, Christmas and new years between the ages of 14 and like 25 with our friends, cousins, acquaintances. Always someone's place, at least 20 teens +/- 3 years in my age, but the parties can get up to 100 people or more if they lined up. Our community of Slavic churches are huge tho. We'd take up the entire wedding hall on some events with 300+ teens your grade that we all knew fairly closely.
The only difference is that alcohol wasn't involved, and relationships were built for dating into marriage, not sex flings like the teen movies.
I (an older millenial) went to a prep school and big parties in huge, beautiful parties happened every few weeks when someone's parents were out if town. Kegs, red cups, the host freaking out over the mess and people making out/banging in bedrooms were all standard. Because the prep school was small, we would end up getting all our friends from other schools together so they'd end up massive, loud and rowdy affairs. Cops usually got called, but were uninterested in a bunch of kids whose parents were likely lawyers, so no one got in trouble unless they tried to drive drunk. To be young, wealthy and white in America is a good time.
Don't worry, I am broke now. Still white tho.