The Death of the Party

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/fashion/death-of-the-party.html

by mojuba • 11 years ago

112 110 11 years ago

anonu• 11 years ago

Curious to post this on a Saturday evening when ya'll should be partying... But its been an hour with no comments. So it would seem like at least some of us on HN have a life. Then again, its an interesting article but not super HN-pertinent.

peter_caltrain2• 11 years ago

Why should we all be partying? Who are you to tell us what to do?

foobar20202• 11 years ago

Relax captain, it is just a joke. Go drink a beer with your friends, or not.

gaius2• 11 years ago

You created an account to say this?

jsumrall2• 11 years ago

Seems like a very different situation here in the Netherlands. Most people live somewhat close by, within 15 minutes of biking, and its not at all unusual for everyone to show up with some drinks or snacks. This takes care of two of the main reasons the article claims Americans are not having a house party.

At one point in the article someone said that only have a 400ft space, and can only host 5-6 people before it gets crowded. I was just at a gathering yesterday in a room of less than 16m^2 (172ft^2) with 12 people without a problem.

jeswin• 11 years ago

It's probably 400 sq ft, which is a 20x20 ft room. 52 sq ft would be really small.

jarvist• 11 years ago

I suspect 16 m^2 --> 215 sq ft. (GP mistakenly multiplied by feet-in-metres rather than square-feet-in-square-metres conversion factor.)

mojuba2• 11 years ago

Same in Ireland, house parties are pretty common. I'm wondering if it's to do with the population density and public transportation (you don't want to drive drunk), among many other factors already mentioned in the article.

dazc• 11 years ago

It's been awhile since I've been to Ireland (10 years) but I remember the cost of alcohol being very high, not just in tourist areas.

I also notice police being very proactive against drink-driving - in the centre of Dublin at least.

aamar• 11 years ago

16m^2 =~ 172ft^2

jsumrall2• 11 years ago

I updated what I wrote, thanks for pointing that out.

Cthulhu_2• 11 years ago

That "most people" only applies to a small part of the population though, that happen to live where their friends or family does - which I guess they do in the smaller towns or if you're still a university student, but it's not the norm. At least, not for me; anecdotal evidence here, one person. I have to travel by public transit for at least half an hour for social gatherings (to Amsterdam or Utrecht)

johan_larson• 11 years ago

One bit of hard data and a whole lot of anecdotes and speculation. Not worth it.

sp3325• 11 years ago

Interpreting history is a valid way of getting insight. Not everything is rigorous.

ezequiel-garzon• 11 years ago

When I saw the title of the article and the source I was convinced it would be about the end of the political party, in view of the poll numbers for outsiders such as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

petewailes• 11 years ago

UK here - people don't really do this in their 20's anymore, but in their 30's, and what hosting is seems rather different. It's more about enjoying social company around food, some music on Spotify, and probably a board game. It's an excuse to spend time with people you like outside of a work context.

Most of the people I know have someone over to a house around once a month or so, or do an event of some kind (gallery showing, horse trials etc) for similar purposes.

Intermernet• 11 years ago

Australian here (Sydney) - House parties are alive and well in my local area. Last night my neighbors were going 'til about 4AM (I'm in Newtown, which is renowned for being a bit different [1], so this is probably a terrible data point).

Age seems to have nothing to do with it. My said neighbors are uni students, I'm in my late 30's, my other neighbors are in their late 50's, and we've all been known to keep the block awake all night. No one complains, especially considering that friendly pre-party warnings / invitations are usually letter-box-dropped, and the late parties are usually confined to Friday / Saturday nights.

I personally love the house party vibe where I live. We may not all share the same music tastes, but it does my soul good to hear people having a good time pretty much every weekend!

It's possible that the reasons given in other comments (increased rent prices, social media redefining relationships etc.) are valid in Sydney as a whole, but thankfully they're having little effect in my surrounding area!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtown,_New_South_Wales#Cultu...

IkmoIkmo• 11 years ago

Same story for the Netherlands I guess. We do house parties in our twenties too but usually it's for an occasion like a birthday, not just random having fun.

There's also a lot of the 'meet around 9-10, have some drinks, light food and music at home until about 11:30 when you turn down the noise, all bike/taxi to the city centre and start hitting some pubs around midnight and stay there until the clubs fill up with people around 1:30 or so and stay until 4, maybe club-hop inbetween and then all go your own way home. The house party is more of a place to meet collectively, to get some drinks in 5x cheaper than in a club and talk to people while still sober and in a relatively quiet place, a pre-party really.

By the 30s nobody really hits the clubs anymore (at 24 I've pretty much stopped already), plenty of parties at home though but usually there's no dancing involved which may tell you something about the nature of the party.

greggman• 11 years ago

I hosted a few house parties a year in SF. I love doing it. I don't mind the prep or the cleanup (though it would be nice to have help; :P)

The problem is I lived in an apartment and the neighbors weren't happy about it. If I didn't have to worry about them I'd have thrown 3x more house parties.

I probably got that from my family who threw large family parties and a giant new years party at our house with > 80 people every other year.

One thing I liked about living in Tokyo, it was relatively trivial to rent an entire bar. So, people have parties and they don't have to worry about noise or cleanup. Of course one thing they do have to do is charge for the party but I guess that's a cultural thing. No one has a problem paying because they're used to it. And by paying I mean $20-$40 a person.

toothbrush• 11 years ago

$20-40 per person actually sounds reasonable, considering prices you'd normally pay for drinks in a bar. Hell, even just being at home having a party one could easily spend that on drinks and snacks. Plus, you're in a bar with non-strangers, which is something i'd also gladly pay for. Sounds like a right good idea to me!

seibelj• 11 years ago

I'm a millennial and I go to parties all the time. I chose my apartment partly on party-throwing amenities. And my social network has parties too. Maybe it's just the city (Boston)? House parties have always been a big thing for me throughout college and after.

hessenwolf2• 11 years ago

I was going to ask, but I figured I'd google it.

"Millennials (also known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y) are the demographic cohort following Generation X. There are no precise dates when the generation starts and ends. Most researchers and commentators use birth years ranging from the early 1980s to the early 2000s."

Namrog84• 11 years ago

When did generation y get absorbed by the word millennials? Last time I looked they were 2 distinct ones. Soon gen x and baby boomer gonnna get gobbled up too?

ambicapter• 11 years ago

Where at in Boston? Looking to move closer to the city soon.

personlurking4• 11 years ago

I find the whole US experience quite odd. Among everyone I knew up until my mid-late 20s (before I went abroad), the only viable options for nighttime fun were clubs and bars. Period. Luckily, I knew foreigners who would have house parties, bbqs and picnics.

When I moved to Brazil, people met on the beach, or were otherwise mostly in public spaces (you can drink on the street there). In Portugal, it's a mix of bar/club and public space* (drinking on the street is allowed), plus house parties. Whether in Brazil or Portugal, I can go out and spend $15 (incl. two-way transportation) and have a great time. Try doing that in the States.

* pretty typical scenes in Lisbon on the weekends http://imgur.com/a/5Fcvt

adventured• 11 years ago

On an observational basis, the public parks in LA are almost always filled with people having fun, having picnics, holding parties, et al. Drive by them on any weekend and they're full.

BBQ is a massive industry in the US for a reason. It has gotten bigger, not smaller. More people today BBQ, not less.

Potlucks are extremely common in the US as well.

I think your criticism is unfounded. It's trivially easy to hold group get-togethers in public parks in the US and only be out $15.

mgkimsal2• 11 years ago

"only be out $15."

It very likely won't involve alcohol. There's almost nothing in the states you can do in public involving alcohol that will put you out < $15 and satisfy the notion of 'event' that anyone wanting alcohol would agree with.

The "going out with friends and getting drunk" for $15 might fly in other countries, but probably not here.

personlurking4• 11 years ago

I'm from the Bay, but I lived in LA (for a little bit) and SD (for longer) in my college years, with post-college being back in the Bay. While LA seemed to be all about bars/clubs, SD was more chill with bondfires and house parties.

There was an image, growing up, of BBQs and Potlucks as things "older people" (or at least families) do, but as I'm into my 30s, they are things I find myself doing with my friends. I'd be happy to know more people are doing them more often, and the group get-togethers I had (w/ my foreign friends) in public parks were, in fact, very low-cost and a lot of fun.

As far as my criticism, in the Bay I was friends with all different kinds of people, across many divides, and the majority of them were unfortunately stuck in the bar/club paradigm. The foreigners being the only ones who were more open to other activities.

With everyone having their own experiences, at different ages, with their own social groups, it'll be quite hard to discuss the whole topic w/o comparing individual observations.

superuser22• 11 years ago

Public parks close at night, sometimes shortly after sunset but never later than ~11pm. Individuals and small groups are routinely harassed and ticketed for violating park hours. A large group, particularly one that's drinking, almost guarantees police response. A large group of urban minority youth and they'll put it in the press as a riot and call out SWAT. I'm speaking from experience with my local Lake Michigan-facing public parks in a well-to-do Milwaukee suburb and the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Public parks are there for "wholesome" daytime leisure, not evening parties.

Barbecues and potlucks are common social gatherings for married couples who own suburban homes and have (small) children. I don't have data but I'd estimate the age curve for consumers of the BBQ industry peaks at 40 and tapers off around 30.

charrisku• 11 years ago

I agree wholeheartedly on the public drinking aspect. I lived in Virginia for 30 years and if you are walking around on the street with a beer, you're essentially asking to spend 4 hours in the "drunk tank" for public intoxication. This will be followed by offering some welfare ($) to the local legal profession to get the charge dismissed or pled down so you won't have a criminal conviction for your future employers to ask you about. There are similar laws in many other states and it definitely puts the kibosh on any potential block party you may wish to have. Since moving to Europe I find it pretty awesome to be able to enjoy a beer while I stroll and not worry about being run in so I can fund some lawyer's BMW lease.

VLM2• 11 years ago

The article tip toed around the hatred "everyone who doesn't party" (which the article admits is the VAST majority of the population) has against the tiny minority who party. Mixing hyper militarized cops with high school drinking parties isn't much of a win, so the 5% or so of the party population get kicked out of the middle class pool either financially or via criminal charges before they get into their later 20s where journalists ponder why that social group mysteriously disappeared. Mix the poverty of permanent declines in economic standard of living with increasing fines to be "tough on crime" and mandatory minimums and the risk just isn't worth it both for the people who hold the party and the drunk drivers who attend, and people with risk taking disabilities are destroyed before the late 20s that the journalist is writing about.

Another cultural curiosity is I'm old enough to have been born into sports nerd dominated culture, but the times they are a changin' and the journalist is apparently completely divorced from sports nerd culture, doesn't know anyone who brings over a couple beers to watch the game with a dozen or so guys, or tailgates. The rise of liability lawsuits and anti-drinking culture might be behind a drop in tailgating. I've heard some stadiums ban tailgating entirely! Anyway its interesting that sports nerd culture has declined so incredibly far that the author doesn't even consider mentioning it. For folks too young to have ever experienced it, a ball game on TV used to be a perfectly good excuse for multi-hour long house parties even for people who aren't interested in sports, it wasn't strictly a jock thing; I guess the canonical stereotypical example would be the superbowl party where most of the party goers don't care much about the game but its a convenient holiday between new years and spring break or memorial day (valentines day doesn't count, its for couples not house parties)

herge• 11 years ago

The drinking age in the U.S. is 21, and is very heavily enforced. It's a lot easier to drink underage in someone's house than in public.

coldtea• 11 years ago

And yet the "go to the army and kill and/or get killed" is 18 and the "caught by law and get the death penalty" is 15...

rhino369• 11 years ago

I find the whole US experience quite odd. Among everyone I knew up until my mid-late 20s (before I went abroad), the only viable options for nighttime fun were clubs and bars. Period.

Did you grow up in a big city? I grew up in the surburbs, went to school in a college town, and then lived in Chicago until I was 28. In all of those places, it was common to have house parties, backyard parties, and apartment parties.

When I moved to Washington, DC, I've noticed that those sorts of parties are less common because very few people have more than 500-600 sq ft apartments. I expect it's the same in NY and SF.

The public drinking thing is a cultural issue. English influenced cultures have a bizarre drinking culture. It's viewed somewhat shamefully, but it's also ubiquitous. The drinking culture is centered around binge drinking.

Drinking in public isn't allowed because we don't handle it well.

personlurking4• 11 years ago

No, not in a big city. I was also in the suburbs, all around the SF Bay, just not in SF proper (though I have friends there and I'd go there on weekends). When I was in San Diego, the only place I felt a real college atmophere, house/apt parties were pretty normal though on par with bar+club activities.

mixmastamyk• 11 years ago

Drinking in public isn't allowed because we don't handle it well.

Maybe it's not handled well, because it isn't allowed... which increases the excitement of course. Perhaps if you were sipping the stuff from late childhood like in Germany or Italy for example, it wouldn't be nearly as big a deal.

joesmo3• 11 years ago

"Try doing that in the States."

You can't. There are essentially no public spaces in the US for this type of activity. As you noted, drinking is not legal in "public" spaces. That's minor when being in "public" spaces is not legal itself (it's called loitering). You can get away with it some places, but it's much harder in a group. If you're a group of teenagers or young adults, police harassment is almost guaranteed (remove the "almost" if you're not white). The only potentially safe place is in private homes. The only public places left are bars and clubs, as those are the only types of places socializing is still allowed, that I know of, under high scrutiny after you get patted down and searched of course. Also, bowling alleys, sometimes after the same type of pat-down.

anon4• 11 years ago

You mean you can't just sit on a bench in the park and do nothing? Or walk up and down main street window-shopping with a bunch of friends?

superuser22• 11 years ago

Once place you'll find excellent public places in the US is behind the proximity-card gates of a good university.

Glorious, Gothic architecture reading rooms with hundreds of comfortable seats, power at each one of them, 100Mbit WiFi, and a cafe on site. Coffee shops with large seating areas, similar power and WiFi amenities, and no obligation to buy anything. Dorms have common rooms and lounges where students hang out long into the night, with several conversations going and Super Smash Brothers on the TV in the background. My school's housing system is designed around "houses" of 50-100 students occupying vertical slices of the dorms, and in most you can wander into your house lounge at any hour and be around your friends. Many universities are laid out around quadrangles, and on a nice day on the vast green space you'll see classes sitting in circles, students leaning on trees reading, a few frisbees in the air, etc. Depending on the social climate, drinking may be allowed in dorm common spaces (a more subdued, conversational kind of party than a bumpin' rager you'll find at a frat).

I wish I could have access to that kind of thing again after graduation. I'll miss it. Public libraries and most commercial coffee shops don't come close.

aqwwe• 11 years ago

both in Canada and USA, there is plenty of house parties but you can get in trouble for drinking in the streets... but there is private beaches and such, at hotels for example.

Also, the pictures that you posted appear to be a private area...

andruby• 11 years ago

I know the first two places in Lisbon:

1) Miradouro de Santa Catarina https://goo.gl/jwAE8A

2) Any street in Bairro Alto https://goo.gl/aN4isX

They are as public as places get. I spent plenty of nights there during my studies abroad :D

humanrebar• 11 years ago

I think they buried the most rational conclusion. After complaining about expensive cheese (really? someone lives in a hipster bubble) and awkward sorry-didn't-invite-you situations (which always existed), the NYT gets to the point:

"More financially injurious, however, is the exorbitant rents that millennials often pay..."

House parties take space. Space costs money, especially in and near Manhattan. They also require either lots of room between homes (to keep noise down) or amazing soundproofing. Neither of which is common in Manhattan.

And everyone pays crazy rent. Remember when housing prices crashed in 2007-2008 and the government was brainstorming ways to keep them up? This isn't a force of nature, and it's not extra hard on millenials. It's policy. If anything, it's harder on families, since they need more space for kids (who don't pay rent) and have less tolerance for walkups (strollers) or rough neighborhoods.

Besides, there are plenty of house parties across the country. They call them BBQs or pool parties, and they have them during the day in places where people with steady jobs can afford to own or rent a home with a yard or pool. You know, flyover country. The places that don't read the Style section of the NYT.

morgante2• 11 years ago

This isn't a force of nature, and it's not extra hard on millenials.

Older people are more likely to own their homes (even in expensive cities like SF), so higher rent absolutely hits millenials harder.

sp3325• 11 years ago

Increased land prices mean higher taxes for homeowners too.

paulpauper• 11 years ago

Maybe that's why so many millennials are living at home, or why the stigma of not leaving the nest is gone

http://greyenlightenment.com/why-millennials-are-still-livin...

why make the landlord rich when you can use the saved money by living at home to build your own financial future

trentmb• 11 years ago

Yeah, the only reason I moved out is because the only work I could get was in another city. If it didn't mean a 4 hour daily commute, I'd definitely still be hanging with my parents.

rayiner2• 11 years ago

Hell you don't even have to live in flyover country. We pay $2,300 in Baltimore for a 2BR and the building has huge community areas and a pool. We get building residents together regularly for bbq, pizza, and pool parties.

I love NYC, but as the rents become more stratospheric and economic competition goes up, there is this odd effect where the people who can afford to live in a place big enough to host others are working way to much to actually host parties.

douche3• 11 years ago

$2300 for a 2BR is still pretty nuts. My mortgage on a building with 2 2BR units is only $1800, and that's with FHA PMI and escrow for hefty NH property taxes. This is about 45 minutes from Boston.

Although I look with envy at my parents, who pay about $1000 in property taxes a year, and a mortgage that was about $600 before they paid it off, on a house with 50+ acres of land. With that much land (and with only a single neighboring house in sight), you can do pretty much do what you damned well please. This is about 4 hours away from Boston.

I could make quite a bit more money than I do now if I moved to NY, Boston, Seattle, California, or wherever, but if I'm increasing my salary by 50%, while doubling or tripling my cost of living expenses, and I have to live crammed into an urban area with people everywhere, that seems like a shitty deal. I'm hoping I can stick it out long enough for most people to realize that you can be just as effective as a software engineer when you're not breathing the same stale oxygen as your coworkers.

bane2• 11 years ago

What I think is interesting is that in Asia, where property prices are also sky-high...this is dealt with via a large network of public and semi-public spaces for rent.

-Want to smooch on the couch with your significant other but neither of your family apartments are large enough to do so in private? Rent a movie room!

-Want to have a party with half a dozen of your best friends? Rent a music room!

-Need a quiet place to study away from your noisy household? Rent a study room!

-Need a quiet place to have sex away from your nosy families? Rent a love hotel!

-Want to take a quiet day and pamper yourself, with meal service?

and so on. Even better the places offer extra amenities -- you don't have to clean up afterwards, there's usually drink and light snack service (and tech support), and so on.

So it's curious that this kind of business hasn't really sprung up (outside of Asian enclaves) in highly dense cities.

JupiterMoon• 11 years ago

I think in general in most parts of the world people find these types of rooms for hire to have a yuk factor. Possibly because people don't trust the cleaning standards?

PaulRobinson• 11 years ago

I think the party went out of fashion in the UK when Abigail's Party ended up on TV in the 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail%27s_Party

I basically hate house parties. I prefer spending time with my friends in pubs/bars, or going out to museums/galleries and that sort of thing. Occasionally we'll have people who want to spend time in our neck of the woods (London) and they can stay with us for a weekend and we'll do things like that. Occasionally we'll head back to our home town (Manchester), and we'll go and do things around there.

The idea of a bunch of probable strangers in a house with a poor/prescribed collection of booze just doesn't interest me. It is too open to posturing, egos clashing, being unable to drift away or having "forced fun".

personlurking4• 11 years ago

I suppose the definition matters in this case. While house parties used to mean "probable strangers in a house" when I was in my teens, for me it's now more like the UK experience described below by another HNer in this thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10247096

winterismute• 11 years ago

I lived the last 5 years in the NL, as a foreigner, where I finished a MSc. In the last, say, 2 years I have been working full-time, and I noticed how throwing house parties became harder being in my late-20s: people have tight schedules, need to commute early because of work etc. Nonetheless, with my partner, we threw a handful each year. We lived in shared house but it was big, with a backyard and ok neighbors. We would always have some kind of big dinner and then mostly gather around the fire outside, sometimes watching stuff with a projector on a canvas we would put on the back wall. Although always a lot of effort, I really enjoyed it, it creates a nice and safe space so that people can be really open with each other, I have seen many people getting to know each other and "relationships" (work/feelings related) bootstrap. We have recently moved to the UK, outside London, in a smaller house. I don't know much of the people and the town, and I am observing on myself how I spend more time on the internet or watching movies. Maybe it's not related to being in 2015, maybe it's just that after 25 in modern societies it gets more difficult to get close to people. I wonder if it is a problem that a private or public venture could address in an innovative way.

infodroid• 11 years ago

I wonder if it is a problem that a private or public venture could address in an innovative way.

Yeah that would be meetup.com

jldugger• 11 years ago

Indeed, my university town meetup for "Young Adults" is oversubscribed. It really needs a better waitlist function -- roughly 2 percent of the entire city is subscribed, which means if 5 percent of subscribers attend your party, your average apartment will easily be filled up twice what is reasonable.

VLM2• 11 years ago

"Maybe it's not related to being in 2015, maybe it's just that after 25 in modern societies it gets more difficult to get close to people."

Being a student used to mean being a teen, and that gives maybe a decade to party before the biological clock starts ringing and nobody can party all night because they have little kids. Sure, outliers always existed, but they were rare. Post teens were adults with adult incomes but not adult responsibilities, like kids, for quite a few years, usually.

The modern economic strategy of extending childhood by about a decade by extending education and eliminating entry level positions and near elimination of the high school grad career path has all kinds of fascinating economic effect, mostly bad, but one big effect is by the time the advanced degrees and internships are done and someone finally has an above poverty level income and medical insurance and a place to live other than parents house, the biological clock is ringing and if you don't immediately start popping out newborns, you aren't going to have biological time to do it, thus dramatically limited party culture.

So lets say culturally theres a shift from the delay between "I graduated and now I'm an adult" and "I got a herd of kids and after school stuff to attend and kids sports and ..." used to be a decade and now its maybe two years? So you'd naturally expect a decline of maybe 80% in party culture, taking it from dominant activity in the 20s to its basically gone?

There is also the biological effect that scenes from the movie "Animal House" look like fun to a teenage brain, maybe not so much to an older brain, so increasing the drinking age and dramatically criminalizing drinking while also socially pushing the mantra often heard on HN that its impossible to socialize (party) without being an alcoholic (which is criminalized) will result in a natural decline in party culture.

FlannelPancake• 11 years ago

Post teens were adults with adult incomes but not adult responsibilities, like kids, for quite a few years, usually.

Hmm, not sure I agree with that really.

I agree with most of your sentiment about elimination of entry-level jobs and extended education, but I think the natural response (and the response we see) is for women to have children at older ages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_maternal_age).

It used to be the case that you'd graduate high school and start having children in your early 20s, so I'm not sure I agree that there was ever a time when it was "socially acceptable" to be an adult with an adult income and no children for several years.

sp3325• 11 years ago

Parties used to be mostly full of strangers? And have no food and no alcohol? So... what did people do at a party?

huxley• 11 years ago

Listen to music? Talk? Pass a joint around? Those that played instruments brought them and would jam.

I know I'm getting old and was kind of a prole but most parties that I went to in Atlantic Canada were like that, you brought what you could afford and the people holding the party provided the venue.

You had strangers at the party because friends would invite their friends who'd bring some other friends. One never knew if the party would be huge or a bust.

We were relatively poor students so food wasn't common unless people kicked in for a pizza or went out for donairs, whatever was plentiful and cheap and easy.

The worst parties usually involved alcohol, I spent New Years Eve (1989) cleaning a walk-in kitchen pantry at a friend's flat because my then-girlfriend had barfed in it after she ran to what she thought was the bathroom. I was a bit disillusioned with parties after that.

sp3325• 11 years ago

You know, making music sounds great. I host "parties" on a regular basis, but they're small, I know almost everyone, and we usually play boardgames which I guessed most people wouldn't do at a party in the 80's :)

eitally• 11 years ago

I'm not young (38), but my parents used to throw these kinds of open parties all the time when I was growing up. We had an open door policy, too, where anyone who showed up around a meal time was automatically served, too, and that provided a really awesome opportunity for us to build and strengthen friendships (being older and more worldly now, I know this is pretty common in large parts of the world, but it wasn't in central Virginia in the early 80s). We had a couple acres, and our house parties ranged from just a couple of folks over to hang out to large outdoor events with up to about 250 folks. In those cases it was always friends-of-friends-of-friends. As mentioned elsewhere, my family provided the venue and some general amenities (some drinks, core food) but it was expected that attendees would bring something to contribute.

As adults now, my wife & I try to have friends over regularly, too, but it's a lot more complicated in suburban US because of dual-income households, kids that either don't go to neighborhood schools or are involved in lots of extracurriculars, and generally antisocial neighbors.

pavel_lishin2• 11 years ago

So... what did people do at a party?

Meet new people, then do the same things that you would do with people you knew.

abhv• 11 years ago

Poorly written story based on 3 anecdotes and misused facts from BLS. I am on sabbatical in NYC for the year, and I've seen "the party" occur in common spaces, like parks.

For the last 20 years in nyc, people right out of college have always used public spaces (parks, bars, clubs) as venues for their parties.

On any fair-weather Saturday during spring-fall in Morningside park, there are 100s of people having parties with outdoor bbqs, lounging, bubble-making, etc.

Same in central park. A friend of ours had their post-wedding party in central park around a huge oak tree; maybe 80 people showed up. The same couple hosted at least 3 parties during the year in their 1bd Village apartment (900 sq ft).

It seems contradictory that the guests of parties expect "bourgeois cheese and beer" and yet themselves have limited budgets.

HeyLaughingBoy2• 11 years ago

I found this strange too. The few parties I go to are generally for birthdays and are held at parks or at inexpensive restaurants (kid's birthdays), or at someone's house with cheap snacks (chips, cake, wings, burgers, etc.) if they want to have alcohol.

The notion of guests turning up their noses at your generic beer and non-gourmet appetizers suggests to me that the author needs to hang out with a better class of folks.

wtbob• 11 years ago

It seems contradictory that the guests of parties expect "bourgeois cheese and beer" and yet themselves have limited budgets.

Not if the guests see themselves as children and their hosts as parents.

dasil0032• 11 years ago

That's funny, but I think it touches on the effects of easy credit to this whole phenomenon. Kids are graduating university today with what was previously considered unconscionable debt, and then they pile up credit card debt because they want the best of the best that they see every day on Facebook and Pinterest.

I'm not saying this as a blank statement against young people, there are irresponsible people living beyond their means at all ages. But consumerism as a trend in aggregate has amped up to record levels, and SV is a significant part of that.

brianmcconnell• 11 years ago

Very lazy, very poorly researched article with cherry picked sources.

The simpler explanation is that the author isn't seeing many house parties because he isn't being invited to them. Dunno, but may be the host is worried he's the sort to write a review about it.

littlewing• 11 years ago

I know I'm in the minority but our street has had house parties fairly frequently over the past years since we've lived here. Here's our story:

When we first moved in, we went to each home in the area and invited them to come over and meet their neighbors that weekend. It was a cold weekend and all of those that came had coffee and hot chocolate in the garage and spoke for a little while.

From then on, other neighbors and ourselves would periodically make extra cookies or other food and just take it over to a neighbor's house. When the weather is nice, people would just walk around the neighborhood and stop by to talk to others that happened to be outside. We put a fridge in the garage and offered people a soda, beer, or glass of wine when they stopped by, and over time others would gather and talk.

Eventually people started to have dinner parties. Cocktails were served, chips, appetizers, etc. Ours is not an affluent neighborhood, but those that could afford it did all they could.

Over the years, it has slowed down a little. There have been some weird friends that messed up relationships, and other mistakes with people drinking too much, etc. But, there have also been solid friendships that came out of it, and people still get together.

It doesn't happen everywhere, for sure. We consider ourselves blessed to have such good friends and neighbors. But, I think that if you do similar things, you could have a chance at the same type of experience.

roymurdock• 11 years ago

Rent is higher
More Millenials unemployed
More Millenials living at home
More geographic dispersion after school (good friends end up all over the world)
City scene is all about bars and clubs, especially for those who can afford it and want the prestige factor
Everything more competitive than 50 years ago when U.S. enjoyed an economic heyday after WWII
>> Millennials still party all the time regardless, and it's not that big of a deal

drivingmenuts• 11 years ago

Acc. to the article, New York is the only place where they party.

Screw New York. Move to Texas. We have plenty of room to party.

jgh• 11 years ago

Cheeses, food, and expensive alcohol? Sounds like a gathering I'd attend now that I'm in my 30s...in my 20s it was all bottom-shelf liquor and terrible beer (and pretty much no food unless someone thought they were being classy by buying a shrimp ring)

notact• 11 years ago

They seem to have missed an important data point involving alcohol. If the stories I hear are accurate, a few decades ago if you were pulled over while intoxicated, the officer would likely say "You boys drive straight on home mkay?" We've become much less tolerant of alcohol-related accidents, and so that same situation sudenly becomes a much bigger problem. Who wants to risk a DUI to hang out with a bunch of squares from the office?

joesmo3• 11 years ago

And of course you have raves that draw in hundreds of thousands in the US (134,000 for one night of this year's Electric Daisy Carnival for example), something unheard of in the 90's or 2000's here, so while house parties may not be as popular, partying itself obviously still is.

I do think people are much more disconnected socially, but I don't think that's a different scenario than ten or twenty years ago, just one that's ramped up. It is possible to live today in the US and have close to zero social interactions. I can work from home, get all my goods delivered by Amazon or Instacart, all my entertainment delivered digital, and all my socializing online. This isn't a hypothetical: other than my immediate family, this has been a sort of experiment for the last year and a half or so. It's certainly unusual, but also can be very appealing in its own right. There are, however, many things that are quite unappealing as you might imagine. I certainly wouldn't recommend it for long periods because of them, but I wonder if this isn't the direction that society as a whole is heading, but I fear that it might very well be.

EC1• 11 years ago

Everything has been commercialized into absolute death.

The Death of the Party

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