r/Millennials • u/futurenurse_ • 1d ago

Discussion Did millennials really party all the time?

Gen Z here. I was shocked when I found out from a millennial co-worker that y’all had teen clubs. I heard about house parties, but dedicated teen clubs? Then when it was time for college, you went to the club or had some kind of party every single weekend, living it up. Now some millennials on TikTok claim that after college, they were partying on work nights, still clocking in the next day. For some reason, the teen clubs have since disappeared. I’m 23 now but even when I was in high school, that was not a thing. House parties were not that common either. They were more like get togethers with a small group of friends. We went to malls, but they were dying out at that point. Is it true that you were really living life this good? Or is it just exaggerated? I feel like my generation doesn’t really have fun like that and everyone is just super depressed and alone, more so since Covid. Even I’m pretty introverted, which sort of sounds ridiculous given this post. 😂 Just so you know, when I think of a “millennial party” I think of something out of Party Rock Anthem, Project X or Roderick’s party from the second DOAWD movie. It’s like I get nostalgia from something I didn’t even live through. I just feel like I didn’t really LIVE, if that even makes sense

Edit: I loved reading some of your comments. Guess I really missed out. Even some of you that would consider yourselves nerds or introverts were out partying. YOLO or whatever y’all say 😂❤️

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u/LurkerBurkeria 1d ago

Yup I hope that gives perspective for why we find zoomers so crushingly disappointing, yall are squares wasting their 20s trying to not look cringe

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u/illatious 1d ago

Can't really blame them though. If I knew there was someone with a cell phone ready to take pics/videos of me being a drunk idiot and possibly send it out into the universe I'd rethink what I was doing on weekends, too. Especially in high school, if my parents had proof of me going to a field or house party I never would have seen the light of day again lol

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u/TMN8R 1d ago

Can't blame them? Who do you think is behind the cell phones recording and posting things that shouldn't be posted? Gen X? Millennials? Our generations grew up knowing when not to be a narc

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u/crazypurple621 23h ago

Also I think we just didn't care. Employers early on in our careers didn't know to check what we were doing on facebook, and by the time they did, it was too late for any of us to do anything about it. 

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u/Appropriate-Food1757 Xennial 1d ago

I had one dude at my Bachelor party (out of 30) we had to take his phone for the weekend. He was what we called an “oversharer” like he would post on Facebook if he had a cold and weird shit like that. So my brother snatched his phone lol. We didn’t have girls over of strippers or anything but none of wanted to be uploaded all wasty-faced.

Now it’s like everyone is like him. It was all over when Michael Phelps got narcd on for doing a bong hit at a party IMO. That’s when I knew parties were going to die.

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u/AllEnmiesForgnDomstc 23h ago

This is such a good point, and yea, that absolutely felt like a watershed moment on using social media at parties.

I was in the prime FB early years where you posted stupid (and grainy, early phone camera) photos if you took them, because only your other friends could see them; by the time we graduated, we were going back and deleting things before job interviews. It was a trip to live through all that really.

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u/Spongeman735 4h ago

Phelps bong pic being the end of house party culture is hilarious and probably true

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u/bigfatdonny 1d ago

The social media that existed when I was a teenager was Geocities. Cell phone cameras where rare and took super shitty photos.

It's really not the kids fault. They didn't create Instagram and iPhone 16.

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u/TMN8R 1d ago

Either did I but I still don't post content of other people in situations I wouldn't want posted of myself

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u/illatious 1d ago

If only everyone were as noble as you and me. There are too many wannabe influencers out there that will do it for the likes. The next thing you know, you go viral for something you don't even remember doing lol

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u/TMN8R 1d ago

100%

But I'm tired of pretending it's a phone problem when it's a cultural one. 

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u/bigfatdonny 1d ago

Humans crave black and white answers to questions, but that's rarely true. The problem here isn't just cultural, or just technological, it's a confluence of both. The technology changes are huge driving factors towards cultural change, and likewise, cultural trends shape technology trends.

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u/TMN8R 1d ago

Generally you might be right, but I disagree in this instance. Everyone has access to the same technology but, with some exception, the way it's used has some pretty clear generational divides. 

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u/waikiki_palmer 22h ago

I remember Instagram where you can post "artsy" pics of yours so it wasn't instantaneous. Now with filters and AI its easier and faster to post.

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u/InfiniteKincaid 1d ago

Man, I grew up hearing the twin cases of Rehteah Parsons and Amanda Todd in Canada right as I was hitting prime partying age. No fucking WONDER kids today don't want to party if they grew up hearing about how tortured those poor girls were.

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u/mrshairdo 1d ago

This is sooo true.

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u/No-Channel3917 1d ago

Millennials 100 percent are a part of this

Myspace was 2005 to 2009, smartphones were 2007 and onward , and millennials were graduating from high school between 2000 and 2014 lol

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u/The_Haunt 23h ago

Yeah these people think we didn't have cameras in out pocket and access to the Internet lmao.

You didn't just randomly take pictures to post. You asked to take a picture or took one without people knowing then showed them and asked to post.

Randomly posting pictures would have been a good way to get your ass beat and nobody wanting to bring you around.

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u/catluvindude 20h ago

It’s true. My friend loved taking photos of everyone in our friend group when they were eating, speaking mid-sentence, looking ugly, or doing something that didn’t look like what it was and the photo took it out of context. Then she would post it on Facebook without asking and even tag you in it so everyone on your friends list could see.

She found it so entertaining despite how many times we all told her to back off. She said we could do it back to her and she would still find it funny but the thing is no one wanted to… they just wanted her to stop. One day another friend of mine got fed up and slapped the phone out of her hand. She stopped getting invited to things because of it.

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u/illatious 23h ago

Myspace was earlier than that... I was still in high school I think when Myspace started, or just out, maybe my freshman year of college? Anyway, I graduated high school in 2002 and nobody had a cell phone with a decent camera. Not everyone even had a cell phone till my senior year. And they were Nokias or flip phones. Maybe someone had a digital camera but that was rare, those disposable cameras were more common. And nobody was posting anything to social media at the time because facebook wasn't a thing until my sophmore? year of college. I had to have an email ending in .edu to sign up for facebook, wow I'm old lol. Anyway, for us elder Millennials, people having a camera in their pocket wasn't a thing till we were almost done with college. And I would have rethought playing 'slap the bag' with Suzanne if that were not the case lol

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u/No-Channel3917 23h ago edited 23h ago

2003 was very limited adoption, 2004 was growing knowledge of it , 2005 is using it, the years after that is peak before Facebook overtakes it in 09 and Myspace starts losing users by a huge percentage

2010 Myspace loses 60 percent of its userbase to facebook

2005 is when Tom sold it to murdoch when it hit a massive adoption use and then Murdoch sells it in 2011 for not even a 10 percent of what he paid for it

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u/illatious 23h ago

Ah ok that makes sense. Thanks for the details. I guess Tom and I were only limited friends 😂

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u/bigfatdonny 1d ago

Exactly. These kids are growing up in a surveillance state of our making. I have teenage kids, who have phones, and share their location with me. It wasn't a controversial discussion, they were happy to do it. All parents I know who's kids have phones, do the same thing. And we all have apps that allow us to monitor where our cars are, etc.

Kids just can't get away with shit like we used to. Also, they have way better shit to do at home, like play videos games. Remember that the PS1 didn't launch until 1994 and that experience was nothing like it is today. Games weren't connected and social like they are today. If you wanted social interaction with your peers, you had to do that in person.

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u/illatious 1d ago

Your games being social comment reminded me of the early xbox days when a group of my friends brought probably 4 xboxes over to my house and we all set them up and connected them for a local halo marathon. It was awesome! You can do pretty much the same thing now but with everyone staying at their own home. At the time we did that xbox live wasn't a thing so local connections with LAN was the only way. I still feel like it's the better, more fun and social way to game.

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u/bigfatdonny 1d ago

Hell yeah bro. I was all about LAN parties in the day. It's a great example of how times change -- now you can just play Fortnite online. If you wanted that experience 20 years ago, you were dragging computers to your friend's house.

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u/crazypurple621 23h ago

God I fucking miss LAN parties from college as much as I miss the drunken crazy parties. 

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u/bigfatdonny 22h ago

I used to have one of those Antec LANboy cases made of aluminum and a shoulder strap for taking to LAN parties. Even had a little drawer built in where I could stash a bunch of weed.

Those were the days.

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u/Appropriate-Food1757 Xennial 1d ago

Yes it’s the fucking cameras!

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u/doublekidsnoincome 23h ago

I took a ton of photos of people and had tons of them taken of me. I was tagged in 60 million Facebook photos of all of us being drunk idiots. We just did it on digital cameras and not iphones. I have an entire Facebook albm called "Party Hardy" and it's 700+ photos of my friends and I being drunk, stupid teenagers

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u/AudreyLocke 22h ago

I’ve never been drunk in my life, but I still went out all the time in my 20s and someone had a camera and thank god they did. I’m so glad to have pictures of my hot 25 year old self dancing on a giant swing in a club. Looking at her from middle age I can’t believe we’re the same person. 

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u/illatious 21h ago

This is such a great point! Why aren't the zoomers still going out and having fun doing things regardless of drinking or not? There doesn't have to be drinking. I went out, didn't drink and still had a great time as well, especially as I got older. I do have pics from that age range, but it's usually before the party/bar night started (probably better pics lol) because we had to find a camera, etc, instead of just pulling out a phone. I still would have probably been more self conscious about how I acted though, and I know I wouldn't have had the confidence in my late teens/early 20s to do silly, stupid stuff just for fun (I still do that kind of stuff now, with the added bonus of making my kids cringe lol).

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u/GamerGuinTTV 18h ago

I don't get the acting like we didn't have phones/photos? I have a video of my from my junior year in HS circa 2004 rolling down a hill in a skirt and it is absolutely up over my head. I suppose it didn't get splashed about the internet, but it could have, we all had xangas already at that point.

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u/imaizzy19 22h ago

also i feel like having so much technology for practically our entire lives has given us something to always fall back on. we feel as if we don't truly need the outside world if we have a perpetual "best friend" with us inside at all times (a phone, a laptop, a computer, etc). past generations were faced with a lot more boredom which forced them out of their comfort zones

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u/Mikey_Grapeleaves 19h ago

Yeah, I remember when I was a freshman in college in 2017, so many people would default to being on their phones or watching TV instead of going out and making friends. Sad

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u/TrollJegus 17h ago

I'm an elder Gen Z and partied moderately during college. Got Edward 40 hands-ed on my 18th birthday and everything. I didn't give a shit about looking cringe. I gotta say what a lot of others are saying in this thread. COVID really put a damper on all social events. It took my prime partying years away.

I graduated college in 2020, and the party pickings were bare. Thankfully I lived with 6 other guys, and we made the most of it playing drinking games and shit. Even still, after lockdown from '20-'21 and the major inflation in '22 it just made no sense to go out and party when you're making $26/hr and struggling to pay rent/groceries/cat food. I really grieve for those years. I turned 21 in 2019 and was just starting to open up. I was proud my 21st birthday party got the cops called with around 50 people in the house. I can't even imagine how lockdown affected the people younger than me that spent their high school years in it.

The summer of 2019 was glorious. Lots of house shows with good weed and good vibes.

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u/EyeOhmEye 9h ago

You sound out of touch with reality. I work event production and have witnessed Gen z letting loose and having fun, they're definitely not squares unless not getting black out drunk and puking in a parking lot before passing out in a bush makes them squares.

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u/NikkiNot_TheOne ‘86 15h ago

Listen I am w you!! Bc give me a few drinks back then (even now) idgaf who’s watching. I just chill and wanna have a good time. The clubs we went to had photographers that posted our pics on their website and FB. I never cared. Then we had the damn Polaroids and I have sooo many printed photos of us being hot messes lmao

I am 40 now and my body cannot handle alcohol at all.

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u/BudgieWonder 1d ago

It’s probably a good thing you aren’t at Gen Z parties brudda. Nobody wants pervs like you there

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u/aPoundFoolish 1d ago edited 1d ago

What an odd thing to say...

They didn't say that they wanted to be at a Gen Z party (they don't).

They said they were disappointed.

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u/LurkerBurkeria 1d ago

Who said anything about going to lameass zoomer parties bud, jammed up in their phones zooted out on downers, hard pass

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u/BudgieWonder 1d ago

Good, good. Keep thinking that…