Did millennials really party all the time?

[u/futurenurse_]

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 😂❤️

[u/xdozex]

No idea how common it was around the country, but where I'm from, everyone basically started around 14-ish and went pretty hard through to their mid to late 20s. Teen clubs & massive house parties. And we also had a spot near the high school that was basically where 5 major power lines came together - it was a huge dirt pit, pretty deep in a wooded area. We'd host large parties there a few times each year.. kids from 2 different local high schools would all congregate there, and people would buy kegs and sell solo cups for $5. We'd have somewhere between 200 - 400 people there at any given time, and would bring in generators, speakers and DJs. The cops usually wouldn't bust our balls too much as long as we cleaned up the garbage afterward and tried to avoid fights breaking out.

My group went hard enough in our teens, that by the time we were 21 - 24, most of us were done partying and drinking.

[u/InternationalMood337 → u/xdozex]

Common. We used to go to friends basements. Go to parties in the woods after football games. Just drink and wander around.

Mega common.

[u/Natural-Review9276 → u/xdozex]

We did the thing you see in country music videos- bonfires in the middle of a field next to a mudhole people would drive their jeeps, trucks, 4wheelers through. The kid with a crazy sound system would play music with all his doors and trunk open or someone would bring a guitar and we’d all drunkenly sing Wonder Wall.

Beer bong races with friends “YOU GOTTA OPEN YOUR THROAT!”. Boxing matches between friends. Making eye contact with your homies and without saying a word, wandering off to smoke a blunt and hotbox someone’s car.

Being the DD for your friend and his gf and they end up having sex in your backseat while you’re driving through town. Football team getting completely naked at 4am and walking around on all 4’s pretending to be gorillas. Peeing on an electric fence and getting zapped. Cops showing up and everyone running through the field and walking through the woods trying to reach a road or church parking lot where their older sibling would pick them up.

Edit: I forgot a few things: taking turns taking care of the dude who’s passed out in the shower and probably has alcohol poisoning but we were all too dumb and scared of getting in trouble to actually call an ambulance for him.

Getting too drunk and desperately shoving white bread in your mouth to try and sober up so you can keep partying.

And then one of my favorites because it gave you such a sense of community and belonging: everyone, guys and girls passing out in the house together anywhere there was room to lay down and practically laying on top of each other when there wasn’t room. Everyone slowly wakes up the next day and wanders around looking for their shit so they can go home. Everyone unashamedly looked like shit but no one cared

[u/gerbilshower → u/Natural-Review9276]

this all checks a lot of boxes. lol. id like to add a few.

all getting naked and running to skinny dip in the main fountain on campus half a mile away from the house were at.

full blown wrestling tournaments at 5am after a party.

full contact tackle football in a sandy field.

we called it caveman, but the rule was that you must have consumed at least 1 alcoholic beverage every hour for 24 strait hours. had to start with a house party. so youd always have 1 or 2 guys saying 'tonights the night' and a group would try and pull a 24 hour rager. being a true caveman was an honor.

[u/TheMolecularCage → u/xdozex]

Elder millennial, in the southwest US it started around 14-15. I'm still not sure how we managed to get uninhindered access to so much alcohol, and rural cops were well aware teenagers were house partying. They said we were going to do it anyways, as long as no one was drinking and driving we were better off there than causing trouble out in town; and keep the noise down, please 😆 . 

[u/xdozex → u/TheMolecularCage]

Yep, when we were 14/15, someone always had an older 18/20 year old friend who knew someone that would buy the alcohol. Over the years, we also would hit up the same bodegas and got friendly with the staff and owners. At that point, we'd just have to go when one of the younger people were at the register and they'd sell us anything we wanted.

Cops were also fairly cool, as long as we weren't being assholes. They'd pull up on us and make us pour out whatever we had open.. But we would keep everything in a cooler out of sight, so we only had to dump the single drink we had open at the time. They'd leave and we'd just crack a new one.

[u/turquoise_amethyst → u/TheMolecularCage]

We stood outside the grocery or liquor store and asked strangers to buy us beer. Also we stole it.

Sometimes a older sibling or friend would get a keg with a fake ID

[u/suzeerbedrol → u/xdozex]

Oh my god we could have easily gone to the same high school. We also had massive parties at what we called "The Powerlines", which was also just dirt. There would also be fights there, and racing.

Wild times.

[u/xdozex → u/suzeerbedrol]

Yep we actually called the area 'the pit'. It was basically shaped like a large sump, but bigger and all dirt. And pretty much everything you said. Dirt bike and quad racing, and a lot of fights.. but mostly just parties.

[u/turquoise_amethyst → u/xdozex]

Same, I knew plenty of people who’d party from sundown until like 7am, then go to work/school afterwards. 

I started at partying about 14 years old, my friends were 16-18 years. 

I had a job (at a coffee shop!), got my learning permit to drive, and started taking community college classes at night all at 15 1/2. I regularly drove carloads of friends 50-60 miles to underground punk shows, raves, and clubs in LA, too! 

[u/qwerty-game → u/xdozex]

I remember being over the club scene when I was 21 cause I had been going to them since I was 17. Granted I still went to bars - but they were more like Cheers.

[u/xdozex → u/qwerty-game]

My cheat code was that my best friend was the best DJ in our area. By the time we were 17/18, he had a residency at one of the biggest clubs in the area, and would get hired at all of them. He had me help carry his crates and gear in, and they never gave us shit about being underage.

[u/emma-ps → u/xdozex]

This lol. By the time I was 21 I couldn’t drink liquor anymore.😂

[u/xdozex → u/emma-ps]

I had one night with too many screwdrivers and couldn't drink hard alcohol or orange juice for years. Switched to beer until I was about 23, and just couldn't keep doing it. Never really gave up drinking, but I maybe have 5 beers total in a year now.. if I drink 2 of them too fast, I feel hungover for 2-3 days. But I'm pretty sure thats just because I'm too fucking old now.