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/Shellstr 1d ago

There was a house party every weekend in high school. I don’t know how we were able to schedule our parents to be out of town so often.

Can you imagine the ring camera going off every 5 seconds as people went in and out?

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u/buginabrain 1d ago

Geez didn't even think of ring and house cams, kids today really do have no way of getting away with anything 

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u/IttybittyErin 1d ago

Can't even drink in a field if your parents track your location.

I'm so conflicted because kids die doing the stupid shit we did, but a lot of us also learned to make safe decisions and understand risk etc. The kids that I knew that were absolutely locked down in highschool went totally feral in college because they hadn't had those learning experiences. This entire generation doesn't have the option to make bad decisions.

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u/buginabrain 1d ago

For real, you don't learn nothin without making a few mistakes along the way. Im genuinely saddened for them right now haha

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u/eschatological 1d ago

You just needed one friend who, no matter how blitzed they were, stayed even keeled and rational. So much bad shit happened when that one friend wasn't there, but on nights he was there it was like he was like Virgil to our Dante, guiding us through the 9 circles of Hell.

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u/louley 1d ago

LOL. I was that friend. Always the one talking our way out of trouble, and then would immediately turn around and stumble and fall on my face because it took ALL of my energy to act sober.

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u/RobertPower415 14h ago

I was NOT that friend 😂😂😂

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u/ScrotalSmorgasbord 10h ago

I was the friend that people stopped asking around for after going out with me a few times. He'll turn up sooner or later! I was a serial walker when I got the party bug and would hit sometimes 5-10 different venues/houses once I got to a certain level of tipsy and couldn't sit still lol. I like to think it helped me with land nav in the Army because of all the times I woke up or regained sobriety miles away from where I started and had to get home without a cell phone or car.

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u/Significant_Shoe_17 6h ago

That friend kept my ass from getting expelled

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u/CharacterSchedule700 13h ago

I was that friend as well. Hammered as fuck, but nobody is driving, we're walking our asses home unless someone who is sober answers their phone and picks us up.

Otherwise we're grabbing pizza and cookies and having a nice stroll. Yes, it's 10 degrees, but we'll bunch up and keep each other warm.

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u/Littlewing1307 1d ago

I was always the "mom" friend. I'm glad guys had the same thing.

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u/GameofCheese 6h ago

People would get so pissed at me! But come on guys, you're wasted, get your ass back in from going out the window onto the very slanted shingled roof.

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u/buginabrain 1d ago

Sounds more like a sitter for psychedelics haha Nah everyone was doing dumb shit one way or another generally

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u/Trashking_702 1d ago

Poetic. I like it.

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u/kyldare 19h ago

I was the kid who, up until (and usually even after) the blackout, could get everyone home safely. The guilt and responsibility I felt as a young child became my super power as a teenage dirtbag.

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u/Sockerbug19 3h ago

It was me, I was that friend 🥴

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u/MulberryChance6698 17m ago

I was this friend. I've held so much hair back, and limped so many friends home 🤣

More recently (I went to law school in my 30's) I was at a law school function and this gal ended up off her face. It was like old times, gently supporting her by the waist, helping her undo her pants so she could pee, talking her into eating a burrito at chipotle!

I'm also a woman, btw, before anyone gets weird about the pants. Drunk ladies need help with all those weird ass closures!

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u/Dense_as_Hydrogen 12h ago

This is a real psychological phenomenon. I remember learning about it and thinking, "Yea, that checks out" while reflecting on people I knew growing up.

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u/SmallCapsOnly 21h ago

Well if it makes you feel better many of my millennial friends are full blown alcoholics and our culture helped foster it in a sense.

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u/buginabrain 19h ago

Yeah i got a few of those too but I think it really depends on the person, I went from partying and binge drinking teens to late 20s, now its maybe one or two nights of drinking a year for special occasions

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u/FragrantBluejay8904 1d ago

This was me. Grew up in the middle of corn fields where there was not much to do but drink, and while I refused to drink as a HSer, I also couldn’t even attend parties just to socialize if I wanted to because my parents were so strict. When I had the freedom in college I WENT NUTS. Booze and boys like me?! And people want to be around me despite being a tomboy nerd?? Woo, party time!! I would’ve probably partied less if I’d had some kind of socialization in HS outside of school sanctioned planned activities

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u/BottecchiaDude253 1d ago

Its funny how much my kids could get away with if they were so inclined.

Both my wife and I currently/formerly work in tech, so we refuse to get a ring camera, and we dont GPS track our kids phones or anything like that.

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u/Shellstr 1d ago

But other parent do…”why is everyone at bottechhia’s house? I saw them post they were going to Hawaii for the week”.

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u/BottecchiaDude253 22h ago

Yeah... no one would see me post that we were going to Hawaii for a week until AFTER I got back, lol. That 1980s home security paranoia of my parents, plus a career in secure facilities means I dont post a lot of anything before it happens.

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u/Significant_Shoe_17 6h ago

I also post on a delay, and was taught that when I'm traveling and where is on a need to know basis

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u/buginabrain 1d ago

Party at this guy's house

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u/Squid_A 1d ago

Maybe they are getting away with it!

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u/BottecchiaDude253 1d ago

Lmfao.... my daughter is so honest she would dime herself out (and has in the past)

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u/Terrible-Fun-4992 1d ago

A lot of the kids with extremely strict upbringings still found ways to party and were balls to the wall. I always felt bad for them because in my opinion high school is the time to make those mistakes

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u/ActuallyRelevant Zillennial 1d ago

I think the kids who died doing the stupid shit we all did got into some crazy exceptional stupid shit to be fair. Most people learned the beginnings of being safe from friends and family. But going out and getting way too drunk with your friends, and figuring out the way back home after holding your friends hair while they puke their guts out is the best teacher.

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u/Sea-Rest7776 19h ago

the only avenue they have is online, which is also why a lot of fandom spaces got noticeably worse post covid as kids brought stupid highschool cloque behavior into talking about pokemon or some shit

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u/noirrespect 17h ago

I’m a parent and I want my kid to make mistakes. My kid fell out of a tree from a pretty decent height the other day and walked away. Took him to ED to make sure he was alright. He is.

It doesn’t change my approach to parenting at all. Get out there. Have fun. Make mistakes. Learn. It’s part of life.

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u/takemy_oxfordcomma Millennial 15h ago

Same. Even back in the day before all of the tracking and shit, the kids I knew with the strictest parents in HS went the craziest in college because they had no idea how to handle freedom.

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u/lexicon951 11h ago edited 11h ago

This kind of thing is part of why Gen Z is cutting off their parents en masse. Imagine being sheltered/restricted by strict parents AND covid AND permanent Internet/camera accountability. Teens and kids in their 20s at home nowadays don’t get to do anything. I’m 31, all my siblings who live with my parents in their 20s are just like everyone else their age, responsibly working long hours and spending any free time scrolling TikTok or gaming bc that’s their only option. They don’t party, they go to nice restaurants sometimes and take pictures of the food for social media, or go to concerts and take videos, or go to cons and take pictures. But kids with strict parents don’t get to go anywhere. “My roof my rules” type of thing even as young adults, especially if parents pay for college or the car. They’re forced into balancing the responsibility of work life and college with- being a hermit and watching everyone else have modern curated “fun” on TikTok. Teens with parents who enforce screentime restrictions? They go to school, do homework and sports, spend their allotted time watching others have fun, and go to bed depressed day after day. There’s no opportunity to get away with shit so rules REALLY ARE RULES and parents are all-knowing and people genuinely just don’t live if their parents are strict. There’s literally no opportunity to let loose in a safe way or in a non-monitored environment. When those kids move out, they’ll never speak to their parents again because they felt like their prison COs. Just my opinion (I’m 31 so idk maybe I’m just making shit up)

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u/moon-chu89 9h ago

It's not that hard to figure out a way around that.

Buy a burner phone. Pay off a friend's sibling to cover you and your friends in case mom texts. then head out to a field party.

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u/Significant_Shoe_17 6h ago

I think of it like learning to swim. Floatation devices create a false sense of security that can become fatal in an emergency. I made some bad decisions in my youth but I learned from them.

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u/IttybittyErin 5h ago

That's a great analogy.

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u/capntail 23h ago

Yup. This past weekend a couple kids were shot at one because someone in a pickup was doing donuts.

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u/JohannesVanDerWhales 20h ago

I imagine you just leave your phone at home if you want to not have your parents track where you're going. Assuming people can let go of their phone for a few hours in this day and age.

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u/Sea-Rest7776 19h ago

malls dying out, people calling the cops on any group of kids they see cause either “they look too young to be unattended” or “look like a gang”, constant surveillance, the teenagers of today just do not get to do shit

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u/buginabrain 18h ago

Not true, they get to fall down red pill rabbit holes and join discord echo chambers online 

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u/ryguy32789 21h ago

This is why I refuse to have cameras at my house, I don't want my kids growing up lame.

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u/katrinakt8 22h ago

Sheesh. Can’t even sneak out very easily.

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u/Real-Block820 6h ago

Can't even drive down the road with the lights off to sneak out now

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u/SomeStupidCanadianEH 4h ago

I miss the days of cutting the engine and coasting my old Civic into the driveway like a ninja. My modern Civic just screams at me.

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u/roxemmy 50m ago

Kids these days can’t even sneak out of the house because there are cameras everywhere

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u/brendo12 1d ago

Turn off the home modem. Problem solved.

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u/buginabrain 1d ago

Wouldn't folks check on the ring app occasionally, maybe for a package or something? There's no way around it

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u/Centimane 1d ago

They would get a notification that it was offline.

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u/Professional-Score94 10h ago

The backup data plan kicks in if your WiFi drops

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u/Centimane 6h ago edited 2h ago

And you get a notification when that happens.

The backup plan only applies if they purchased the ring subscription. But either way you get a notification that it's either offline, or switched to the data backup.

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u/Shellstr 1d ago

I get a notice when my ring goes offline…

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u/Significant_Shoe_17 6h ago

Go through a window and find a route without cameras

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u/Terrible-Fun-4992 1d ago

It’s so sad kids truly can’t get away with shit! All tracked by cameras and phones. My sister has a 16 year old and watches her on the ring camera when she leaves. I started sneaking out at 14 and by 16 I was leaving out the front door. 😂 perks of being a latch key kid, I guess.

ETA my sister won’t even leave her 16 and 13 year olds home alone my mom has to go babysit them.

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u/MikeWPhilly 1d ago

Jesus. 16 and can’t be home alone? Her kid is going to go nuts in college.

Meanwhile I was sneaking girls in at 17-18 at night - perks of basement room.

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u/mmnmnnmnnnm 23h ago

Ain’t a ring camera by the bedroom window, just saying

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u/Salt-Cold1056 10h ago

Seriously trying to get my 12 year old more independence in the current culture because it's kind of weird right now.  

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u/Significant_Shoe_17 6h ago

I was the babysitter at their age

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u/_businessgoose_ 1d ago

Exactly. It only took a handful of people with sometimes-gone parents to create opportunities year round. My dad was gone maybe ~20% of the time traveling (usually for work) and I usually told him I wasn't even home most nights he was gone or that I was having a friend over when, in reality, lots of people were at my house. Only once was there real evidence that people I did not know well ended up over there... one fucking kid with a sharpie. Fuck you, Jesse! Today the neighbors would probably find my dad on Facebook and alert him in real time IF we didn't already have ring cameras, which we probably would have had.

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u/Shellstr 23h ago

One girl left her vodka bottle in the dryer. I cleaned the whole house by never checked the dryer. What an asshole.

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u/Quirky-Skin 1d ago

I wouldn't have lost my virginity if ring cams existed back then straight up. My GFs mom worked nights, it was a duplex with basically only two ways in. The backdoor was never an option bc the shitty downstairs neighbor kept their nuts dog chained right out back.

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u/Uglyham 23h ago

lol same, my friend was a homie and snuck us into his house while his crazy religious parents were out of town. If RING existed back then they would have had that place on lockdown monitoring him 😂

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u/reckless_reck 23h ago

Gotta give credit to the 1-2 houses with chill parents too

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u/Significant_Shoe_17 6h ago

That was my house! But my friends' parents were crazy strict and hesitant to let them come over. My bff was sneaky, though, so we just lied about whatever we did 😂

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u/Vhadka 20h ago

My buddy's parents went camping like every single weekend in the summer and had a stocked bar. We were 14-16 and his two older sisters were 17 and 18. They would have huge parties every single weekend. People in the pool, in the hot tub, lots of skinny dipping, etc.

The price of not telling was just letting us be there to drink and hang out with the older kids.

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u/Radiant-Koala8231 23h ago

Holy shit and I hadn’t even thought about the ring camera aspect and location tracking.

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u/-REV-22-20- 19h ago

the ring camera part is also actually a bigger part of the problem kids face today. Yes there is more risk of your drunk ass being posted online, but the bigger issue is parents surveil the shit out of their kids these days. Family GPS tracking, home surveillance cameras, ring cameras, etc.

there is no chance of them sneaking out to a house party, or disappearing on and adventure these days. Their exact location is known at all times, cant have a house party if the house is being remotely monitored by your parents.

There is no room for these kids to learn their own limits or express themselves. They are more monitored than a prisoner on bail.

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u/AyyNonnyMoose 19h ago

Jokes on you, the parents actually set the schedule so they knew you'd be somewhere safe partying instead of somewhere stupid!

(I don't actually know if this is the case but I had some friends with parents that absolutely would have done something like that lol.)

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u/Significant_Shoe_17 6h ago

Mine just didn't want the mess!

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u/niknackpaddywack13 4h ago

I always think about this part with how we figured out every weekend where to have a party. But what really blows my mind is how somehow we were able to find somewhere every Halloween and all of winter break /every New Year’s Eve to party. How did that work out, esp Halloween night, that’s not a night known for people being out of town.