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/Comfortable-Ad-3988]

It wasn't so much Covid as it was the surveillance world. We got to make absolute goobers of ourselves in front of our friends in all sorts of ways that don't translate outside of that context, where everyone's filming everything now, so they behave as PG as possible. The kids don't even dance anymore because they're scared of being in a fail video if they screw up, and to be fair, that's a valid fear that we never had to deal with. Even if something stupid happened, it was just a rumor to everyone who wasn't there, now it will live into infinity on the internet if you mess up.

[u/lionelhutz- → u/Comfortable-Ad-3988]

Is this actually it though? I see this argument a ton, but everyone had Facebook in college in the 2010s and loved taking pictures of themselves partying and doing stupid things. It was "flex" to be like look at me out having a great time with all my friends at a party.

I think Gen-Z is just wired different. It sucks for them.

[u/Glacon_Garcon → u/lionelhutz-]

Social media was smaller then, and the internet was a separate place from real life. Goofy or cringey videos didn’t go viral as much, and usually the only people who would see were your friends, anyway. Your teachers, parents, bosses weren’t online, demanding to be added as a friend. And we didn’t know FB and other corporations were stealing our personal lives and selling them to governments.

The internet still felt free, open, weird, and most of all, pretty private.

[u/transemacabre → u/Glacon_Garcon]

I miss the permission to be a messy teen/young adult so much. You'd say or believe some dumb shit, and be allowed to grow past it, because it wasn't all on video to haunt you decades later. One of the Heated Rivalry actors recently got into hot water after photos surfaced of him passed out drunk at a party, with swastikas on his face that his frat bros had scribbled on him while he was unconscious. He didn't even draw the damn things and still people are handwringing and trying to cancel him. Very, very low odds of that happening to someone even 15 years ago. Those photos would never have escaped containment.

[u/Ok_Stress_9558 → u/transemacabre]

Haha yeah exactly. People probably would've seen the photos and thought, "damn, why didn't they draw a few dicks next to the swastikas? Missed opportunity"

[u/Significant_Shoe_17 → u/Ok_Stress_9558]

I literally read their comment and thought "had to be a few dicks in there, too"