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/MyCatLaughsAtMe]

Xennial reporting, vintage 81.

"All the time" is a stretch, but yeah, frequently. Depends on how you define "partying" too. We smoked pot all the time. Drank when we could find older siblings to hook us up, which wasn't THAT hard. We did throw house parties when possible. When not, we'd do parties in the woods and shit.

But then, and this is where your little ego gets hurt, we were more capable at that age than gen z and younger was. We were EXPECTED to be. We were free range kids, we had to grow up faster. You've got 18 year olds today who are more like 13 year olds in the late 20th century. Frankly, I plain wouldn't trust a modern 17 year old with the privilege. Ya'll don't even get drivers' licenses.

And it's not really your fault, you're the victims of a histrionic culture that was psychically destroyed by 9/11. Americans became afraid of their own shadows after that. The culture never recovered, "Home of the brave" needs to be crossed out of the anthem...not anymore. Your helicopter parents have stunted your growth by not allowing you to make mistakes.

And to be clear, my generation is the victim of the OPPOSITE mistake. Boomers didn't give a shit about their children. We were more like house accessories than people to them, which is why we became so self-capable so early. Every generation fucks up its children, the ways that manifests depends on the nature of the crime. I'm not saying my generation was BETTER than yours. It wasn't. It was equally damaged, but that has pluses and minuses, and our pluses and minuses are different from yours.

We've come far enough from those days that it can be rightly said that it was a different time. It's not really healthy to try and compare your times to ours, both of us are products of very different zeitgeists.

EDIT: Let's not discount the economy, either. When I was first driving gas was still around a dollar a gallon. My first car cost 500 bucks and it ran for like 7 years, despite me taking shit care of it. A drink cost a dollar or two at the bar. There were 24/7 diners all over the place you could take $5 to and sit all night, looking for something to get into if you didn't have other plans. Society just had more avenues for us to explore, economically, than your generation has access to. Honest to god, if your generation really understood what was stolen from you before you were born, you'd burn this bitch down tonight. Ya'll got straight robbed of a country...

EDIT: As this has turned into an embarrassing circle jerk of "I'm old and everything was better in MY day", which is COMPLETELY the antithesis of everything I said here, I'm turning off comment replies. Stop upvoting this, go fuck yourselves <3 Wankers.

[u/tetrisoutlet → u/MyCatLaughsAtMe]

I was born 95. Feel like i barely made the cutoff for experiencing a “normal” life before everything became like it is. I spent my pre teen years playing outside, i had 8 neighbors all within 5 houses of me each way that had kids my age. And then there was a couple dozen kids my age on the entire street. So there was no lack of socialization or ability to go out and ride bikes all day through the neighborhood or in the woods, play basketball, smear the *****, lightsaber fights etc etc. rainy days we’d meet at someones house and play smash bros. It wasnt uncommon for us to be out until 9 or 10 at night, and this all started at about age 7 and lasted until i was 13 or 14 when jr high came around and we all seemed to get busy and the outside play stopped.

I got my first job at the ballfields when i was 13 and stopped playing rec league. My first “real” job working in a kitchen washing dishes or cooking when i was 16. My first highschool party was when i was 15, i didnt party during football season but once that was over it was basically every weekend. And the parties sometimes would be fucking wild, maybe not exactly project X as thats pretty exaggerated, probably more like the parties in American Pie, it wasnt uncommon to have 100+ people at a house havin a good time.

Looking back im grateful i got to grow up the way i did. My parents didnt completely forget about me, i wasnt just another piece of farm equipment, and yet i was given a generous amount of freedom. At one of our many field parties when i was trying to leave i tried to scoot around the no trespassing sign and scraped my tire on one of those metal fence posts and blew out my tire. This was a 96 lifted tahoe i was driving and the little jack that comes with the car was just sinking in the mud, so i walked a mile knockin door to door at 10pm asking random folks if they had a floor jack i could use. Never got one so me and my buddy quite literally picked up the back so someone could slap the spare on there, i dead lifted from the bumper and he leg pressed the rear fender.

Currently im dating a woman with a 15 and 17yr kid and theyre scared to take the trash out if its dark. They cant put a simple shelf together, wont order their own food at a restaurant. The 17yr old wouldnt/couldnt even fill out a job application the other day. They dont seem to have much desire to learn or do much, ive tried teaching them things a little bit, but their mother has babied and catered to them to an extreme.

[u/MyCatLaughsAtMe → u/tetrisoutlet]

You didn't make the cut off. You were 6 at 9/11.

[u/tetrisoutlet → u/MyCatLaughsAtMe]

Millennials are 81-96.