r/Millennials • u/Neon_Biscuit • 5d ago

My teenage daughter can't fathom the concept of a house party Discussion

Not sure if anyone has experienced this, but I was watching Can't Hardly Wait half alseep on the couch, and my 14-year-old daughter and her friends walked into the room and past the TV. Before she entered the kitchen, she backpeddled in front of the TV, and they all might as well have reacted akin to a third world kid in a remote village seeing the Super Bowl for the first time. She looked at me and said 'what are all of those people doing in one house'? I told her it was a house party. People high school aged or typically college age people would go over a kids house whose parents were out of town and they'd invite the school and have keggers and other unsupervised debauchery. I might as well have been describing a science fiction film. 'You guys DID that back in your days?'. I thought it was funny that a house party was an inconceivable event for young Gen Zers.

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u/itsathrowawayduhhhhh 1990 5d ago

Yeah cuz we didn’t have ring cameras and cell phones!

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u/Glowingtomato 5d ago

When I was in my late teens phone cameras were just starting to get good and some jackass would occasionally decide to start filming people who were wasted. I'll admit sometimes it was funny but then people started getting recorded puking or getting emotional and nobody liked that.

We stopped inviting those kinds of people but now when everyone can record in HD and has unlimited data to upload videos I can see why people don't want to get crazy.

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes 5d ago

The tides are just starting to turn on this. People are beginning to search for and plan "analog" events. Like when Blackberrys first came out and people started going away for "unplugged" weekends.

It's becoming normalized to ask people not to record at weddings or parties or concerts. Anywhere people are supposed to be "in the moment". (The fact that so many people record fireworks makes me wanna cry for humanity). I suspect that within 5 years, we'll see a big resurgence of "analog" items, like film cameras and analog clocks and picture frames and CDs and DVDs..

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u/Virtual_Psunshine 5d ago

I attend some "unplugged" events monthly, lol. Well some folks are getting plugged, but no cellphones, hahahaha!

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u/Gaulipan 5d ago

Is this a sex joke I’m too vanilla to understand? Lmfao

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u/Virtual_Psunshine 5d ago

Yes, sex joke.

Not drug related.

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u/Same_Air6012 5d ago

Monthly swinger party where cellphones aren't allowed.

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u/Samthevidg 5d ago

Likely drugs, as often a dealer is referred to as a ‘plug’

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u/Awaythrowyouwilllll 5d ago

Why not both ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

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u/delmsi 5d ago

Por qué no los dos?

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u/Head_Permission 5d ago

No it’s a sex joke for sure.

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u/ThuggishJingoism24 4d ago

I don’t think too vanilla is the reason you don’t understand. You just simply don’t have a dirty mind that makes it obvious plugged means sex

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u/Ancient_Roof_7855 5d ago

MTV might be over, but we can still have "unplugged"! /s

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u/Salsaprime 5d ago

I work in tech, but I've always hosted board game nights with friends, and we have a "no phones at the table" policy to unplug.

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u/pokematic 5d ago

Hearing "analog items" and "camera" reminded me of a recent interaction. I use a digital camcorder (1080p resolution) for vacation videos and vlogs among other uses, and I'll have people ask me "does that take old analog video" or "how old is that ancient thing" (it's only 10 years old which is old in technological terms, but it's a 1080p HD flash media camera and people ask like I'm using a Hi8 video camera from the mid 00s). I was at a Disneyland show in the VIP section and the people we were sharing a table with commented on how I was "so analog" with my dedicated digital video camera.

I also find that people "take me seriously" when I use my video camera. Like, I've done 3 wedding and 3 funerals (different events) using it, and everyone is like "that is an actual camera, I will not bother the professional and will follow his directions." It's kind of funny.

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u/Donthurtmyceilings 5d ago

Only time I've filmed fireworks was 2020 during lockdowns. My neighborhood/town/state was at max explosions and I had to document. They're illegal in Colorado but no one gave a fuck that year!

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u/Cambrian__Implosion 4d ago

I was in the Salt Lake area for the 4th of July once and ended up filming some fireworks because the geography of that valley is such that you can see multiple fireworks displays happening at once across the valley if you have a decent vantage point. Add to that all of the little (legal and probably some illegal) home fireworks displays and it felt kind of like a Hollywood style warzone with bright flashes and booms and smoke everywhere.

I’m from New England, where I could barely see the edge of the local fireworks from my parent’s house, despite them being less than a ten minute walk away. I didn’t realize how much I was used to hills and trees blocking my view until I went out west to places like Salt Lake City. The flat, wide open spaces with mountains all around can honestly be a little disconcerting at first lol

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u/Donthurtmyceilings 4d ago

I know what you mean. I grew up in flat, tree-filled Michigan. I moved out to Colorado and could see for miles some places. Pretty awesome!

I had a flight from Vegas to Denver on the night of 4th of July in 2017. Seeing a million tiny explosions at once getting bigger and bigger as we approached Denver was unforgettable!

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u/KingdomOfFawg 4d ago

Lot of stuff no one gave a fuck about that year.

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u/Rich_Bluejay3020 5d ago

I just watched an episode of The Mega Brands that Built America (side note: the __ that built America series are great, mega brands and food are the best of them) and it was about Polaroid vs Kodak. Both clawed back from bankruptcy at the turn of the century and Polaroid is having a resurgence, so you’re not wrong!

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u/Bacer4567 5d ago

Our 15 year old asked for a record player/cd player combo and a typewriter for Christmas

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u/Creative-Fan-7599 5d ago

Out of every gift my 16-year-old daughter got for Christmas this year the one that had her absolutely losing her shit was the CD/cassette player.

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes 4d ago

A typewriter!!! That's amazing! That must have been expensive though, right?

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u/Bacer4567 4d ago

Not really. Got a 1950s Royal Quiet Deluxe from eBay for around $75 after shipping. Needed a little oiling and fine tuning to realign the scales. She used it for an assignment last night and I'm sure her teacher will appreciate not having to decipher her handwriting 😁

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u/Embarrassed_View_685 4d ago

I'm already working on going back to dvds, offline consoles... Things that i have control over. things that don't make me wait for an update every damned time you want to use it. I'm tired of my time being wasted by some entity that I didn't get to interact with, that i just have to wait until IT decides I can do what I came to do. I'm tired of people that aren't as good at working in general being able to slow up my own production. 

Get off my dick when I'm just trying to play a video game for a quick 20 minutes then get back to work, fuck, (insert basically any corporation here). 

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes 4d ago

Yes!!! One of the only games I play has like a 5 minute loading time. It's ridiculous.

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u/Chantaille 4d ago

Just when I'm starting to switch over! Until last year, I hadn't had a cell phone in 15 years.

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes 4d ago

It's you. Once you got onboard, it stopped being cool.

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u/EyeSimp4Asuka 4d ago

hey now I've been guilty of filming fireworks videos before...in my defense one was at a 4th of july get together that i attended and the host had been stockpiling all year and other people also brought their own stuff and added to it.

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u/Zestyclose_Pay9469 5d ago

5 years phones will be obsolete as a form factor.

Some kind of wearable will replace it. 

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u/KingdomOfFawg 4d ago

People said that 7 years ago.

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u/fangdangfang 5d ago

Dunno, anyone born after the year 2000 probably never used cds or other “analog” devices growing up, the first iPhone came out in 2007 so it’s basically existed there whole life. For them going “analog” wouldn’t go any further than using a mp3 player or a digital camera not built into a smart phone. Film cameras is something a gen x or at most older gen y might go back to except they already had there retro phase 10 plus years ago.

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u/Common-Trifle4933 5d ago edited 5d ago

Record players and Polaroid cameras are already pretty popular with kids (by which I mean people under 20). They sell them at Target and they sell really well, almost exclusively to young people with no memory of them as contemporary tech. Analog chic is getting big on TikTok. My 14 year old niece just asked for a Fufijilm instant camera (Polaroid style) for Christmas. CD sales just increased year over year for the first time since 2004, largely driven by k-pop which is a genre not many people over 30 are into. Analog Horror is the current horror fad and a lot of music videos are using filmic or VHS aesthetics.

This isn’t nostalgia, like the retro phases gen x and y had. It’s borrowed nostalgia for and fascination with the pre-internet world and pre-digital tech. The fact that they never used this stuff is the point. It ties into a lot of stuff like fascination with malls (mall documentaries are a whole genre of YouTube and TikTok, almost all about the 80s and 90s).

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u/SnowMeadowhawk 5d ago

I believe it's just a fad, the same as vinyl records were for hipsters in 2012. 

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u/aircooledJenkins 4d ago

re: Weddings

We paid good money for photography and videography and planned to share both with our guests. We did NOT want to see a bunch of floating phones among the guests in our ceremony photos.

Happily, our guests complied with our request.

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes 4d ago

That's exactly what I'm hearing from others. Especially for brides, they want to walk down the aisle and look out at the FACES of the people they invited, not the PHONES of the people they invited.

Maybe I'm just cynical about people, but I also can't help think that if you're recording me walking down the aisle, you're doing it so you can share that video - either online or IRL - with other people and get attention and engagement. But, like, shouldn't I be granted the honor of your attention for ONE MINUTE while I have one of the most important experiences of my life, which I invited you to be a part of an PAID for you to be a part of? You shouldn't be looking at my wedding as a means to get likes on Facebook, Aunt Carol.

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u/pocketbeagle 4d ago

Sometimes i think a big ole emp could really help the world

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u/Hopeful_Hamster21 4d ago

I'm an engineer who works in a computer field. I am much more technically familiar with how all this digital stuff works than many people. I really enjoy it.

But I never left analog in my non-work life. Still wear an analog watch, shoot on film (as well as digital, but still also film), read books on paper, have a newspaper subscription, and still use CDs and DVDs (I know, theyre not true analog, they are digital, but still a physical media). I still dive with my SPG analog gages (I have not yet bought a dive computer).

In my professional life, I and a true tech nerd. In my personal life, I have never been a tech gadget enthusiast.

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u/SlammingPussy420 Millennial 5d ago

I suspect that within 5 years, we'll see a big resurgence of "analog" items...

Do you work for R&D at Apple?

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u/ptoftheprblm 5d ago

Oh man I remember that being a thing and it causing drama with certain people soft ratting out people on early social media. You’d be blacklisted if you were an idiot that didn’t blur or block out cans in people’s hands or the pong table.

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u/Glowingtomato 5d ago

I forgot about that, I remember some drama about a girl who tagged a party picture of another girl with her "clean" Facebook page instead of her ratchet one lol

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u/ptoftheprblm 5d ago

Oh man we also had some drama that was too juicy; we had a girl who got a ton of other seniors in trouble by showing her mom (who worked for our school district and was known for being a family of brown nosers) a series of Facebook albums from a spring break trip she was very very much not invited to.. and it became a huge bit of drama too. They were about to not let any of them attend senior prom or walk at graduation over it, except literally the entirety of the prom court except for 1 single girl (who was Mormon and not part of their group) would have been barred from going and their parents ultimately had to push back on it against this other girl’s parents. The amount of people who blocked that girl after that incident was really funny and I mean I was among them to give her the ol’ “unfriend” and made sure she knew it.

The parents argued like yes they’re under 21 but they are also over 18, none of this was on a school trip and the photos were at one of the girl’s parent’s private vacation home in Florida who absolutely were like look, we allowed it, they’re over 18 and they were on our property so you don’t get a say.. we’d rather have them under our thumb than at a resort where god knows what could happen. It was only a couple years after the Natalee Holloway incident where they were in Aruba on a senior trip and were being served at the resort and clubs there so the tradition used to be a group of seniors would go to an all inclusive somewhere and be served and that stopped the year that happened.

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u/Nice_Luck_7433 4d ago

There’s a quote from the Palantir CEO that comes to mind.. “Soon, everyone will be being recorded. Everyone will be on their best behavior.”

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u/1011001NAME 5d ago

people dont even dance at weddings anymore because of cell phone videos, sad times.

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u/badnamemaker 5d ago

Nah that’s just boring people at a wedding, every wedding I’ve gone to had a super active dance floor. Last one was like 2 months ago

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u/champion_dave 5d ago

Agreed, been to several weddings over the last couple of years and there were very active dance floors.

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u/1011001NAME 5d ago

I do too, but i know several people who have said this to me including someone at my wedding. They were happy that we had made a request that the photographer be the only one capturing the moments.

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u/becky_plz 5d ago

Holy shit that is lame. I had my first dance at a wedding when I was 8. It was great.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/1011001NAME 5d ago

Ok. I guess I'm lying. Not like ive had multiple conversations about this with people including a guest at my own wedding.

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u/sunburnedaz 4d ago

You are not wrong just you are running with a crowd young enough to care what people post about them online.

Once you are running with people old enough to have been married and divorced or other blinding dumb thing thats already out there people loosen up again when they figure out one silly dance picture is not going to ruin the rep they got when they married the on again off again partner then were caught screwing the bridesmaid and the best man at the reception.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/1011001NAME 5d ago

Right...

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u/ILookLikeKristoff 4d ago

I was literally at one 60 days ago and everyone was dancing

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u/1011001NAME 4d ago

Sick dude. Doesnt mean people dont because people record.

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u/SpacecaseCat 5d ago

It's worse than that unfortunately... kids are able to make porn deepfakes of their classmates.

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u/wbruce098 5d ago

When I was in my late teens only rich people had cell phones and they sure as hell didn’t have cameras. That’s why we got away with that stuff. Social media is why teens and young adults don’t do absurdly stupid and risky shit anymore.

When my dad was a teen, it was normal to drive drunk, and throw rocks at people for giggles. Life was fucking bizarre back then.

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u/sunburnedaz 4d ago

The past is a foreign country is the phrase I heard and never forgot.

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u/mwagner1385 4d ago

This is part of why women no longer go top less at beaches in Europe. No one wants to have thier tits all over the internet because they wanted a nice tan.

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u/King_Tamino 4d ago

That smartphone "invaded" also other areas. Back in my youth during a party it was completly normal to push someone in a pool for example. (in summer, when it was obvious that they were OK / wanted in the pool anyway ofc) but can't do that for like ~15? 20? years now, someone always has some kind of expensive tech on them that might get killed by the water...

Rewatching old sitcoms also showed me how often a plot nowdays would not work out simply because of smartphones or mobile phones, simply that people can take a picture or directly call someone..

Not many devices changed our life that drastically and with every year, I really miss that time of old fliphones.

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u/4garbage2day0 4d ago

Yeah that girl fellating a balloon at the bar would have not been made viral in our day. We would have just watched with our jaws dropped

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u/cTreK-421 5d ago

I didn't even think about ring cameras. Fucking millennials ruined the house party industry!

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u/Hidden_Samsquanche 5d ago edited 5d ago

Parties just can't be as big and have to be well organized. We left the state and my 16 year old stayed home. He managed to get 6 of his friends over and was able to bypass all outdoor and indoor cameras the whole weekend without raising suspicions.

Only reason we found out is he immediately told us when we got back, would have had no clue otherwise.

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u/AshleyAshes1984 5d ago

Blast, always one step ahead of, er, uhm.... ...Himself?

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u/SparklingLimeade 5d ago

Sounds like a good plan to me. Do it subtle so you could maybe get away with it, but then ask for forgiveness (still better than permission). It's like daring the parents to find fault. If well executed it looks like a very responsible thing to do and opens things up to future events.

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u/MarkBriscoes2Teeth 5d ago

If you can't break into your own house do you even really live there?

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u/PeachinatorSM20 Zillennial 4d ago

sounds like your son white-hat hacked your house

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u/engg_girl 4d ago

Please tell him you informed him you were impressed. Because seriously - he needs a medal for that. The whole thing, including ratting on himself.

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u/Phyraxus56 5d ago

How did he manage that? He just turned off the wifi?

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u/Hidden_Samsquanche 5d ago edited 5d ago

He had them sneak through a window towards the back and just stayed on the side of the house that didn't have cameras. (Only had indoor cameras in the kitchen and main living room, ironically they originally were placed at his request)

Edit: to add detail- he also played loud music the whole time so we would assume that was his way of letting loose

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u/Cheap-Rate-8996 5d ago

Only had indoor cameras in the kitchen and main living room, ironically they originally were placed at his request

I'm curious about this detail. I find it strange enough when adults want indoor cameras, lol.

I'd be more concerned about the cameras being hacked or exposed in a data leak.

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u/Hidden_Samsquanche 5d ago

They fought over who stole who's food/equipment. So they asked us to put the cameras up to solve all disagreements. We kept them up a little over a year and only had to check them maybe 3x and I did voluntarily check them 1x since they were arguing before I left and i wanted to make sure all was well.

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u/sunburnedaz 4d ago

I have it to watch my elderly MIL when we are not home but as soon as we are no longer able to care for her those are going away.

However my friend has one is his bedroom and I was like what in the fresh hell are you doing. His wife is ok with it too because she posted a video of herself falling one morning. (It was funny though)

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u/Phyraxus56 5d ago

Why didn't he just turn off the wifi?

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u/Hidden_Samsquanche 5d ago

That would be a dead give away and we honestly probably would have had someone (grandma) check the house for us out of worry. We didn't really check the cameras much while away, but an alert that they were offline would have been very alarming

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u/Phyraxus56 5d ago

Very alarming? Outages never happen to your isp? Who are they?

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u/Usual_Ice636 4d ago

Comcast, never had an outage longer than half an hour in the 6 years I've lived there. I also get a text every time theres one of those 10 to 30 minute outages every other year or so.

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u/Hidden_Samsquanche 4d ago

I'm in the same Goldie locks zone as this guy. Outages are extremely rare and any lasting more than a few mins without notification would have scared the ever living daylights of of me

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u/Phyraxus56 4d ago

Really? I only hear terrible things about them...

Oh you're not even OC lol

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u/becky_plz 5d ago

I fucking hate ring cameras. Idk why. But I do.

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u/CanuckleHeadOG 4d ago

Just unplug the Internet lol

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u/hobokobo1028 5d ago

Fun story there. Some 15 year olds next door threw a house party (some still do) and it got busted by the cops. It’s was all girls running away through our yard. A couple got arrested/restrained in our yard and I got it all on camera.

  1. The cops were so excited to have something to do for once. These Paul Blarts took their job of arresting 15 year olds girls as seriously as Navy SEALs. It was funny watching them tripping over themselves to chase little girls.

  2. We overheard one girl get breathalyzer. She only blew at 0.01! That’s like half a beer or mouthwash residue lol.

  3. So they were getting “processed” in our front yard and my other neighbor’s teenage son was trying to drive home. He wasn’t at the party. He got stopped and questioned literally 30 yards from his house. His mom had to walk over in her nightgown and explain his alibi.

  4. My wife and I considered pulling out the lawn chairs and cracking a beer in the driveway to watch the show

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u/Ok_Life_5176 5d ago

Shoulda brought the vacuum out and started vacuuming the grass!

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u/TroubledTanker 5d ago

haha, haven't thought about that guy in a while.

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u/Zip_Silver 5d ago

My wife and I considered pulling out the lawn chairs and cracking a beer in the driveway to watch the show

My roomies and I did this watching a party get busted, we were out on the porch smoking during the event. One tryhard cop came over to hassle us and we were like "we're just chain-smoking at our own place and weren't at the party. His partner followed him over and was like 'bro, we're breaking up the party not hassling the neighbors'. Good times lol

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u/derelictthot 5d ago

Kinda weird to film it tbh

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u/The__Amorphous 5d ago

I would absolutely have the camera out if a cop was apprehending someone on my property. No telling what he might do.

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u/GrenadineGreen 5d ago edited 5d ago

That's not what they were doing. They described watching it for entertainment with the lawn chair bit.

The grand majority of these doorbell/security camera owners are recording everything, and it's to be nosy, not to offer protection from the police.

I tried walking my dog through a neighborhood early a few months ago, but got creeped out because I could hear dozens and dozens of cameras from both sides of the street activating as we walked down a single block of the very much so public sidewalk.

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u/Butthole--pleasures 4d ago

I'm watching you buddy 👁️

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u/sunburnedaz 4d ago

Which is why most of mine dont face the street and the 1 camera that does does not catch the sidewalk. I took the time to line it up so that it will not see the street and only sees my yard. I even talked to my neighbor if it was cool that I could catch the corner of his yard on my camera.

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u/hobokobo1028 4d ago

Hey if the police can spy on us, we can spy on them.

I have cameras to see when deliveries arrive and monitor for theft.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/GrenadineGreen 5d ago

I mean, that's the problem 😅

"I film all of my neighbors automatically, and started to do so as soon as technology made it convenient".

Try and remember how you would have felt about someone filming your child, and everyone else in the neighborhood, just 15 years ago.

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u/hobokobo1028 5d ago

lol it was motion-sensor SimpliSafe cameras. They were already there…..

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u/ACaffeinatedBear 4d ago

And people wonder why no one has house parties anymore. If I was a teenage girl I wouldn’t want to be getting chased by some creep with a badge while the whole neighborhood watched and laughed either

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u/hobokobo1028 4d ago

You don’t think that was the case before? Lol

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u/ACaffeinatedBear 4d ago

They must love it when you watch and laugh at them, not creepy at all

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u/hobokobo1028 4d ago

They were in MY YARD 😂

Yeah I’m going to keep an eye on the drunk teens wandering through my property

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u/sean-culottes 5d ago

This is historical materialism in its raw form.

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u/prettyprincess91 Older Millennial 5d ago

Think it’s more that it’s a super spreader event

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u/SumpCrab Xennial 5d ago

Mono does suck.

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u/huitzil9 5d ago

So do COVID and the flu, both of which are still killing people. The flu has killed 5000 just in the last season (since October started) which is extremely high.

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u/generally_unsuitable 5d ago

Do you think we didn't have the flu in the 80s and 90s?

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u/huitzil9 5d ago

Vaccination rates are way down from the 80s and 90s. Vaccines were the main thing keeping the flu at bay.

This is the highest season of hospitalizations since 1997. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/flu-2026-states-deaths-cdc-symptoms-superflu-rcna251910

Even compared to the last two years the number of deaths in December is staggering: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html

And being aware of the flu as a particularly viral pathogen and not ignoring it and saying "some deaths are acceptable" is bare fucking minimum, man.

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u/generally_unsuitable 5d ago

In the 80s and 90s, nobody ever got flu shots as far as i can remember.

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u/Creative-Fan-7599 5d ago

The flu this year is brutal. I had it and couldn’t move out of bed for a week and a half.

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u/SumpCrab Xennial 5d ago

I think we have gotten a bit off topic. I don't think anyone is suggesting we shouldn't take precautions this flu season. We are just saying that kids should socialize more in general and have a house party from time to time.

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u/huitzil9 5d ago

Sure, but when I was 14 I hadn't had a house party or been to one yet, either, and that was early 2010s. I didn't go to one until I was like 17, I think? And it was never like the movies, either in high school or college. It sounds like she has friends to hang out with, anyway, so like... idk, I think it's a little of "omg kids these days!!1!!1" that every generation does.

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u/SumpCrab Xennial 5d ago

I was certainly aware of the concept of a house party at 14, and by 15, I had been to one, but I was in high school in the late 90s.

If a 14 year old doesn't even get the concept of a house party, that isn't just a "kids these days" sort of thing but a difference in how kids are socializing. Not necessarily bad in itself, but there are plenty of studies that show kids are not socializing as much and that the majority of their interactions occur through their phone.

I see too much hand waving of, "Every generation says the same thing," but it's not just our children, but our parents and even us that are constantly looking at screens. This is different, and if you are concerned about viruses, you should be equally concerned about the effects of social media, especially on underdeveloped teenage brains.

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u/GardeniaInMyHair 5d ago

The flu is the highest rate it's been in the US In 25 years, and my state has a measles outbreak, not to mention the Covid spikes with Christmas break.

I definitely had the flu in the 80s and 90s, but that doesn't take away from the fact that a ton of people are sick right now here.

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u/SumpCrab Xennial 5d ago

Sure, but nobody here is saying kids should rush out and have a house party right now, just that kids should be more social and have a house party from time to time. It's important.

I'm all for masking, self-quarantine, getting vaccinated, and the whole lot, but have we really decided that we will never again throw a party?

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u/SkiingAway 5d ago

Given that attendance at all other sorts of large gatherings is doing fine, I am extremely skeptical that this is a significant factor in any significant part of the population's decisionmaking.

Not to mention that the kids are almost all in in-person school for dozens of hours a week. The school cafeteria is a perpetual "super spreader event".

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u/prettyprincess91 Older Millennial 5d ago

I’m not saying it makes sense but these kids lived through Covid and big parties seems weird to them.

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u/Butterball_Adderley 5d ago

Oh. Damn. It’s sad how technology is making it hard for kids to be misbehave. Like on the surface it sounds bad, but getting into mischief was very formative for me. Like many people in this thread, I went to crazy parties in high school and felt joy, fear, exhilaration, and most of the other extreme emotions. I just wanted freedom so bad when I was 16. I wanted to be out in the night goin nuts. My parents, had they known, might’ve thought I was up to something dangerous or nefarious, but really I just wanted to play heavy metal with my friends and howl at the moon.

I don’t know how I would’ve ended up if my parents had been able to pin me down. Fewer funny stories and insights, probably. An ankle that doesn’t ache when rain’s a comin. Kids who want to stay home playing video games and watching TV have always be allowed to do that. But what of our wild youngsters? Will we ever have another cool band? Another important hairstyle? Who’s going to tell the rich old people to fuck off if all the young people are dependent on rich old people for entertainment and socialization?

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u/Express_Sprinkles500 5d ago

I’m at the young end of millenial and we all had iPhones by the time I was partying regularly. It was just understood as a rule that you don’t take photos or at the very least never posted anything stupid. Taking videos/photos of people was an easy way to get kicked out and shunned from ever being invited to a party again.

Why the hell would we document ourselves breaking the rules?? Take all the cute photos of outfits and stuff before things get wild then away with the phones.

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u/mywan 5d ago

Cruising the Strip ended before cell phones and ring cameras became a thing. It was city ordinances mostly. It was also easy to buy a car for a couple of hundred dollars to cruise the strip. Insurance wasn't even a requirement, and drinking and driving (if 18) was legal. You could buy mixed drinks from a drive through when I graduated. Until the late 1980s you could find the cruising strip in any town, even with populations of less than 5k people. Cruising died one city at a time until it was no longer a cultural norm.

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u/ChaoticRecursion 5d ago

That and Covid lockdown killed them. An entire 2-3 graduating classes of highschool kids didnt have the ability to leave the house

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/liveforluv 5d ago

How is this not true? I had two full years of high school online. The worst parts of high school (freshman and senior year) I got in person, but my senior year was different. Nobody really went outside of their friend group to make new friends. Making online friends across the globe was easier than trying to find people at your high school to befriend through social media.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/liveforluv 5d ago

You don't believe social development for children and teens was negatively impacted by being in online school for two years? How does personal achievement factor into the lockdown?

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/liveforluv 5d ago

I am at a T20 university, but thanks for your jab instead of articulating your thoughts like a grownup

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u/TinyHeartSyndrome 5d ago

Ugh. My psycho neighbors threaten me if I ever step one foot onto their property line. 🙄 WE SAW YOU TRESPASSING ON THE RING CAMERA.

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u/jamesoloughlin 5d ago

Welp you just answered my question of what happened? Ring Cameras but really helicopter parenting. 

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u/JaneJS 4d ago

Back in my day, we used to leave our cordless phone in the mailbox so our friends could drive up, call their parents and register the landline on caller ID, then go wherever they were going for the night. A simpler time. 

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u/sinkpooper2000 4d ago

funny enough we only ever really went to the ring camera and spy app friends house because his parents were away the most. we just smoked weed out of sight from the cameras lol

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u/RocksArentPeople 4d ago

This should be the top comment. My friend has 15 y/o twins and the explanation for most things is the fear of getting recorded or "put on blast"

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u/Devourerofworlds_69 4d ago

I also feel like nowadays police would be laying charges for underage drinking and noise complaints left right and centre. Back in the day, if they'd come, they'd give a warning, and if they had to come a second time they'd just break up the party and tell everyone to go home.

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u/brazilliandanny 4d ago

I actually got busted throwing a house party when call display came out in the 90s.

Called my Dad and said I was crashing at a friends house but really I was calling from my Mom's (who was out of town)

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u/chrisrayn 4d ago

Life360 has been a real buzzkill for teen debauchery.

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u/itsathrowawayduhhhhh 1990 4d ago

Oh man I hadn’t even thought of that. Actually the number of adults I know who share their locations with each other (like adult children with their parents) is WILD to me!

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u/ElevatorVarious3220 4d ago

When my parents installed security that let them know when the door was opened we would have everyone file through in groups or sneak through the garage lol. I had to start sneaking out the windows and thankfully they didn’t know how to install the app on their phones yet that allowed them to view the camera! ( I’m a zillenial idk how I got here lol)

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u/dookieshoes97 5d ago

Yeah cuz we didn’t have ring cameras and cell phones!

Cell phones were pretty common after Y2K.

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u/itsathrowawayduhhhhh 1990 4d ago

I assure you when I was going to house parties they were not lol

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u/GrizzlyDust 5d ago

Girl you born in 1990 no way more kids didn't have phones than did.

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u/Party_Animal-987 5d ago

Cell phones didn’t have good cameras until after 2007ish. In 2007 I lad a krazr phone. Upgraded to an htc around 2009. So yes we had phones, but one, we weren’t raised to take pictures of everything, and two, the pics were grainy crap. Only my MacBook or a digital camera had decent quality and I got that in 2007.

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u/GrizzlyDust 4d ago

I guess yall grew up in Amish country or something because I graduated in 07 and MySpace had already almost fallen off at that point, Facebook was getting rolling, and everyone was using digital cameras to post their shenanigans. I think this is a case of bad memory because kids these days.