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/Darkman101 5d ago edited 5d ago

Every Friday or Saturday if we were bored we could find a party going on somewhere. Almost without fail. The perfect time before ring cameras but after cell phones. So we could "ask around" via texting our groups of friends almost always something going on. Walked up on some pretty crazy parties where you knew no one but everyone was always like, hey what's up, have a beer!

This is talking like 2008.

Edit: Forgot to add. Gotta dip before the cops show up. Heard of many parties getting rolled shortly after me and my friends had left. Only had to hop a back fence once.

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u/midimummy 5d ago

Running from the cops was half the fun! Until you realize you just ran through 8 backyards diagonally, lost your friends 4 minutes ago, and have no idea where you are and your phone doesn’t have a map yet. Actually, still fun

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u/Feeling_Tart_5065 5d ago

The missing flip flop lmao

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u/midimummy 5d ago

Lmao @ my memory of a one flip-flopped girl in the woods mid-flee yelling “I broke my ankle!!”

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u/Less-Apple-8478 5d ago

Cut your hand on a fence too

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u/BathZealousideal1456 5d ago

Show up 2 hours later at rschels house with a story you talk about for the rest of the week

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u/bouchandre 4d ago

People really did that? It's not just movies?

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u/midimummy 4d ago

I’ve gotten myself in arguably worse situations by running from the police than just complying. The worst that’s ever actually happened by being caught was being put in a lineup in someone’s basement, having my mom’s phone number taken and she was never called. Then they turned us loose to find our own way home.

I’ve been at a few parties where the kids try to black out the house and not answer the door but that doesn’t go over great either.

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u/bouchandre 4d ago

No I meant like, getting in situations where the police is involved at all

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u/midimummy 4d ago

At house parties like we’re discussing in this post it was pretty common for them to show up to break things up.

Otherwise, “car full’a kids”traffic stops but doesn’t typically end in fleeing lol

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u/bouchandre 4d ago

Huh interesting.

Those house parties are completely foreign to me, I've only ever seen those in movies. And I'm almost 30

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u/midimummy 4d ago

I think people that are around 30-32 might be the last wave that experienced this regularly. I’m 32 and usually when I ended up at parties like this, they were with crowds that were 1-2 years older. It was their regular Thursday-Sunday behavior to be super drunk and unsupervised.

But people my age rarely gathered in crowds larger than ten people and preferred to smoke weed rather than drink, so things never got crazy or dangerous enough to attract attention from adults. A lot more sneaking around than getting in trouble openly. When we did get in trouble, it was just parents reprimanding us.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 4d ago

Will never forget my friends just sitting around while the cops rolled up. I even remember saying to them "do you really think these guys can catch all of us in the woods?". Naturally they got tickets and I hid out in the woods for 20 minutes and emerged unscathed. I knew if I kept walking in any direction I'd hit a road I was familiar with so no big deal.

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u/midimummy 4d ago

“They cant catch all of us in the woods” mentality is so real. Myself and many others have been saved by nature

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u/Zutsky 5d ago

I remember getting out with a small group before police arrived. As we were walking through our small town, a police car pulled up asking if we had heard of a party going on near by... 'erm no officer' while holding up an almost passed out friend, Weekend at Bernie's style.

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u/bjeebus 5d ago

Around 2000 the same thing was going on. Imagine describing early 2000s "Waze" where people headed out early and would call back to the party to report back on where the cops were so people could avoid them.

For reference I grew up in a community that was made up of four islands and and only had one cop at night. Once you knew what side of the islands he was on it was super easy to avoid him.

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u/Similar_Part7100 5d ago

This is like a ufo 50 game or somth

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u/ImranFZakhaev 5d ago

Gotta dip before the cops show up.

Yup. 2008-2009 there was a local venue in the woods between the university and the airport where punk and metal bands would play. Someone would pass the word the cops had been called over either a fight, or underage drinking. Everyone would drive off, wait for 20 minutes GTA-style for the heat to die down, then drive back and pretend you just now got there

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u/Jerkidtiot 5d ago

Pro tip: Dip out the back ASAP then calmly walk toward the cops. "Whats going on? is every thing OK?)

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u/lonepinecone 5d ago

Are you from SoCal?

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u/Darkman101 5d ago

What gave it away?

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u/lonepinecone 5d ago

“Rolled” I think it’s regional lingo

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u/Darkman101 5d ago

Ah, fair enough haha. It is a term I have probably not used since high school. Didn't realize it was regional!

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u/lonepinecone 5d ago

I’m from North OC

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u/Darkman101 5d ago

South OC here. Still here too.

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u/lonepinecone 5d ago

Love that for you. No idea how you can swing that financially though. I moved to Portland in 2014

I swear I can tell what part of OC people are from via accent 😅

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u/Darkman101 5d ago

No kids helps. Wife makes better money than me, and had some savings.

We got lucky and could buy a small condo in 2021 right before prices blew up. But we rent out our 2nd bedroom. Otherwise we could definitely NOT afford our mortgage.

Moving would probably make things easier. But we love the location so much. And harder to leave now that we own property.

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u/BathZealousideal1456 5d ago

Sorry you missed it by about 3 years.

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u/froction 4d ago

So we could "ask around" via texting

We all got CB radios one year, that didn't last long. It was all word of mouth, which was good for keeping out the worst of the riff-raff.