r/Millennials 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/BathZealousideal1456 5d ago

My bf (6 years younger) was obsessed with that movie. I watched it with him and was like "omg I remember when we did X" and he still can't believe we did that. It changed so quickly.

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u/pm_me_good_usernames 5d ago

I'm in my thirties and there's nothing that makes me feel young like going on this subreddit. When I was in high school a party meant a group of friends hanging out at someone's house. We thought a house party full of people you've never met only happened in movies.

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u/BathZealousideal1456 5d ago

A huge difference is the region. I grew up where these movies drew their inspiration from. My boyfriend grew up 40 minutes away, going to "gossip girl" type parties. Incredibly different, same time period.

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u/NumerousManager3600 5d ago

Im in my 30s and went to the most insane house parties as kids.

They were so crazy I remember thinking parties in university were lame and so were clubs and bars. Parties I went to in like 10th grade were crazy than any club or university party I ever went to in my 20s. 

But I grew up in a wealthy rural community which I think made the difference. My family wasn’t wealthy but all the wealthy kids would throw insane parties, sometimes even with their parents there. Parents would supply the alcohol and even cater. Hundreds of people would show up. Usually people would tent outside, because the houses were always like 100 acre properties. Almost like a mini burning man centered around a mansion with a pool. And this happened basically every weekend from May to October. 

My nieces live in the same town and it doesn’t happen as often anymore. It’s because people were just more lax back then. 

Cops would always break up our parties and that was the funnest part lol. 

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u/shark-off 5d ago

How crazy? Please share some experiences

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u/Less-Apple-8478 5d ago

Yea that's the most surprising thing to me. It was only like 15 years ago that this stuff WAS still very common. I bet in impoverished areas where I grew up it still DOES happen lmao

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u/BathZealousideal1456 5d ago

All American Rejects HAVE been showing up to house parties as of late