this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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[–] Newsteinleo@midwest.social 13 points 6 days ago

Its hard to through a secret part when your parents are out of town when the ring camera will let them know.

[–] figjam@midwest.social 12 points 6 days ago

I'm older than 40 I didn't go to these parties in high school because I was a nerd. I definitely went to and hosted parties like this in my college years. It was basically, invite everyone you know and then those people would bring their friends. Bring booze and snacks.Great way to meet new people.

[–] Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 11 points 6 days ago

Believe it or not, even adults had home parties. It wasn't just a kids or teens thing. So maybe you missed out as a teen but you can make up for it as an adult. Potluck dinners or game nights are a good way to start. We went to a potluck dinner for 8 people in a studio apartment a couple times when I was at uni.

[–] sploosh@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

I (an older millenial) went to a prep school and big parties in huge, beautiful parties happened every few weeks when someone's parents were out if town. Kegs, red cups, the host freaking out over the mess and people making out/banging in bedrooms were all standard. Because the prep school was small, we would end up getting all our friends from other schools together so they'd end up massive, loud and rowdy affairs. Cops usually got called, but were uninterested in a bunch of kids whose parents were likely lawyers, so no one got in trouble unless they tried to drive drunk. To be young, wealthy and white in America is a good time.

Don't worry, I am broke now. Still white tho.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Very common. The vibes and people varied based on the people throwing the party. Maybe it was a house party when someone's parents were out of town. Maybe it was a kegger at the lake kinda outta the way in the dark. And everything in between.

Also, Hollywood wouldn't have been making films in the 90s and 2000s to make you feel bad if this wasn't the case. They'd be making the contemporary teens of the day feel bad, which they certainly didn't because they could identify with the scene.

[–] misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Average millennial here. Yes, amongst other parties, I had a college friend who hosted a party like this twice a week and everyone (30-50 people) would be shit faced, his dad had a night shift job so we stayed up all night playing N64, beer pong, and other fun filled debauchery. It was magnificent. Each day we'd tape plastic over the floor to keep things clean and reduce wear, guy was a social genius. Actually I eventually got bored of it but they went on for years.

[–] wowwoweowza@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

This is the saddest comments thread I have ever read.

Yes, parties are real.

https://www.wikihow.com/Throw-a-Party

I threw a party like this in about 1995. I got lucky because a lot of people showed up but they were respectful and didn't trash my house. I cleaned up in about 2 hours.

I think that one of the things that killed this were the examples on the news of people having their houses destroyed as the party got out of hand.

Another thing that killed these parties was litigious parents. Underage drinking was the norm at these things. Kids would sometimes drive drunk and get in accidents, drown in the pool, etc. Parents of the drunk drivers would sue the parents of the party host for allowing kids to get drunk on their premises. Saying you were out of town and didn't know did not save the sued parents - they would just be blamed for leaving their kids unsupervised.

Bush parties were also really common in the 90s, but fewer and fewer people live near a large woodlot. In the 90s, even medium cities would have vacant lots scattered throughout the city and many were large enough to (temporarily) conceal a small bonfire and 2 dozen drunk kids. When the cops showed up, we would scatter. Stumbling around the woods in the dark while intoxicated is a cherished memory, but I would probably never do it again, haha.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 5 points 6 days ago

I didn't go to a lot of these in my youth, but house parties definitely existed, and still exist. I'm ~40.

A friend of friend just had one this weekend, and I went as a +1. I don't know what the occasion was but there was a lot of food and drink and socializing. Someone even set up beer pong like when we were younger.

Another friend of mine has pretty regular parties at his place. He just invites a bunch of people and has some food and drink, and it's a good time. It probably helps that his friend network is massive and he's generally well liked.

[–] Carbonizer@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

I'm in my thirties, and the closest thing I ever had to a party was when me and a bunch of the guys I worked with (total of like six people) would hang out together, drinking and playing Mario Kart

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

We had tons of parties just like these only everyone was way better looking.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

We never had one in a house. We had one on some back road or a field off the beaten path in order to avoid the law.

[–] Soapbox@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 days ago

I was always skeptical about them being a thing in high school. At least at the scale portrayed in movies. But in college, yes. Had plenty of ragers with 100+ people. They were fun, and kinda terrible at the same time.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Were*

Being Brazilian, all those 'murican house parties portrayed in movies always seemed so... Dumb and uninteresting. I did go to a similar one during college (2009-ish) and, frankly, the only good thing was that I almost got laid, everything else was meh.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 95 points 1 week ago (15 children)

The quality of life of kids has degraded at least in the US and no not primarily from smartphones and social media.

The answer is simple, life is harder for parents.

[–] turbowafflz@lemmy.world 76 points 1 week ago (2 children)

And also the lack of third places making it a lot harder for both adults and kids to get together with friends in person without having to spend money

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Also the move towards car-centric infrastructure. Which is somewhat related to the lack of 3rd places.

A lot of the movies with these parties had the kids showing up by walking or biking, which just is not feasible anymore. I

I also think about all the teen movies that were largely set in shopping malls. Most of the malls around me have shut down, so what's next? Pretending people hang out and socialize in Wal-Marts for the sake of the movie?

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago

When the 24 hour Walmart opened in my podunk town it was a popular teen hangout after 10 or so.

This was in the late 90s though. I’m not sure what it’s like now, but that was also when teens got cheap ass cars as soon as they had a license.

Cash for clunkers, the economic busts and the auto industry eliminating affordable small cars (in the US at least), and more recently the insurance industry has changed car prices/expenses to make teens in that area less mobile and more isolated. Now it’s mostly drunks and retail employees after a shift in there after 9pm. And it’s not open 24 hours since the pandemic.

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[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The thing is, all the fun things that adults used to be able to do to blow off steam away from kids, keep getting ruined by going more "family friendly". When I was a kid, there was a thing at the boulder reservoir with music and events, and people would drink and smoke weed and be mostly left alone. They made it family friendly and it started to die, then they decided it wasn't eco-friendly so they killed it off.

Ragrbrai in Iowa happened the same way. A weeklong ride across the state that changes stops every year. Used to be drunken debauchery at the stops and now it's family friendly and no fun anymore. Concerts are the same way. I know kids listen to slipknot, but why the fuck should I watch my mouth now that kids are around, when the singers saying much worse (in context) on stage? I'm sure everyone everywhere in America has a story like this. 4th of July on Apple River, in Wisconsin, back in college it was a blast. Alcohol and titties everywhere. I haven't been since cops started going and enforcing shit.

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[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 70 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Cameras on phones killed it.

[–] Sc00ter@lemmy.zip 29 points 1 week ago

We definitely had to regulate this in college. We threw some ragers where we specifically knew it couldnt be documented where we collected phones and had a whole coat check system. Thankfully, facebook was only for college people, so nothing catastrophic ever happened

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[–] Today@lemmy.world 63 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, but ours were usually much much more casual and in much smaller houses. TV makes everyone look rich. Broke people have parties too, but they're chips/dip and BYOB. Also, without the jocks vs. nerds.

My husband was just telling a story this weekend about when he was "ninth grade cool". Right before a party a cute girl asked if he had the new Prince album. He said yes and then begged his mom to take him to Sound Warehouse to buy it. Unwrapped it, shoved it in his pocket, and got dropped at the party. "Cool! What's your favorite song?" "Uhh, the first one."

Sad that kids now don't have that experience.

Do kids still go parking?

[–] gdog05@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Do kids still go parking?

So many kids today don't want to drive or learn to drive πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ And based on my partners' kids, they're much less sexually driven than we were. We did a bunch of stupid shit if there was a hint of a chance of getting laid.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's sad. The hours we spent talking, laughing, and making out in cars were the best part of high school. I wonder if some of the disinterest is from anti depressants.

[–] onslaught545@lemmy.zip 41 points 1 week ago (5 children)

It's probably from the world burning down around them. Hard to be horny when you're full of existential dread.

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[–] uawarebrah@sh.itjust.works 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wait there aren’t parties anymore? What

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago

Apparently kids are socializing in general less. Like it's a real trend.

[–] razzazzika@lemmy.zip 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

My neighbors gen z kids for the last 3 years had parties like this all the freaking time.... so yeah they still happens. Maybe its just less common.

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Home security cameras probably don't help for house parties. Parents can see everything now.

[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 week ago

Gen Z stopped havin house parties, cause fewer of them live on their own / with a small group of roomies -- a lot more stick around with the parents, and parents aren't as keen to have a bunch of youth doing drugs and lightly misbehaving all night ;p

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 18 points 1 week ago

Sorry I was too busy being a geek to go to parties full of people I absolutely hated. That was back before gaming was popular and cool, when you had to EARN your geekdom.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Depends on how stereotypical of a portrayal is in question, but yes, I've been to what would definitely be my country's equivalent.

Houses full of people. Around when people where 15-19 or smth, sometimes even older, but average was prolly 16-17. A couple of 15 year old moped boys for every 18 year driver, but for everyone 18 year driver, prolly 3-4 16-17 year friends with them.

Houses so full you'd strike up a chat with a random person every few meters. Always at the slightly less than responsible parents who allowed their kids to be alone for the weekend in the house.

But like, pretty similar as those depicted, but with our culture, not US, so slightly different.

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[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Gen X. Grew up on an acreage and went to highschool in a small town a few kilometres away.

There was always some kind of party on the weekend. Either at someone's house, or a bush party/pit party. This was the early nineties. So no phones/cameras.

I'm amazed we survived.

[–] vatlark@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 days ago

Basically a bush party, but we had an old abandoned gravel pit just or of town that you could park your cars along the rim with headlights shining down to where we would light a bug bonfire.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I went to one in the early teens. I imagine it's harder for teenagers to have a secret party when their psrente are out of town these days

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[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I'm slow, were these actually a real thing then?

[–] Photuris@lemmy.ml 35 points 1 week ago (3 children)

(Younger) GenX here.

Yes, we partied hard, and we had a lot of fun. We got into tons of shenanigans, and there’s zero video or audio evidence of any of it remaining. We said and did a lot of dumb shit, and were free to roam and make minor mistakes.

We hung out at each others’ houses, at the mall (back when malls were cool), in parking lots, coffee shops, at railroad tracks, parks, the woods, swimming pools, whatever. We just talked for hours and really connected. We’d hop in the car and just go somewhere, sometimes far away, just because. And we weren’t tethered to any monitoring devices in our pockets keeping us glued to messages.

We were free.

I really do feel sorry for the younger generations. Kids these days really do have it very rough. It sucks for y’all, and I do wish I could destroy the internet so you guys could be free, too.

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[–] Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

House parties were awesome. I was never cool, but there was always room at a house party. It's a shame that these died out.

[–] Tidesphere@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I mean, I'm a millennial in mid-thirties and I'd never heard of anyone actually doing a party like this either, so even in the 90s/00s these were things that seemed like 'stuff they used to do before'

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