The House Party no longer exists. It is one of the great cultural losses.
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2026
355 points (96.6% liked)
Showerthoughts
43812 readers
1092 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I mean I was born in 1989 and I can't really remember it because I wouldn't be invited to those kinds of parties until after the invention of the smartphone.
Hell I remember in high school everyone spent most of the time swapping phone bodies around and sharing polyphonic ringtones via IR blaster. And later, Pokémon via a link cable.
I was born after 2000. I couldnt really tell you the point of going to a party where you dont know anyone, like what seems to be most coming-of-age movies. Even some parties with friends have been extremely dull, and wrecking some strangers house seems like a great way to add weight to my conscience
Well, one could argue that not doing things that push the boundaries of your comfort zone is why echo chambers exist, whereas meeting people you don’t know and interacting with them is how you make new friends and potentially grow as a person.
I’m not saying you’re wrong for not wanting to do that, or even that you should want to do that, but that would be the point of it.
And for the record, parties that happen in movies aren’t really representative of what actual parties were commonly like, at least in my experience. The most wrecked that I’ve ever seen a house get after a party was needing to clean or pick up some trash. The way you keep the weight off of your conscience is to help the host clean up the next day, like a decent human being.
(I can’t afford a lawn, but get off of my dirt lot!)
Maybe it's something of the people I socialize with. But we don't look at phones when we gather. It's impolite.
Phones are a great distraction when you're in a liminal space with nothing interesting going on.
But parties tend to be the opposite of that. The only reason someone looks at their phone is if they're trying to avoid the party. And why even show, in that case?
load more comments
(1 replies)
As a post-2000 person, I can get a glimpse of that in some TV shows like breaking bad. Also when looking at my parents pictures from when they where younger.
But I've never experienced it. You can hang out with friends and all but good luck convincing 4+ friends to NOT take their phones to a gathering.
There's always someone texting their gf/bf, someone who likes to post too much, someone deep in online gatchas.
Even an inactive user will carry their phone because of navigation, feeling insecure at night, paying stuff...
There's a billion excuses (with a range of validity) to take your phone with you.
Meh 😕
Easily solved by social compact, box (or more fun, jenga tower) on a table, phones go in box. First person to remove phone from box for reasons other than poop break (I'm not a monster) or leaving owes the group something, even if it's just a little dance.
It's helped myself and most of the people I have done it with to truly understand how much we are actually addicted/dependant to the little electric serotonin dispensers.
YMMV on getting others to agree 😅
Kids these days will never know the simple joys of lighting a filthy mattress on fire in a derelict parking lot and drinking a case of warm beer that was the easiest thing to steal from that one gas station a town over with the near sighted night clerk.
My town had a bowling ball factory and on winter nights when the river was frozen we would steal reject balls and throw them off the bridge downtown. They made a truly incredible noise when they hit the ice.
That sounds fucking phenomenal. Now I need to see if there are any derelict bowling alleys around here to explore.
i was born before 2000, and I don't know it neither
My friends and I would be glued to the N64 or xbox instead
"Nobody looked at their phones during a party in 1999"
Holds up picture of a LAN Party
God I hope that's AI generated. The sheer load on those wires... maybe 20 machines could work off a 100A wire, but every other row there would need its own circuit and fuse.
Brownouts must have been plentiful and devastating
AI generated? That's quakecon! I was there! We ran lots of wires. We had to bring in 2 18 wheeler sized generators plus the hotel's power. We really only had brownouts at QC 2000, I think it was. It's was just solving for numbers once we knew the metrics to hit.
Well, that and money, but id always stepped up.
Change used to be gradual.
You could drop Cleopatra into Queen Victoria's court and she'd figure out the rules in a week.
Obama was cutting edge in 2008 because he used a Blackberry
I thought he was cutting edge because he didn't use a BlackBerry, he used an iPhone.
Also, the way Obama simped for the tech sector for eight long years might be proximate to why we're surrounded by Tech Fascists ten years after he left office.
Rose tinted view. There were plenty of distractions without phones and people would just get black out drunk wayyy more often than they do now. Maybe a positive is that people can pave themselves easier now.
Only when the road construction crew gets too drunk and starts playing around with the steam roller! 😁
This is what we'd do because we were broke. If we had money we'd go to bars and stuff, but otherwise we'd ask the supermarket for free fish ice and buy beers, then filled the bathtub with them.
As people came over they'd go drop the booze in the tub and pick up a cold one.
Many fun nights, though finding people using your bed, not so much.
I was born in 1952.
To me, people born after 2000 are true, real "aliens"
Wait so there are Boomers on Lemmy?
The fact that you have not realized until now should tell you something
load more comments
(1 replies)
They also don't know what it's like for someone to move away and you just never see them again.
You can still do that now.
Source: I am appalling at keeping in touch with people I don't directly see face-to-face.
But it's an option for you to find people.
Back in the day, if someone changed their address and phone number, you'd have to work hard to find them.
My best friend in high school joined the navy and disappeared. I worked for decades to track him down. Then one day he was just on Facebook. We have nothing in common any more and nothing to talk about. But damn do I have some great memories of us hanging out.
Sure. That too. But honestly that's a tradeoff I'd be willing to do in a heartbeat.
Absolutely. Same here. When we're 50-100 years away from this social media is going to be discussed in the same conversation as prescribing heroin for a headache.
I think the better metaphor will be the printing press. That also caught society completely offguard. We went from a world where knowledge dissemination and speech was tightly controlled by religious and political elites to one where any crank with a press could share their fringe views far and wide. While this had its benefits, it also had its drawbacks. The printing press gave us the Protestant Reformation, but it also gave us the witch burning craze.
We used to have bonfire parties out in the woods. Such good times.
In the woods, something glowing
A burning light has started growing
It feels like a change is upon us at last
Consuming us fast, change is upon us
The smoke in the night, the ash on the light
I think that it might be the best thing in sight
I know now I am right to let you be consumed by the light
Yep. When our group had nothing to do we pretty much all went to somebody's flat and just hung out. Talked shit, smoked cigarettes, listen to music and laugh a lot. Pur friend circle was guys and girls who were not in relationships with each other so was cool as we could all be ourselves. Maybe we might jump in a car and go somewhere when it reached evening or just stayed in and had our own micro party with just the 7 of us. I do wish o had photos from then, but I am also glad we do t jave photos from then.
I think another thing is the lack of cameras. If you brought a camera before it was because you intended to take pictures. Now, everyone has a camera with them at all times.
view more: next ›