Seeing this question asked is sort of sad. Did this become a less common experience? What killed it?

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

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.

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
- 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?
- Yeah the effect of that is really insidious and far reaching, I know it hurt me growing up no question.
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.
- I blame 2008 a lot of people didn't have money to spend individually so they had to combo it into family time. Combine that with the fact that a lot of the places that used to cater to adults started to get increasingly ratty and decrepit without being replaced and ya end up with a rather bad feedback loop. In my area for example there's only really one thing an adult can do at night in public that being go to a bar, but I know for a fact that when I was a kid a lot of places switched over to adults only past 8 PM so that they could attract folks who didn't want to deal with kids nearby and I'm not just talking about a mini golf course or some shit there used to be a hobby store near me that did adults only Warhammer games at night which just meant bear and cussing.
Smartphones and social media are probably why the kids don't party like that anymore. They don't need to gather in one house to all talk when they have their group chats and junk like that. Pretty sad to think about a generation of kids just pissing away their youth looking at a little screen in their hands all day.
Social media has warped many brains into living life as a performance of moments for their feed-posts, and too few exercise their right to Privacy, so everything is tainted with the concept of the Observer that we didn't have in the past. Yes, we did party like those kids in those movies. It was rad.
- Try being more curious about young people and actually listen to them talk when they are willing to be vulnerable to you and come back and tell me this is the problem. That is a lazy, easy narrative there you just spun.
- What up GenX! Yep. We had to leave the house because there was nothing to do there!
- I dunno. I moved to Europe and there's smartphones and social media here. But my colleagues kids are at birthday parties and hanging out with friends and going to events every weekend. This seems like a real US thing.

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.

Cameras on phones killed it.

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
This 👆
And cameras on doorbells etc.
Yeah, no records may be kept of a house party.

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?

Do kids still go parking?
So many kids today don't want to drive or learn to drive 🤷‍♂️ 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.
- 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.

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.

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.

Wait there aren’t parties anymore? What

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

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.

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.

What's a pit party?
- 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.

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.

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

In the 90s teenage me was way too uncool for these and never got invited once either.

Yeah, I was going to say. Then existing, and never having been to one, are not mutually exclusive.

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.

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.

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.

I’m aware parties like this happened when I was a kid, I was just too much of a square to get invited (I’m a millennial)

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

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

Social media. People got used to not meeting up IRL. Also kids don't get wasted as much these days, possibly because they are actually dealing with their trauma and don't feel the need to drink/smoke the pain away. Of course if you do cut loose these days it'll end up being filmed and sent to your mum on Facebook. I know half the shit I did as a kid would have been flagged for inappropriate content.

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.

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.

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'

I'm almost forty and regularly hosted parties like this all through high school. So mileage must vary.
I am an elder millennial, and we partied like this all the time. We also hung out during the week in large groups until the wee hours of the morning.
But we were a mix of lower middle class so our parents were too busy surviving to care what we were up to, sprinkled in with some upper middle class who had the resources and parents that were too self absorbed to care.
early thirties and we had plenty of these during post-secondary
late high school parties were more of a field party than indoors
same and my experience was that parties existed but there used to be more wild parties with alcohol involved
Me neither. But I grew up in the city. There was no space in apartments for 100 people. Maybe 10 people stacked on top of each other.

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

I never knew any parties like that (or at all, haha), but I’ve skimmed through the comments and am surprised people haven’t mentioned Covid.

Gen Z went through Covid lockdown during school ages. It’s possible such parties would have occurred for these people, but they got screwed out of opportunities for wild ragers because of a pandemic.

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

What is this “out of town” of which you speak?
- Back in the day you could afford kids and vacations. And so when you decided to have a little couple's getaway or you and your friends decided to go on an adult trip or even if your cousin got married out of town and the 16 year old said fuck that shit, the kid got several days home alone and you got several days without their shitty music, hormonally grumpified attitude, and all around general teensge buĺlshit.
  And so during that time the teenager might buy booze and throw a party

Yeah all the time. Every Thanksgiving, Christmas and new years between the ages of 14 and like 25 with our friends, cousins, acquaintances. Always someone's place, at least 20 teens +/- 3 years in my age, but the parties can get up to 100 people or more if they lined up. Our community of Slavic churches are huge tho. We'd take up the entire wedding hall on some events with 300+ teens your grade that we all knew fairly closely.

The only difference is that alcohol wasn't involved, and relationships were built for dating into marriage, not sex flings like the teen movies.

What happened after 25? Also that’s a lot of people. My parties were like 10 people max and we were all on top of each other.
- Groups just got smaller after people got married. The friend groups became more intimate, so mingling around with dozens of people stopped being the thing. We still get to see most people at events though. Mission conferences and other weddings and stuff. Now our gatherings are like 20-30 people for birthdays for kids and stuff.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah, in my country too, we had parties at each other houses, drinks, dancing, chatting, some food. Parents of the organiser would come from time to time to check that all is ok. We would buy our own food, make some sandwiches, buy some drinks, parents would give us some beers or wine( we could have a drink or two even before being 18). It was lots of fun. Even at our Highschool, the school would organise a disco party on Saturdays, no alcohol, but lots of dancing. We did not of course really need cars, Europe is pretty walkable.
- Parents of the organiser would come from time to time to check that all is ok.
  Uhm yeah the parties I'm talking about didn't have parents checking on horribly drunken teenagers.
  We didn't have "a drink or two". I don't think it's just once that I've carried a person rolled up into a carpet filled with their own vomit out of the house because it was just the simplest solution.
  Kinda like a horrible kebab roll, with the person as the meat, carpet as the bread and vomit as sauce.
  I think alcoholism is a bit different here perhaps. If we weren't at parties or driving around drinking in cars, there'd be a youth hangout for under under 18's, so we'd hang out there. But you weren't allowed in if you had had a drink. To make sure, my own mom was sometimes at the door with a breathalyser. (My mom was in charge of youth activities in the municipality, she didn't just show up randomly.)
  It wasn't every weekend there'd be a party, exactly because of how destructive they usually were. Hell, if you had a party, sometimes you'd just get people from the next town over, completely randomly basically, because someone knew someone and so forth. So if you did have a party the hardest part was usually keeping it in check and not have everyone invite everyone they know.
  We needed cars/mopeds because the distances in the countryside are a bit longer.
  During the summer heats like this (oh god you made me nostalgic noo) we'd hang out all day drinking at the sandpits, dozen or two little lakes and ponds ~5km north from the town center. So someone usually needed to be able to drive. Although that wasn't so much getting drunk as just having a refreshing drink in the heat and to rehydrate.
  Many people lived as far away from the town centre as well, and usually in different directions, so it might be 12 kilometers from the house of one friend to another so mopeds and 125cc's and cars were kinda essential. I do understand Americans in that aspect but now that I live in the city and don't go there any more I just use a bike/bus. But in the country that isn't a thing.

Yeah I never had this as a kid. Maybe I just wasn't invited though lol

I used to throw massive house parties. Yes. It was a vibe. I did terrible things at those parties and I am sorry what I put my family through. Silly parties to be honest.

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

(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.
- That's a perfect description! Hanging out on empty playgrounds, running around downtown and climbing on statues, parking by the lake, going for a drive with no destination just to talk and listen to music. No phone, no texts, be home by midnight. I wasn't allowed to go to the mall and it was devastating.
- Younger GenX here, can confirm all this is 100% true.
- Idk what idea you have of genz, but we did all this too, but when we were much younger, like before 15, definitely didn't have cars either.
  I should note I'm not American though.
  Hanging out in mall food courts especially and railroad tracks, but idk about houses, no one had a large enough apartment for anything other than hanging out with 4-5 people, and maybe playing call of duty or something.
  I didn't have broadband until like the age of 13, so circa 2009 or so, and then we would talk over Skype and I'd grief my friend's Minecraft server to the point of physical violence on his behalf lol.
  I don't think anyone was "glued to their messages" or "tethered to monitoring devices" - my parents didn't know and still don't how to use a smartphone, but maybe that's a third world thing.
  In late teens, everyone was just busy as fuck with school, it was do or die. Friend didn't, failed uni, got drafted, now possibly in a mobile crematorium somewhere in Ukraine.
  By 18, everyone moved away and changed. I left the country, changed name, gender. No idea what happened to them all, but I imagine nothing good.
Yes
Yes.

Yes, these types of parties were real. I don't have any theories other commenters haven't already given, just adding to the choir in case you needed more anecdotal evidence.

We kind of had that as teens. Just without the fancy decorations. We made it ourselves. Every weekend when someones parents were over night.

Lived in a townhouse with 3 apartments and 4 floors during uni. Made friends with the other tenants, opened up the whole thing to do massive parties, had over 400 people come

those kinds of events were so fun. just open doors all over and find the group you want to vibe with for an hour. it felt so freeing just wandering through an entire building of fun

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.

My parents left for one weekend during my college/highschool years. Threw the most massive party, we were over 80.

Fun times 😁

People over 80 don't sound like they'd be the best partiers.
- dude... you don't know. they are UNHINGED because time's almost up and between them they are a pharmacy.

There was always the ad-hoc couple inspecting each other tonsils over in the corner.

Totally never did that myself, nuh-uh.

They are real. And sometimes they still happen for work outings in some cities more than others.

I’m guessing the person who hasn’t seen one might live in a rural area though so they might only see something like this on a hens or bucks night

Let's party on Roblox!

🎵 Party House is in Roblox tonight 🎵

I went to parties like this all the time…

Ring doorbells and indoor cameras that stream to smart phones

Like a party with lots of people? Yes. But honestly they are way better in your 20's when people have their own places and drinking is not really an issue.

It feels like they aren't as common but I know they aren't totally gone. My Niece graduated High School 4 years ago and went to them. My Nephew graduated in May and he went to them as well.