Americans Don't Party Enough. Here's How To Change That.
In our increasingly antisocial world, the best way to bring people together is a good party. This weekend, if possible.

No one wants to party anymore. Between 2003 and 2024, time spent attending or hosting social events decreased by 50 percent among Americans aged 15 and older, according to the American Time Use Survey. The youngest were most affected: for those aged 15 to 24, the decline was a staggering 69 percent. For that age group, face-to-face socialization of any kind has decreased by 35 percent over the past two decades.
The decline in partying among the young was perhaps summarized best by a recent Reddit post, in which a Gen Z user took to the Gen X-focused subreddit to ask if house party scenes from 1990s and 2000s teen movies were accurate. "Im Gen Z and have never been to anything like this," they wrote. "So was this a thing that just doesn't happen anymore, or is it just Hollywood trying to make me hate my life more." The post gained more than ten thousand upvotes, and a flurry of reminiscing about '90s-era high school ragers mixed with shock that few modern young people seem to have these experiences.
As a Gen Zer, I've felt this decline firsthand. I didn't go to any parties in high school, and only heard about one ever happening (I, being an uptight dork, was wisely not invited.) Despite being a lifelong 99th-percentile extrovert, I arrived at college somewhat disappointed that I was attending a notorious party school. Roof-shaking, lite beer-fueled parties, to me, seemed essentially anti-intellectual—populated by meathead frat bros and girls who wore crop tops in February, presumably because they had yet to discover feminism.
Experience swiftly changed my mind. But right as I was beginning to flex my partying muscles, COVID-19 strangled my aspirations. I came out of lockdown with a rabid desire to make up for lost time, and ever since, I've thrown parties with an ideological fervor. Within the past year, I've thrown 15 full-blown house parties with upwards of two dozen guests, and just as many smaller dinner parties or other gatherings with an average of 10 or so friends.
According to Partiful, the app that I use to organize most of my events, I was in the top 0.7 percent of party hosts for 2024. And my guest list keeps growing. When I hit it off with someone, one of the first things I ask them is whether they want to come to my next party. As a result, when I threw a party celebrating my recent book deal last month, 46 people came, packing my 900-square-foot townhouse to the gills.
But, much to my chagrin, I'm the only regular party thrower I know. When I look back at parties I've attended in the past year, almost all are birthday parties—few people I know want to throw a party for the sake of throwing one. I have a healthy friend group full of people who like to socialize, but not many want to host parties themselves.
The sharp decline in high school parties has a few obvious culprits, namely an increase in parental surveillance (how would a teenager even attempt a clandestine house party in the era of Ring cameras and Life360?) But it's less clear why so many people in my age group—the recent college grads who, aside from those still living at home to save money, are perfectly free to party where and how they please—are forgoing parties.
Here's one underrated factor: For years, popular culture has been permeated with deeply anti-party sentiment—an attitude that framed those eager to socialize as obnoxious and valorized staying at home alone. During my 2010s teenhood, Buzzfeed listicles and viral Tumblr posts reminded readers that introverts are tortured by small talk and portrayed extroverts as essentially mindless troglodytes. Online, reams of memes revel in canceling plans and spending a Saturday night in ones pajamas and glued to Netflix. COVID-19 only made things worse. Lockdowns got millions of people out of the habit of regular, in-person social interaction. And the ultra-introverts suddenly had a moral justification for their unwillingness to socialize.
Adding to the problem, college and high school students, in particular, were often subjected to strict social distancing and masking rules long after most businesses returned to normal. For example, the last place I was ever required to wear a mask was a university classroom. The effects were predictable. According to a 2023 poll, 18- to 29-year-olds were as likely to be lonely in February 2023 as the average adult was during the height of the pandemic in December 2020.
But all hope is not lost. If my case is any proof, partying is a teachable skill. You might not be a party person, and the idea of having a house full of revelers might sound daunting, expensive, or mathematically improbable. When I recently told an acquaintance I had invited 100 people to a party, he replied, "I don't even know a hundred people," which, is fair—but I promise, it can be accomplished. The best way to reverse the steady social decline gripping American life is to throw a good party, next weekend, if possible.
So, as a master party thrower, here's my advice.
First, a theme is always a good idea. Themes add an extra layer of fun and levity to a gathering and turn a casual hangout into an event. Food-based themes are simple to execute. Reason editor Liz Wolfe has hosted parties revolving around martinis, paella, and crab dishes. Costume parties are some of my favorites, and I've held a toga party, a Jane Austen-themed garden party, and several Drunk History parties over the years. PowerPoint parties, which require guests to deliver a humorous PowerPoint presentation, have become popular and are especially good for smaller groups. But themes are only limited by your imagination: a few years ago, I attended a party for the Feast of the Annunciation, complete with an "It's A Boy!" sign and amusingly ChatGPT-generated drinks inspired by different Marian apparitions.
Along those lines, putting a little extra effort into the details always pays off. Cheap streamers from Amazon automatically make a gathering feel more like a party. A tablecloth similarly elevates a dingy group-house table. I like to serve cocktails at my parties, and I always have a handmade menu, complete with little doodles of the drinks I'm serving.
Next, don't make people bring their own booze. BYOB strips so much hospitality and warmth from hosting, and indicates that you didn't feel like putting much effort into planning. BYOB is also just annoying. If I'm invited to a BYOB party, I am immediately less likely to attend. It's perfectly acceptable to welcome contributions—I certainly never say no when someone wants to bring a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer—but no one likes feeling like they have to pay their way.
Finally, encourage guests to bring plus-ones. Especially if you have a smaller social circle, letting people bring their friends lessens some of the discomfort that comes from attending a party where the host is the only person you know. I always say yes when people ask to bring a friend, and many of those people have become my friends in turn, so it's a win-win.
Now, more than a few readers will counter that hosting is expensive. And sure, my habit of throwing cocktail parties for 46 people is far from the cheapest way to socialize. But you can host people even on a budget. In college, I held a position in my debating society that essentially boiled down to furnishing alcohol to minors from my dorm room during meetings. Being the thrifty 21-year-old I was, I prepared by buying two handles of the cheapest liquor money could buy, several 2-liter bottles of Kroger brand soda, and two 24-packs of PBR. So yes, even the broke or stingy can still throw down.
Though I am inclined to recommend a middle ground here (perhaps one more appropriate for those no longer living in dorm rooms). Punch is a perennial, low-cost way to whip up a huge amount of booze. Reason editor Peter Suderman has a recipe for a one-dollar Old Fashioned that you could pretty easily batch for a crowd. One of my favorite easy ways to serve drinks for a big group is to set up a gin and tonic station with lime wedges and ice ready to go. And one of my college roommates makes a literal bucket of frozen margaritas whenever she hosts.
But, no matter how you do it, the important thing is that you throw a party. In our increasingly isolated, antisocial world, a good party is magical. It's a place where time stops for a moment, when all that exists is your laughing friends, the drink in your hand, and whatever song is next on the playlist. The more of those moments we can create, the better.
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Experience swiftly changed my mind.
Not enough. Writing an essay on how to party instead of just partying. Turn off your brain, partying isn't hard or anything you need to think about other then do we have booze. Rest will follow and if your brains on, you'll be thinking instead of slipping sliding down a beer soaked tarp with an ice luge waiting at the end.
“But the man who by such devices is the more imprisoned within a workaday world now made amusing no longer misses real festivity; he does not notice the emptiness. And thus he even stops grieving over his loss – and the loss thereby is finally sealed.”
― Josef Pieper, In Tune With The World
do they make ice beer any more
Why would anyone woke ever want to party and risk offending some utter stranger, or being offended by an utter stranger, or hosting a party of utter strangers at risk of offending each other and being offended just for the sake of being offended?
Just as Disney's Steamboat Willie copyright fence worked both ways, in locking themselves out of innovation, so too have the woke found out the hard way (whether they realize it or not) that society is created by the thick-skinned who relish meeting strangers and learning, not the thin-skinned fragiles who cower in safe spaces.
My heart does not bleed in the slightest.
Cocktail parties are the most important thing.
Yeah, because after enough cocktails your skin color changes...sometimes to blue.
Well the Beastie Boys nailed this down decades ago. If protecting your god given right to party requires violence, so be it.
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For years, popular culture has been permeated with deeply anti-party sentiment—an attitude that framed those eager to socialize as obnoxious and valorized staying at home alone.
Confuses anti-drinking sentiment with anti-party sentiment. Ahead of that curve was anti-casual-sex sentiment.
Basically, party culture has gone back to the way it was 60+ years ago with an overlay of long-term decline in boozing. Preceding generations had a higher baseline of booze tolerance, partying or otherwise, and that slow downtrend simply continued but was overlain on a spike of end-of-the-world partying that more or less suffused the Cold War era. People still party, but no longer emerge with hangovers and VD.
Plus, demographics mean there are simply fewer people around in the ages the reporter focused on. Where you gonna get the people to fill up a house for the parties of yore?
But can't we just party like it's 1999?
...
When I recently told an acquaintance I had invited 100 people to a party, he replied, "I don't even know a hundred people,"
Heh. About 30 years ago I was a participant in a dial-in BBS whose host turned out to be in my neighborhood. He announced The Belasco Blast, an open party invitation. I responded, "You know, there's some wise guy inviting every stranger to your place for a party," to which Howard Belasco assured me it was legit, and that he hosted it every year. I did attend, had a good time, but by the next year he'd moved away.
I moved where I am now 9 years ago, and the following July 4 noticed someone nearby shooting a lot of fireworks. Talked to the crowd, found out it's his birthday and he does this barbecue, and got invited, so now I'm a regular for that too. Family, friends, neighbors...and this year he has a bunch of new neighbors and wondered how they'd react.
...
OK this time?
Say, speaking of block quoting, what ever happened to block parties? Used to see them in NYC, but can't recall any this century.
Too many shootings
THe main point about partying is it be an affirmation of something or someone. I like to meet new people but I don't party AT ALL with people of ,shall we say, different First Principles.
[ The right people will know exactly what I refer to ]
It’s important to stay in a bubble.
WE are all in a bubble,larger or smaller. Important to be in a bubble you can live in.
Shit. So I guess I'm not a right person. I end up having conversations with people I don't agree with all the time. It's actually a lot of fun. If you can't defend your first principles maybe you should rethink how you reached those conclusions.
My first principle is "don't shoot or stab people while at my party." If people don't agree with that, I don't invite them.
Of course, as Aristotle SHOWED, a first principle is called a first principle because it defends other things and itself can't be defended.
In Logic if you can defend it, it is by definition NOT A FIRST PRINCIPLE 🙂
"In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption."
Okay , you'll be late for that party....
No you represent the open mind that never closes on anything . Anyone can be your friend because you stand for nothing and accept everything.
I think the biggest help in throwing house parties is a significant other who's into your friends or vice versa. Hard to host and enjoy your own party if you're doing it all yourself.
OK, here's a big divide: music — soft enough (or none at all) to allow conversation, or loud enough to require lip reading?
If my head's not banging it's not loud enough.
The first principle (since no one knows what that is) is ,Which is more enjoyable , the music or the conversation? Such questions are as we say 'self-answering'
Will pass as any possible hooking up has a far-too-high risk of a claim of rape. No pussy is worth that.
Some women of low self-esteem would feel they deserve a foul-mouthed loser like you. Trust me.
Your mom did. Well, when her mouth was not otherwise occupied.
Fucking pathetic weirdo.
Blocked. Because you've posted nothing but shit in your brief time here and I do not have the time to waste on a thing like you.
Am I given to understand that campus parties are no longer "Animal House" affairs? I only remember waking up with my head in the toilet once, but I'm pretty sure that was common "back in the day."
I'm honestly at a loss as to why anyone would ever attend your parties, Emma. This is the most self-indulgent tripe masquerading as "culture" RePorTiNg I've ever read.
"I" - 27 times.
"My" - 26 times.
Yeah but Bill Kristol is cool with the Reason kids, so you might meet him!
LMAO.
Why we don't party anymore, let us count the reasons:
- Alcohol Liability, especially zero tolerance BAC if driving
- Social Offense Liability
- Anti-Smoking & Anti-Vaping Zealotry
- Sexual Harassment Liability
- Underage Liability (serving, hitting on)
- Parents think its okay to bring babies/toddlers to
- Hosting Liability - anyone at the party gets out of hand, you'll find yourself in trouble with the law or a lawsuit
And, if you're above about 30, with who? Most people over 30 have married and are busy and boring as hell with matters surrounding their kids. Most of the rest who are unmarried are either boring as hell with their careers or that way because their life turned out to be one or two steps away from being featured in an episode of Cops.
Logic says you yourself are married or not married , X or not-X, so from what you said , YOU yourself are unable to party. Sorry, logic never leaves one
My buds from the woodchipper club get together every so often.
Mine too. During Pride Month.
Partying with Reason staff would be cool because I might meet...Bill Kristol!
Fuck off leftistist scum.
If social gatherings were like those in the 1940s / 1950s then we need more of them, yes, but today's "parties" amongst people under 40 years of age are simply an excuse for mayhem, drug abuse and alcohol poisoning. American culture has become debauched and deranged to its core.
The whiskey ain’t gonna drink itself.
The seeds were sown when the Republicans raised the drinking age in the late 80s. It killed the open party atmosphere, but it did lead to the problem of binge drinking in private.
Maybe that whole democrat woke thing had something to do with it.