House Parties Died When We Became Too Online

This thought process began when I was watching Clueless in my Romantic Writers class. I grew up loving every part of that movie, but the house party scene in the Valley has had a grip on me for the past decade. From the outfits to the dancing and music, the vocabulary, everything was so quintessentially ‘90s. Of course, I mainly thought that because of the setting. Julia Stiles became the icon she is largely because of her dancing scene in 10 Things I Hate About You, where she is rocking a pair of low-rise pants and the perfect amount of exposed stomach on top of the dining room table, swaying to the music in the most confident way to ten-year-old me. This is what it meant to grow up!

House parties have deteriorated into bonfires and half-assed attempts at “functions.” I mean, I myself am included in this unfortunate societal downfall, as I host and go to “poker nights” and only throw birthday and holiday parties when the time calls for it. The first time I went to something I could call a house party was a prom afterparty my senior year of high school. It was very fun, with lots of people and music and space, but there was no dancing on tables or fainting from a guy’s words. I was disappointed, to say the least.

In 2016, house parties were so popular there was literally a FaceTime app named “Houseparty.” I guess one could have nothing to do with the other, but whatever. Hype House was loud and popular, and frats were ruling the game on Instagram. Everywhere you looked, someone was talking about a big party this weekend at xyz’s house.

Euphoria tried to bring it back in 2019, right as COVID-19 hit the world with a heavy lockdown. Everyone still thought their reality wouldn’t change for long at that point and were making plans about how to celebrate the same way Euphoriacharacters did. However, this would quickly change as COVID-19 became the overwhelming outbreak that it was.

If COVID is to blame for the disappearance of the house party, then I need to flesh out why. I get that people had to relatively stay locked in their own houses for two years, but there were multiple opportunities for social exposure during this time as well. And since then, holiday and themed parties have become an expectation for a girl in her mid-twenties, as long as it’s during the day or has a Reason. This was a major shift in American culture, especially when it came to parties and gatherings. It completely changed the social standard from an open-door policy to very locked-down households.

My question is: what caused this change in the social expectation of what a party should be? Was it nothing more than a shift in the way society communicates with each other in the digital age? Is it because everyone stayed home for two years and then forgot how to party? Or became scared of what could happen if they did?

I miss (read: “miss”) the times when the rich guy could open up his doors on a Friday night and the entire street would walk in to the sound of music. I miss hearing about awesome DJ sets and seeing my celebrity icons dancing on diving boards and being crowd-surfed in a kitchen. When there was no need to find a reason to throw a party other than wanting to have a good time. Now, we have to worry about the war going on. There are many things that have changed in American society between 2016 and 2026, most of which are not for the better. However, all of these things have affected the topic at hand: why house parties disappeared. Expectations of other people and how they contribute to the world have become standards pushed through social media and news outlets. Everyone needs to be doing their part! When does this leave time to party?

Another aspect of society that has shifted with my generation (Gen Z) is that no one is drinking or having sex. The rates for both have decreased dramatically between this generation and the last, with many explanations available. For one, more people are becoming religious and holding themselves and others to a purity standard. The manosphere is another cause for the lack of sex in my generation of men, as it has perpetuated horrible, violent, and harmful ideas to many young, impressionable guys through social media and chatrooms.

This has really affected how much people are “partying” in general, let alone throwing their own parties at home. While this statistical change is great health-wise, the causes of it are not healthy and only lead to more harmful ways of thinking. Maybe one day we as a society will be able to do those things for the right reasons.

Until then, I want to fucking party.

Now, as a marketing expert in the making, I obviously am looking at this for a solution. House parties need a rebrand. They can no longer be just drinking in your parents’ basement, because everyone lives in apartments. No more using the garage, because everyone is already on the fire escape.

To bring back the house party, it has to become something new, something modern that will fit into the lives of Gen Z.

A house party nowadays has to have Something to Offer. There needs to be free drinks, a famous person there, or a cool DJ. This is how you bring back the house party. By creating the third space again in the shape of the house party, inherently you are creating a space for creative freedom and connection. Add drinking and loud music to that, and you have a classic party. America specifically has destroyed every third space for its youth and then put more regulations on them until they have no options for recreation that are free. This does nothing but turn young people toward drugs, drinking, and illegal activities. Some would argue this seems like a purposeful trigger of events that leads to more young (POC) people in the prison system and broke at a young age.

But I won’t yet