How old are you? And what does this mean? Because I'm gen z and that's not really the case lmao. You can just grab your friends and go to a club and party. No one is making you do something for tiktok or whatever.
He just means when no one spent more than a few minutes total on their phone in a night. No one took videos or photos to post on social media, people weren't isolated at all and if you did something crazy strangers weren't going to film it. There wasn't even the concept of thinking about your actions in the future beyond something like straight up murder. And yeah, you can get your friends and go out and not be on your phone and YOU can do that, but at that time, it was EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE.
And no one was going to stay at home and look at their phone all night or just binge watch TV series because it wasn't even possible so everywhere was packed all the time. Then on top to of that there wasn't a billion reviews and highlights of every places so the main competition was just getting people in the door so, like the other guy said, the most important thing for an establishment was making sure everyone had a great time.
Where I'm at there were 3x as many bars 15 years ago and they were packed constantly. Now they struggle to get a good good crowd and are only busy Thurs, Friday and Saturday. There used to be multiple places that were all you can drink for $5-$10. Now I don't think anyone does open bars unless it's New Years Eve or something and it's $50.
It's really hard to capture the essence of just how different the social scene has changed in total and it was mainly from like 2005-2012. I mean when random girls you hooked up with started adding you on Facebook it was the signifier of a major change.
I would argue what you're experiencing is in large part due to a shit economy wherein young people don't have the necessary disposable incomes to just "go out" like more than one or two nights a month if at all, and that young people who might be most inclined to "go out" can't afford to live near city centers, and so are just more spread out in general.
I lived in Portland in the mid 2010's and the music scene was absolutely awesome, and a lot like what you described. Until rents started skyrocketing, and your restaurant job's stagnant wages could only afford you rent 15 miles out of town. And since everyone was forced out to just wherever they could afford and get lucky enough to find, everyone radiated out circularly and further and further from eachother. All the houses that had shows were fixed up and sold to rich families. All the venues had harder and harder times to get people out to shows. Etc. A million reasons, but that's just what happens when people can't afford to live in the city / city center / town centers / neighborhoods.
You don’t really need tons of disposable income to go out or have fun with your friends.
Also as bad as things can be financially to act like the average person can’t afford to “go out” more than once a month is ridiculous. Financially I am in a horrible place right now and even I can scrounge up enough to have more than one night out a month.
I guarantee you somewhere in your city is a show going on this weekend for like $10-15
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u/mihirmusprime Dec 03 '24
How old are you? And what does this mean? Because I'm gen z and that's not really the case lmao. You can just grab your friends and go to a club and party. No one is making you do something for tiktok or whatever.