Partying at Beloit College. When you hear those words, what do you think of? I personally think about how tiny our campus is, how lame parties have become, and how it’s not the college party scene anyone wants. And I think I’m not alone in feeling this, but we all have a bigger role to play in this feeling than we want to admit.
I know that everyone at Beloit is full of vague statements about things being better in the past, but I’m here to say it again. Back in my freshman year, parties used to be awesome. Well, awesome is maybe an overstatement for sweaty dancing in an old house, but they at least used to be populated. It was pretty much guaranteed that if you went to a party in the midnight to 1 a.m. range, it was going to be full of people, all drunk, sweaty, in fun outfits, jumping around to whatever classic frat party music was being played. This went for parties thrown by basically any organization.
Saying this now, that sounds genuinely crazy because I feel like at this point, Beloit gets one really populated party per semester, and it’s probably the one that happens surrounding a holiday. Even then, there is a lot more standing around and a lot less dancing.
All of this begs the question: Why?
I suspect a couple of reasons. The first is that bad Beloit College parties have now become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If even committed and excited potential partygoers are sure that this week’s Saturday night party is going to be lame, because they have no evidence to the contrary, they will be less motivated to power through and go.
Maybe it’s cold out, and you don’t want to walk through the cold to a party that probably won’t be good, so why even bother? Or maybe you’re feeling tired, or have a lot of homework, or don’t have a good outfit. All of these could be overcome for an exciting, awesome party, but to try to power through only for something that ends up being you and your three friends awkwardly dancing in a mostly empty room, deciding when to call it quits and leave? Not worth it.
The second reason goes deeper and further than Beloit College. Across the board, our generation parties less. In a fellow student newspaper, The Post at Ohio University, author Nyla Gilbert writes about several reasons why Gen Z, in general, is partying less.
These reasons range from “the decline in alcohol consumption” that is often seen as a major factor behind the decline in partying overall, because so much of party culture in the past has been in some way tied to drinking, to the cost of partying in general. “Partying is no longer affordable for many, nor is it affordable for the establishments that hold them. Popular, even iconic, nightclubs have closed due to the operational costs being unmanageable. The death of party spaces has been steadily on the rise for the past five years.”
Another major factor is how lonely younger people are today, on average. A Substack article by Derek Thompson titled “The Death of Partying in the U.S.A. – and Why It Matters” discusses this topic, saying, “At a time of surging anxiety and mental distress, Americans spend more time alone today than in any period in recorded history. Face-to-face socializing has plummeted in the last two decades by about 20 percent. For unmarried men and people younger than 25, the decline exceeds 35 percent, which might explain why these groups seem to have fewer friends than ever.” This loneliness is both a symptom and a factor, trapping people in a place of not wanting to go out due to fewer close friends to go out with, but then preventing people from making friends by going out.
At the end of the day, the problem has trapped all of us in a cycle of bad parties leading to less partying, which then leads to bad parties. We need to take the party scene back. Buck up, gather your friends and acquaintances, take that shot (or don’t if you really don’t want to), put on a fun outfit, and get your butt to this week’s lame campus party. The only way they become less lame is if you ignore all the reasons not to go out, show up, and have a god damn good time.
Featured image: Betty Cavicchia’28
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