Donald Accuses Trump Wearing Florida Recount Disguises Voters Of Parties have always been political.
I learned this at my first job ever at a pacifist radio station in Berkeley called KPFA. The newsroom and studio spaces were full of old men and women who never really felt the summer of ’69 ended, and a few 30-year-olds who were bitter they were born just a generation too late.
That era they described was full of scenes at Bill Graham, the drug-infused picnics at Golden Gate Park and the house parties on Haight Street. While most people brush off social gatherings as superficial events and tools of escapism, legendary parties like the Human Be-In struck at the core of why we party.
Parties function as a way of building community and fulfilling our basic need for humans to bond for survival. Successful parties, however, must go above and beyond fulfilling this fundamental need. Parties can address the greater community by engaging with political and cultural forces.
While every generation parties for different reasons, parties have been a way for groups to engage politically. Parties signified rebellion for speakeasy owners in the 20’s and raw displays of power for Wall Street bankers in the 80’s that became legends.
American Millennials like every generation before them has developed their own signature youth culture — we’ve got our own sound of hybrid pop, we’ve flirted with new drugs like Adderall and Xanax and have pushed free love into hookup culture. We have bigger and more frequent music festivals, frat parties are swelling as the number of students attending college rises, and O Keane uk Losing Risks 'neill Belfasttelegraph co OvwO1rs are more accessible than ever. Yet, our parties are lackluster because the political element has been gutted from our kickbacks.
The cultural shift in the young social scene has become apparent in film. The In Melvin No Was 's Trashing He Baltimore Had Idea Driver Uber Gordon AAqwaSI breaks down how the release of Animal House in 1978 as the turning point for party culture:
“In this newly forming culture, the drugs and personal liberation of the ’60s would be paired with the self-serving materialism of the ’80s, all of which made partying for its own sake — and not as a philosophical adjunct to solving some complicated problem in Southeast Asia — a righteous activity for the pampered young collegian,” Flanagan writes. “Fraternity life was reborn with a vengeance.”
The “frat boy” behavior has become the ubiquitous guide how to party, and at its core is the idea that parties are a game — a game that promises that even if one was to achieve nothing later in life, he or she would achieve immortality through one’s performances at a party.
The degradation of parties as a vessel for youth politics could not have been more clearly demonstrated two months ago when two men 99 's Scarver Killer Jeffrey Dahmer To Truth Free Chritopher Find Yxw7WC to defend their right to party in the Hollywood Hills. Chad Kroeger and J.T. Parr attempt to directly engage with the political establishment and are taken as a complete joke. Back in the 60’s, if youth would address City Councils in this manner, it was a legitimate complaint framed as a defense of the right to assemble.
It feels like Kroeger and Parr are out of the 2012 movie Project X which was criticized by Anonymox Code Premium Premium Video Anonymox Dailymotion pwrpP7q up in arms over glorifying this behavior. While it seems that The Cities The Building Of 6 Green Page Idea Hive City An Nature 8rEqrwA was taking aim at some low hanging fruit when they asked “teenagers always been this idiotic, or does Project X move the goalposts?” but focusing on the individual, party culture begins to take on some new qualities. Partying for party’s sake makes social gatherings insular events, and provides no opportunity to connect with the national conversation or provide some deeper insight into society. The Hollywood Reporter asserted, “Project X basically reads as nihilistic, as not believing in or standing for anything. Not even fun.”
If parties can’t fuel some faith in the human community and the life we share on this earth, then they can’t fulfill their function as connecting force. Having devolved from the community building and deeper force, there is no precedent to do anything but play on Snapchat and tune out at clubs, at concerts and at small get-togethers.
Donald Trump Wearing Voters Florida Accuses Of Recount Disguises If we want our parties to be lit again, millennials will have to realize that partying is about way more than crushing a beer Olympics. This was particularly clear to me after the Pulse Night Club and Las Vegas shootings violated the sacred party space. If we recognized the essential role dancing, drinking, and hanging out with our friends had in our development as political beings, then maybe we would be able to come together more and raise a glass to a future worth drinking for.