Comment by VLM

Three issues that are important but nobody wants to discuss (why?):

Inflation in the cost of law enforcement. As an X-er I received some truly epic paint-peeling flame-throwing "angry dad-style" lectures from cops and one time I got caught and my parents were called and I paid a municipal citation (not a misdemeanor or felony) equivalent to thirteen hours of minimum wage labor (essentially, one teenage afterschool weekly paycheck...). Now a days it would be kinder if the cops just shot the kid, as they will lose their license semi-permanently which means no job and no programmed activities and no sports, forbidden from joining the military (note the GI Bill paid for my college), lose their security clearance if they are already in the .mil, expelled from college / retract admission, suspended from school, that means no college diploma, no diploma as a job ticket to get one of the very few remaining "good jobs" etc. Seems a little inflated of a punishment over "a couple beers" People like discussing the inflation rate of real estate, lack of inflation in wages, but they should discuss inflation in the punishment for having a few drinks. A general cultural trend toward absolutism where everything thats permitted is mandatory and everything thats not permitted has no limit to the resulting punishment to prevent it. Toe the line precisely, or suffer the full weight of the law, and the line does not include partying, so you'd be crazy to do that.

"In the old days" the cultural expectation was everyone works 9-5. No one is allowed that anymore, they either work 24x7 as servants on call to their feudalistic owner, or have weird hours and gig economy jobs. Most people cannot "drop by after work around 6 for a beer". Can you drink at work? I can't. Can you go to work drunk? I can't. Some people, maybe most people, are not allowed to ever be "not at work". You're not even allowed to sleep if your boss feels like texting you; you surely can't get drunk at a friends house without getting fired. Don't worry that beer (or ten) will only cost you a one year job search to get a new job. When everyone is under house arrest by their employer, nobody parties.

There's a long tradition in the USA of trashing a proper name and the following generation abandons it while doing the same thing under a new name. Every generation before gen-x loved going to malls, then a long indoctrination campaign to use security forces and police to "keep those annoying teenage kids out of malls" started in the 1980s, and here I am in the 2020s and I STILL will not go to the mall because of heavy handed security, and my generation and younger is killing the malls because malls hate me because I was once a teen that hung out at the mall a lifetime ago. So, WRT parties, post "Animal House" movie era, a party means vandalism, drunk driving accidents, police arrests, visiting the ER for alcohol (or other) intoxication, etc. The marketing has been successful and my generation and younger no longer "attend parties". We "hike at the park" or "tailgate at the (kids?) sport event" or "hang out at the festival" or "board game night" doing EXACTLY what we did when people partied, but for marketing reasons we never party anymore, its a "tailgate" sporting event. This makes the article pretty weak sauce, an entire article about doing search and replace in a word processor for "party" and "board game night" is not a significant lifestyle change.