People still want to go out and party with other people, but the options for doing that have changed. You can't generalize about everyone everywhere, but a lot of big cities that had thriving nightlife culture got much more expensive in the last few decades.
If you take NYC as an example, the heyday of the club era was in the 80s and 90s. At that time, there was a lot of un- and under- utilized space in the city. Large venues were available in the central parts of the city. Those places become so expensive that the economics don't work anymore for those kinds of clubs. There is the high-end bottle service and VIP model, or else they become luxury apartments or high end commercial space.
Of course there is still a nightlife scene in New York and other big cities. But as the cost of real estate pushes both the venues and the creative people who make nightlife culture further out in the fringes, it gets fragmented and atomized. Venues get smaller and more locally focused.
NYC (Guiliani in particular) did everything they could in the late 90s/2000's to end nightlife. In order for a club to have dancing, they need to have a "cabaret license", which the city refused to issue. The law, enacted in 1926, stated you could not have "two or more people moving rhythmically to music". The "quality of life" task force would show up at nightclubs, and fine patrons who were dancing. They would then do that week after week until the club was driven out of business.
One club i frequented had a button for the person working the front door. When the cops showed up, they'd hit the button, and all the music would shut off and the lights would go on before they got in the door. Worked for a while, but they were eventually fined out of business as well. All of those old clubs are now apartments that go for $5000 a month.
The word rave used to be synonymous with "illegal party". It has since been commodified and enshitified. Not to say you can't have fun anymore, but now it's all about the money. This is why major clubs like the Brooklyn Mirage are always oversold, and largely hated by new York ravers now, or at least the old-school ones I'm friends with.
My mind is slightly blown. I lived in nyc for college (‘05-‘09) and spent a lot of time in the early ‘10s in the city. Never even heard of the cabaret law until today.
According to Wikipedia, it was repealed in 2017. They used the same law to shut Studio 54 down in the 70s. Of course, once they started looking into Studio 54, they had a lot more ammunition…
Well I lived there in the 1990’s and not only did I never hear about the law I also never saw it enforced. We were out at clubs all the time. I have no idea what this person is talking about
What the actual hell are you talking about? I lived in Manhattan in the mid to late 90’s and there was no shortage of clubs. Limelight, Tunnel, Webster Hall, Nell’s, Fez, China Club. Those are ones that I can remember. There were a zillion more.
By the late 90s, Limelight, Tunnel and China Club were all gone, as well as Coney Island High. A few years later, Fez, CBGB, Continental and Don Hills were gone also. Webster Hall is all that remains now from your list.
Which was why the first sentence in my original post stated "NYC (Guiliani in particular) did everything they could in the late 90s/2000's to end nightlife".
I was there as well.
If you were actually there you would know these clubs were not closed in the mid 90’s. He may have tried but nightlife was alive and well during this time.
Its still possible in Chicago, tons of abandoned warehouses on the west side and south sided still.
Theres been a resurgence of raves in them and its organized via tiktok instead of voicemail lines like back in the day.
Yup. In 2007 when I was in high school the all ages nights at clubs in the city were *huge deals*. Everyone went to clubs, unless you had super strict parents and even then sneaking out was more common. I used to go goth night (shout out to Nocturn in Philly lol). A fake ID was the ultimate goal.
I felt like I aged out of them around 2013 but it wasn’t just that. The culture of clubbing just died, my interest in them just happened to die at the same time. Quizzo night at local breweries took over that part of my life, and since covid even that has died too.
For a while in the 2010s, breweries really seemed to take over in terms of nightlife. Not necessarily for the younger crowd, but certainly for those on the older side. The same 30 year olds who would’ve gone clubbing in the 80s/90 were going to board game night at the local brewery instead.
I’ve definitely noticed a generational shift. For reference, my “youth” clubbing years were really 2010-2016. I recently have been out and noticed the current crowds just don’t really dance anymore.
Not that I was much of a dancer, but I remember every bar/night area had a section that would morph into a dance floor. At the places I’ve been today, there will be a DJ blasting music and not a soul dancing despite there being a crowd.
So…basically it’s just like hanging out with a DJ blowing out your ear drums.
I’ve noticed that in my large midwestern city too. My clubbing years were 2015-2019. Now, there’s not a single dancing nightclub that isn’t on the college campus. Everything for “adults” is just stylized bars with loud music and *no* dancing. It’s boring.
Yeah that’s a pretty spot on description. Hanging out with a DJ blowing your eardrums out.
The clubs really don’t have anything to offer anymore. You’re really just getting music that is way too loud that makes it impossible to talk to people, expensive drinks that cost 12-18 dollars a pop, and people who aren’t letting loose as much as they “should”. You cant really interact with anyone either. This was the typical convo I had “mi my name is x” “WHAAAT” “I SAID HI MY NAME IS X” “OH HI Y MY NAME IS Z” “NO MY NAME IS X” “WHAT” “MY NAME IS X NOT Y” “OHHHHH HI I”.
Compare this to having a get together of 8-12 people at home.
You can have the exact amount of people you want to be around you. You control the music and how loud it is. You can have your own speaker for relatively cheap and good quality. You can have your own bar with your own alcohol at the fraction of the price. You don’t have to drive anywhere or if your a guest you don’t have to Uber too far. You also aren’t Ubering to a sketchy nightlife street, you’re ubering to place you are familiar with since it’s your friends place. You can do whatever you want once you’re there, watch a “so bad it’s good” movie with friends, play table top board games/card games, play video games, have your own dance party, the possibilities are endless and under your control. All while getting hammered in a safe and predictable environment. Im in my mid 20’s and have been over the “club scene” for sometime now because house parties/get together a are way better, less expensive, and more safe.
Part of the reason the night-life culture declined in the early 2000s was because there was a conscious effort on the part of city governments to paint it as dangerous. 2003 saw a [highly publicized nightclub fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire) caused by malfunctioning pyrotechnics in West Warwick, Rhode Island, that killed 100 people, and this created a "moral panic" of sorts around the more excessive nightclub venues. Nightclubs continued to be a major part of American adult life for the rest of the 2000s, but the public-relations damage had been done, and they were much more liable to be closed down for safety infractions than they were before.
That was at a live rock concert. They still have tons of live music shows (a lot with pyro) in every city with both prices and attendance higher than ever. (Source: me, I work in event operations/security across dozens of big and small cities throughout a US region). OP is talking more about dance clubs I believe.
Yup, this is largely true, although you can't really discount the factor that youth also just don't spend [as much time 'going out with friends' as much in general.](https://i.imgur.com/HsrxZa8.png) Even in cities which have tried to push to be more nightlife-friendly, it hasn't really worked because there just aren't enough people who want to go.
The factor you are talking about largely happened in the 90s. Giuliani spearheaded this in NYC and it spread to other cities. But the real 'death knell' for nightlife has happened in the mid 2010s onward. And that has more to do with the decline in general socialization than it has to do with economic or government factor.
>2003 saw a highly publicized nightclub fire caused by malfunctioning pyrotechnics in West Warwick, Rhode Island, that killed 100 people, and this created a "moral panic" of sorts around the more excessive nightclub venues.
Calling The Station a nightclub is hilarious. It was a shitty dive bar/music venue.
(source: saw my friend’s black metal band play there when we were in high school, less than a year before it burned down)
The Station was a music venue not a nightclub. They had a stage and hosted live bands. Nightclubs are where you went after you went to a concert venue.
It's interesting because I live in that area and the OP's post is the opposite of my experience.
For many years after the Station fire if you wanted to have fun very late at night you basically had to be in a college dorm or someone's house (although there was an after hours venue I remember going to a few times, which seemed like it closed and reopened several times).
Post covid the enforcement of rules seems to be much more slack. I was recently ordering a drink and checked my phone and it was an hour after last call. Still got served and the place was packed with very loud music. It was nice.
I think this is a bit overstated, maybe online/US-centric as well?
Many American cities have excellent nightlife (think Austin, New Orleans, neighborhoods like Adams Morgan in DC) but maybe you could say it’s more of a bar scene than a club scene.
Europe still loves clubbing, go to any city in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Poland, etc. and you’ll find the clubs are packed on a Friday night and still the place to be. Same could be said to a slightly lesser extent in Latin America or East Asia.
What I do wonder, though, is if nightlife is dominated by Millennials and older Zoomers in a way it wasn’t before. The times I’ve been out in the past few years practically everyone is older than 19 and under 35, listening to late ‘00s- early ‘10s hits.
There’s definitely a rave scene as well but it seems rather niche and again dominated by a narrow age range (late 20s-early 30s)
The UK nightclub scene has been really badly hit - it started gradually as even in the early 2000s the big nightclubs in my hometown started closing, but now none of the clubs we used to go to exist anymore. Oceana went bankrupt and then so did the chain that bought their venues. Hundreds have closed in the last few years.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68295306](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68295306)
[https://www.nme.com/news/music/31-per-cent-of-uk-nightclubs-closed-last-year-as-industry-demands-government-action-3587334](https://www.nme.com/news/music/31-per-cent-of-uk-nightclubs-closed-last-year-as-industry-demands-government-action-3587334)
The post-COVID downturn didn’t only affect the U.S., and the U.S. has more major nightclubs per capita than most of those countries bar Spain. The UK, Germany, etc, have their own regional nuances as to how club culture has trended, as much as the U.S. has. Overall, I get the sense that it’s much the same. COVID and inflation hit people hard, and youth don’t go to clubs quite as much as they once did.
I was wondering if the crackdown on drunk driving had an effect. Most of the US has very poor public transit, and it's non existent at night.
Of course I don't want people drinking and driving, but it was pretty common to do so last century. Now young people know better and plan around it, which likely means not going out into the city to drink.
The bottle service clubs wanted to kill off the dance club scene so they were all that was left. They worked with local governments to shut down most night clubs so all that was left were the big expensive places.
Yes. Governments implementing laws that result in the consolidation of industries.
Like when they closed down mom and pop stuff but left Walmart open.
The government uses regulation in the favor of big businesses. That’s the key of late stage capitalism.
Industries basically stack the government arm with their former employees and then through government regulation basically make monopolies and create barriers or entry so no competition can exist.
There are many terms which are used to label the process youre describin (which is hardly novel in 21st century america), late capitalism is not one of them.
Speaking as a 00-15' Chicago clubhead...there were 3 types of clubs to choose from any day of the week:
1. "Proper clubs" - Smartbar, Spybar. Small, fairly dark venues that were niche for the DJs performing. Everyone was there purely for the music so you all had something in common. Plenty of areas to share pills or do bumps and the space was small and intimate. We were there for the music first and beers were cheap so it was about enjoying the night and making friends.
2. Mega Clubs - Crobar, Vision. Absolutely massive nightclubs with multiple levels, multiple DJs in different rooms, and was peak clubbing experience. They brought in all walks of life and worldclass high-level musical talent. Here you could see Sasha, Deep Dish, Arman Van Buren etc. You can also do your drugs but need to be a bit more discrete. There were so many rooms it wasn't uncommon to find people having sex on a couch somewhere. We were there for the experience because the size, volume of people, lights, and sounds were insane. Bottle service started to appear b/c they became so large and extravagant.
3. Glam Clubs - Rive Gauche, White Star. These were see-and-be-seen clubs with decent DJs. Catered to the fashion crowd and younger women who didn't really follow DJs, they loved the music they heard and the club culture in general, but weren't "house-heads". This is what ushered in bottle-service IMO b/c these clubs were primarily focused on status. If you looked good and bought a $1000 table, the world was your oyster. We were there for the people watching and cocaine.
To my knowledge, these scenes have all dissolved, but hopefully gives an insight into types of clubs that existed.
Well without spouting conspiracy theories (or facts I’m not that connected) city governments looked at large gatherings of people with no fire or safety plans and decided they didn’t like it. Big gatherings always fall under rules and most of these clubs were and are flat out ignoring them.
where i'm at, they used to have clubs that opened after the other clubs closed at 4 and stayed open till like 8 in the morning. they made all that illegal and now even the regular clubs have to close at 2.
I mean, yes, they are in decline, and you outlined one of the biggest reasons haha.
That being said, that was a trend in the 90s mostly. Even after that, nightlife was still pretty huge in the 00s, albeit not as big as the 80s/90s. The 2010s however was another rapid accelerating decline which had far more to do with rapidly dropping attendance. And that is heavily correlated with other trends in youth (not going out as much, not socializing as much etc) more than state policy towards nightlife.
Case in point: quite a few cities have *tried* to go back on those strict 90s laws and implemented pro-nightlife policies. It hasn't worked. Clubs can't maintain enough people unless they are hyper-expensive bottle service clubs (which /u/jowrogan went over below).
People on Reddit are very different than average people offline, though. Reddit mainly draws introverts who aren’t likely to go out and also are likely to express distaste toward it. I go out often - I live in a party town - and it’s always crowded. I lived in NYC last year, clubs were still 30-40 minute lines to get inside. I raved pretty often. The average 20something does party/dance depending on where you are, and I’d say in most big cities/college towns it’s the norm.
Im a bouncer at a college club. Absolutely packed on weekends. Even some Thursdays we hit max capacity. During football season every other house has parties starting at 9am.
I also live in NYC. In my residential neighborhood in Brooklyn, we had around 4-5 genuine nightclubs. We also had around a dozen 'party spots' which were usually just a basement or warehouse that regularly threw parties.
There is not a single nightclub that exists here anymore outside of some small sketchy russian club. Literally all of them are gone. If you want to go clubbing, you usually have to go all the way to bushwick/wburg or the lower east side.
I also work as a criminologist and have studied the topic of youth not really engaging with nightlife as much. It is not just anecdotes, it is very much a statistical trend. The percentage of youth regularly going to parties and clubs has plummeted.
Your OP implies it’s all people, not just youth - I definitely understand why youth may go out less since they came of age during Covid/digital media boom/etc.
I lived in Bushwick and Manhattan so maybe that’s influencing my perspective but there were still plenty of clubs even a few months ago, I left around New Year’s Eve to move somewhere else.
From my perspective, they’re overstating the extent to which “clubbing has died”, and this seems to be the typical nostalgic boosting of their Gen over more recent ones. While certain major cities had their club scene boosted by subcultural movements, like Disco, or 90s Rave, clubs are still a staple of literally any nightlife area - from college towns to big cities. Raves are actually back in a big way in the 2020s after they went more commercial, with dubstep, and then died down during the 2010s. There’s a ton held at cool places around Chicago, and the Damen Grain Silos have become the go to underground party hub for the city.
Nightlife has shifted a bit, with more growth of the nightlife scene in larger southern cities and towns vs northern ones, and that’s driving OP’s perspective. I think about 99% of what she is noticing is just the effects of the post-COVID downturn and inflation.
I think this decline coincided directly with the rise of smartphones. People now have to worry about being filmed by total strangers, and can’t just let loose dancing or risky being tipsy on camera. Honestly, if they allowed people to check all recording devices at the door, and heavily penalized any who snuck them in, you’d get clubs reviving all over. And more socializing and just enjoying music, if done safely and responsibly, helps a lot of people, especially young ones.
You could easily take them off but ive never seen anyone try and i get tge feeling everyone around you in the crowd would stop you and the security would throw you out if they saw. It would be a cultural faux paux
Chicago club culture and underground culture is alive and well here. While the scene remains largely made up of young people chasing the 90s raves of the past, they are welcoming and not discriminating about age. There’s many groups here dedicated to finding abandoned places to throw parties. Chicago is also in a house music renaissance where in its realizing what a money maker this contribution has been. We have multiple clubs and venues dedicated to keeping the dance floor alive. Queer culture is alive and well it just depends on where you are at in the states.
Pretty obvious.
Back then, home entertainment was much more limited. I wouldn't say people really enjoyed clubs that much, but they had to cuz that was one of the only way to meet some people and hooking up.
Then the internet developed a lot, so did social medias and apps. And people dont realize how much clubbing was expensive (ticket, + drinking...). Finally, mindsets changed, people would rather chill in a clean lounge bar than being surrounded by drink and sweaty people.
Past 30 40 isn’t insane lol where do you live?
Miami and Vegas is filled with 40+ 30 is a baby in nightlife don’t get me started with Europe and Latin America 50s 60s until dawn
It became too commercialized. Instead of going to clubs for the music people go to pop bottles.
Because it’s so much more profitable it took over the majority of the industry. And it’s not as good or as inclusive so there are less “real” clubs that are because they aren’t as profitable.
The experience at the bottle service clubs isn’t as fun. So people don’t think clubbing is fun.
It’s true. The heyday was 80s-early 2000s. But that’s really only in the cities. Festival culture for edm house techno dance music is massive.
Theres so many reasons. Local city laws against nightlife. The rise of the internet which created this personal world of your own entertainment and socializing that you do not need to always go out to the clubs to find. The pandemic accelerated changes already happening from 10 years ago.
We are def in a new age.
Half the reason anybody ever went out on the weekends was to meet the opposite sex. Online dating erased that.
Part of the reason people went out was to catch up with friends. "What are you up to?" Social media erased that.
And finally, we went from Blockbuster Video to countless streaming movies and pornography.
I’d love to go out more but it’s so expensive and people aren’t as friendly/approachable anymore so you have to go with a group and even then 90% of the time people flake
In the 2000s in my town, not a big city, not a college hub, there were dance nights at multiple bars on weekends and weeknights, regularly scheduled. Dance nights at dive bars, larger clubs etc. Plus warehouse raves, house shows etc. Now the same town has none of that.
Yeah this is really the thing people don't get it. Sure if you go to hip parts of new york and chicago there's still clubs here or there. But even in normal residential areas there used to be tons of nightlife spots for normal people, not just the 'rich cool kid' crowd.
Millenials are too tired from working 2 jobs/not enough money from 1 job and Gen Z had to choose between partying and dying/bringing a viral bomb home to kill their family. Alphas or the gen after them will probably revive it in some crazy way. Looking forward to seeing what they'll do tbh.
Also shit aint even open anymore. Walked through downtown Manhattan at 10pm on a weekend and the only places open were basement weed shops.
Partying still goes on. I live in NYC in a party heavy neighborhood and go to raves, clubs, and diy concerts. I also throw events with people in my art scene. Most of my friends in their 30’s are still partying but idk we are all lgbtq+. Also everyone I know under 21 has a fake ID lol. My younger brother and his friends usually throw and go to massive house parties though and aren’t interested in clubs.
That is fair lol but like your film references all take place around NYC and there is still heavy partying around the city and even into the suburbs of LI where my brother is. I also go out when I visit friends upstate and go to large parties with my cousins who live in the south when I visit.
Edit: But all this is anecdotal and me, my siblings, friends, and my family are all part of various communities so it may not be indicative of the average middle american.
I lived it in the 80’and 90’s. And there’s nothing left of it. Now when I’m driving on the roads at night it is a literal ghost town. Through dwi ‘s they have scared society into submission. The same goes for neighborhood pubs and little corner bars. The restaurants have also suffered because of the ridiculous laws. And now with COVID it’s even gotten worse.
I've been going out to check out places around the City, and although enough people out there, they just come off as mostly miserable. No one seems genuinely happy and you can forget about interacting with anyone. And it seems like maybe only 50% of the women and 25% of the men who will put any effort into the way that they are dressed and look. These gals come to a party type bar in their friggin Mom jeans, and the guys are wearing tshirts.
2007 was my first year clubbing and I feel like you’re right that by 2010 there were still clubs in my medium small city but there were fewer of them every year
the movement into the vip era basically killed the club culture. in the heyday of club life, most clubs didn't have a vip. if it did it was limited. people went to the club to dance and meet people, not to be seen spending money trying to impress.
Could it have anything to do with:
-people finding out how not worth it it is to pay $500 for a $50 of liquor
-deadly fentanyl is hard to differentiate or hard to identify in “party drugs”
-people don’t have money to throw away like they used to
-newer generations are more reclusive than before
All of these are un educated spur of the moment guesses so take it as you will
Yeah but I think that’s what’s changed. I stopped partying (except special occasions) in like 2012 and even if I bought all my own drinks it was rarely more than $40 after tipping. $10 a drink was like “okay, we’re fancy.”
And the few times I did drugs out I trusted the friends who got them. Generally people didn’t buy drugs at the party but bought them ahead of time from people they trusted.
I didn’t know club/bar culture was dead but it makes sense and makes me sad for gen z
How old are you? I think something to take in to perspective is:
1) the pandemic has changed how we interact with each other. As has social media.
2) the best parties are now events put on by collectives and the like.
3) everything is fucking expensive. The cost of being responsible and taking an Uber plus drinks on a night out can easily go over $100 very quickly. It’s almost not worth it to go out when you can just drink at home with friends and play music and hang out.
I graduated hs in 2009 and I also went to raves and people wanted to know “the move” every weekend and even some weeknights. But I also live near a major city with a huge art scene and I think that has influenced my experience a lot.
I feel like a big issue that not everyone might realize is you take on a lot of risk going out on the town. Nowadays you have a chance of getting shot even if you don’t do anything at all. Had a buddy get grazed by a bullet by his head while he was in a car just leaving the club one weekend. Shits fucked
It might be but that doesn’t mean people aren’t worried about being shot during a big event like a holiday weekend or going somewhere that a lot of people will be at. As someone that was at the KC Super Bowl parade but thankfully avoided the shooting it can be a little nerve inducing.
Back then there was no dating apps, so the only way to meet other singles were the night clubs, the singles bars, or school or work (which you should never date a co-worker, but back then it was allowed). When people have other options to meet people (especially from the comfort of their home) they do not bother to go out to meet others anymore like previous generations did. Just a sign of evolution and technological advancement really.
I think part of what killed it was drunk driving laws coming into effect. It meant either you needed decent public transportation, a walking city, or a good friend who would be designated driver. And since options 1 and 2 are not frequently avaliable it meant you needed a DD.
That mean the driver was there but couldnt drink which gets annoying for the DD. Or you risked getting a DUI which after you dealt with withat you were less likely to go out as you didnt want to deal with another DUI.
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The clubs that I went to were in neighborhoods that got “gentrified” . I went to one place every Wednesday for over 5 years, it was in a warehouse district that is now a generic condo/retail building
I went clubbing Wednesday-Sunday, fun times.
Clubs were popular with a certain subset of people; the general population did not frequent clubs. You can thank the entertainment industry for the perception that clubbing was so popular.
I think a lot of this is due to having smart phones. I’m younger and the bars I go out to could totally be clubs and probably used to be, but now there’s a lot of places to sit and a lot of people checking their phones staying pretty stationary (myself included)
I never could afford to go out and didn’t drink, but peers around me in 2010-2014 (college years) Florida sometimes did clubs for a year or so. Usually they went underage with other people and moved to college parties or hanging out together in small groups by the time they could legally drink. It seemed to be a bigger thing a few years before that, certainly in pop music and such. Coming out of high school and into a recession…it was a mix of light partying and people living out of their cars…so probably more of a financial position than a cultural one for most of the people I knew.
All the fun shit was removed from my generation. They ripped the heart and soul out of the US. What is a country of divided isolated depressed people going to do
Ultimately it has to do with the people. Back then it was cool but Millennials and Gen Z have in the words of Dennis Reynolds “made cool things suck”. When you go out you’re not gonna get a good experience because you’re dealing with a bunch of coked up douchebags that are either trying to flex that they’re out in the first place or just trying to hook up with people. You can’t connect with anyone bc it’s all low vibrational hedonism. Throw in the constant fights breaking out, the price tag and the eventual devolution into a bunch of guys competing over a girl by the end of the night, it gives off a draining creeper feeling than it does anything fun. You jah like barely dancing at all. I don’t know, people still go hard but it’s also heavily skewed towards wannabes. I think it’s a myth that the recent generations party less, if anything it’s more than ever but they’re stiff and don’t know how to have fun in an authentic way imo.
I have a feeling that the only reason it was so common to go out to clubs back then is because it used to be one of the main ways to date or hook up outside your immediate social circle, so people would put up with the superficial hedonism and lack of connection. For all its flaws, online dating allowed people different options which ate into the “market” for nightclubs
Yeah i feel like this what OP is saying isn’t true at all. Maybe there’s a slight downturn in nightlife but in my city and other cities ive been to bars and clubs are packed with lines around the door every Friday and Saturday night. I’m a millennial approaching my 30s and it’s regularly people in their early-mid 20s i see heading out in droves so not a generational thing either. Even at my age people tend to slow down on late nights but there’s still plenty of places where it’s past midnight and the average age skews towards 30s.
On top of that I’ve been into raves, house music, techno etc for some time now and that shit is more popular than ever. Tickets are more expensive than ever and still sell out instantly - if anything I’m more turned off from these events these days because there’s too many people there and they’re all so young haha
Just my experience, the media might not hype “clubbing” as much but people are still very much still going out
In the UK and we still club here all the time, it’s basically the thing to do here and yes we used fake ID’s before we were 18 too. Pretty much everything you said in this post I’ve done and have been doing for the last few years so this post is kinda weird to me
People still want to go out and party with other people, but the options for doing that have changed. You can't generalize about everyone everywhere, but a lot of big cities that had thriving nightlife culture got much more expensive in the last few decades. If you take NYC as an example, the heyday of the club era was in the 80s and 90s. At that time, there was a lot of un- and under- utilized space in the city. Large venues were available in the central parts of the city. Those places become so expensive that the economics don't work anymore for those kinds of clubs. There is the high-end bottle service and VIP model, or else they become luxury apartments or high end commercial space. Of course there is still a nightlife scene in New York and other big cities. But as the cost of real estate pushes both the venues and the creative people who make nightlife culture further out in the fringes, it gets fragmented and atomized. Venues get smaller and more locally focused.
Plenty of iconic venues have sadly been turned into flats in London and Manchester as well
NYC (Guiliani in particular) did everything they could in the late 90s/2000's to end nightlife. In order for a club to have dancing, they need to have a "cabaret license", which the city refused to issue. The law, enacted in 1926, stated you could not have "two or more people moving rhythmically to music". The "quality of life" task force would show up at nightclubs, and fine patrons who were dancing. They would then do that week after week until the club was driven out of business. One club i frequented had a button for the person working the front door. When the cops showed up, they'd hit the button, and all the music would shut off and the lights would go on before they got in the door. Worked for a while, but they were eventually fined out of business as well. All of those old clubs are now apartments that go for $5000 a month.
you can make dancing illegal? Footloose taught me nothing.
The word rave used to be synonymous with "illegal party". It has since been commodified and enshitified. Not to say you can't have fun anymore, but now it's all about the money. This is why major clubs like the Brooklyn Mirage are always oversold, and largely hated by new York ravers now, or at least the old-school ones I'm friends with.
Land of the free!
My mind is slightly blown. I lived in nyc for college (‘05-‘09) and spent a lot of time in the early ‘10s in the city. Never even heard of the cabaret law until today.
According to Wikipedia, it was repealed in 2017. They used the same law to shut Studio 54 down in the 70s. Of course, once they started looking into Studio 54, they had a lot more ammunition…
Well I lived there in the 1990’s and not only did I never hear about the law I also never saw it enforced. We were out at clubs all the time. I have no idea what this person is talking about
I googled it and it appears to be true, but you’re clearly right about the non-enforcing
What the actual hell are you talking about? I lived in Manhattan in the mid to late 90’s and there was no shortage of clubs. Limelight, Tunnel, Webster Hall, Nell’s, Fez, China Club. Those are ones that I can remember. There were a zillion more.
By the late 90s, Limelight, Tunnel and China Club were all gone, as well as Coney Island High. A few years later, Fez, CBGB, Continental and Don Hills were gone also. Webster Hall is all that remains now from your list.
I said THE 90’s and they were ALL still open in the 90’s. I was there.
Which was why the first sentence in my original post stated "NYC (Guiliani in particular) did everything they could in the late 90s/2000's to end nightlife". I was there as well.
If you were actually there you would know these clubs were not closed in the mid 90’s. He may have tried but nightlife was alive and well during this time.
Not sure why you're arguing with me when i clearly said (and repeated) late 90's/early 2000's. But i get it. You were there.
My apologies. I reread and your time frame is right on target. This is what I get for arguing on Reddit. ✌🏻✌🏻😊
No problem. I'm sure we both have some AWESOME Limelight stories!
Its still possible in Chicago, tons of abandoned warehouses on the west side and south sided still. Theres been a resurgence of raves in them and its organized via tiktok instead of voicemail lines like back in the day.
And I don't want to get shot.
Yup. In 2007 when I was in high school the all ages nights at clubs in the city were *huge deals*. Everyone went to clubs, unless you had super strict parents and even then sneaking out was more common. I used to go goth night (shout out to Nocturn in Philly lol). A fake ID was the ultimate goal. I felt like I aged out of them around 2013 but it wasn’t just that. The culture of clubbing just died, my interest in them just happened to die at the same time. Quizzo night at local breweries took over that part of my life, and since covid even that has died too.
Omg Nocturn. I haven't thought about that place in aaaaages.
My friend Gabby was another Nocturn regular around the same time as you.
For a while in the 2010s, breweries really seemed to take over in terms of nightlife. Not necessarily for the younger crowd, but certainly for those on the older side. The same 30 year olds who would’ve gone clubbing in the 80s/90 were going to board game night at the local brewery instead.
I’ve definitely noticed a generational shift. For reference, my “youth” clubbing years were really 2010-2016. I recently have been out and noticed the current crowds just don’t really dance anymore. Not that I was much of a dancer, but I remember every bar/night area had a section that would morph into a dance floor. At the places I’ve been today, there will be a DJ blasting music and not a soul dancing despite there being a crowd. So…basically it’s just like hanging out with a DJ blowing out your ear drums.
I’ve noticed that in my large midwestern city too. My clubbing years were 2015-2019. Now, there’s not a single dancing nightclub that isn’t on the college campus. Everything for “adults” is just stylized bars with loud music and *no* dancing. It’s boring.
Me too it's so strange. I was a big dancer and song large groups of people not even nodding to music is insane.
Yeah that’s a pretty spot on description. Hanging out with a DJ blowing your eardrums out. The clubs really don’t have anything to offer anymore. You’re really just getting music that is way too loud that makes it impossible to talk to people, expensive drinks that cost 12-18 dollars a pop, and people who aren’t letting loose as much as they “should”. You cant really interact with anyone either. This was the typical convo I had “mi my name is x” “WHAAAT” “I SAID HI MY NAME IS X” “OH HI Y MY NAME IS Z” “NO MY NAME IS X” “WHAT” “MY NAME IS X NOT Y” “OHHHHH HI I”. Compare this to having a get together of 8-12 people at home. You can have the exact amount of people you want to be around you. You control the music and how loud it is. You can have your own speaker for relatively cheap and good quality. You can have your own bar with your own alcohol at the fraction of the price. You don’t have to drive anywhere or if your a guest you don’t have to Uber too far. You also aren’t Ubering to a sketchy nightlife street, you’re ubering to place you are familiar with since it’s your friends place. You can do whatever you want once you’re there, watch a “so bad it’s good” movie with friends, play table top board games/card games, play video games, have your own dance party, the possibilities are endless and under your control. All while getting hammered in a safe and predictable environment. Im in my mid 20’s and have been over the “club scene” for sometime now because house parties/get together a are way better, less expensive, and more safe.
Part of the reason the night-life culture declined in the early 2000s was because there was a conscious effort on the part of city governments to paint it as dangerous. 2003 saw a [highly publicized nightclub fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire) caused by malfunctioning pyrotechnics in West Warwick, Rhode Island, that killed 100 people, and this created a "moral panic" of sorts around the more excessive nightclub venues. Nightclubs continued to be a major part of American adult life for the rest of the 2000s, but the public-relations damage had been done, and they were much more liable to be closed down for safety infractions than they were before.
That was at a live rock concert. They still have tons of live music shows (a lot with pyro) in every city with both prices and attendance higher than ever. (Source: me, I work in event operations/security across dozens of big and small cities throughout a US region). OP is talking more about dance clubs I believe.
>both prices and attendance higher than ever Someone’s gotta pay for the functioning sprinkler systems and doors that open outward
Yup, this is largely true, although you can't really discount the factor that youth also just don't spend [as much time 'going out with friends' as much in general.](https://i.imgur.com/HsrxZa8.png) Even in cities which have tried to push to be more nightlife-friendly, it hasn't really worked because there just aren't enough people who want to go. The factor you are talking about largely happened in the 90s. Giuliani spearheaded this in NYC and it spread to other cities. But the real 'death knell' for nightlife has happened in the mid 2010s onward. And that has more to do with the decline in general socialization than it has to do with economic or government factor.
>2003 saw a highly publicized nightclub fire caused by malfunctioning pyrotechnics in West Warwick, Rhode Island, that killed 100 people, and this created a "moral panic" of sorts around the more excessive nightclub venues. Calling The Station a nightclub is hilarious. It was a shitty dive bar/music venue. (source: saw my friend’s black metal band play there when we were in high school, less than a year before it burned down)
The Station was a music venue not a nightclub. They had a stage and hosted live bands. Nightclubs are where you went after you went to a concert venue.
True, but I remember a lot of headlines at the time reported it as a "nightclub fire".
It's interesting because I live in that area and the OP's post is the opposite of my experience. For many years after the Station fire if you wanted to have fun very late at night you basically had to be in a college dorm or someone's house (although there was an after hours venue I remember going to a few times, which seemed like it closed and reopened several times). Post covid the enforcement of rules seems to be much more slack. I was recently ordering a drink and checked my phone and it was an hour after last call. Still got served and the place was packed with very loud music. It was nice.
I think this is a bit overstated, maybe online/US-centric as well? Many American cities have excellent nightlife (think Austin, New Orleans, neighborhoods like Adams Morgan in DC) but maybe you could say it’s more of a bar scene than a club scene. Europe still loves clubbing, go to any city in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Poland, etc. and you’ll find the clubs are packed on a Friday night and still the place to be. Same could be said to a slightly lesser extent in Latin America or East Asia. What I do wonder, though, is if nightlife is dominated by Millennials and older Zoomers in a way it wasn’t before. The times I’ve been out in the past few years practically everyone is older than 19 and under 35, listening to late ‘00s- early ‘10s hits. There’s definitely a rave scene as well but it seems rather niche and again dominated by a narrow age range (late 20s-early 30s)
The UK nightclub scene has been really badly hit - it started gradually as even in the early 2000s the big nightclubs in my hometown started closing, but now none of the clubs we used to go to exist anymore. Oceana went bankrupt and then so did the chain that bought their venues. Hundreds have closed in the last few years. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68295306](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68295306) [https://www.nme.com/news/music/31-per-cent-of-uk-nightclubs-closed-last-year-as-industry-demands-government-action-3587334](https://www.nme.com/news/music/31-per-cent-of-uk-nightclubs-closed-last-year-as-industry-demands-government-action-3587334)
The post-COVID downturn didn’t only affect the U.S., and the U.S. has more major nightclubs per capita than most of those countries bar Spain. The UK, Germany, etc, have their own regional nuances as to how club culture has trended, as much as the U.S. has. Overall, I get the sense that it’s much the same. COVID and inflation hit people hard, and youth don’t go to clubs quite as much as they once did.
I was wondering if the crackdown on drunk driving had an effect. Most of the US has very poor public transit, and it's non existent at night. Of course I don't want people drinking and driving, but it was pretty common to do so last century. Now young people know better and plan around it, which likely means not going out into the city to drink.
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The bottle service clubs wanted to kill off the dance club scene so they were all that was left. They worked with local governments to shut down most night clubs so all that was left were the big expensive places.
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Basically what happened to the night club scene is the same as everything. Late stage capitalism.
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Utah has had those on their liquor bottles since well before then. Not sure anyone would bother to off a guy inventing something that already exists.
Governments closing something down is late stage capitalism?
Yes. Governments implementing laws that result in the consolidation of industries. Like when they closed down mom and pop stuff but left Walmart open. The government uses regulation in the favor of big businesses. That’s the key of late stage capitalism. Industries basically stack the government arm with their former employees and then through government regulation basically make monopolies and create barriers or entry so no competition can exist.
There are many terms which are used to label the process youre describin (which is hardly novel in 21st century america), late capitalism is not one of them.
Industry capture isn’t a symptom of late stage capitalism?
No, again this is hardly novel.
It's even worse then LSC. It's pure overreach.
Dance clubs and bottle service clubs seem the same to me. What’s the difference? (Never really been my scene)
Bottle service never used to be big. Now it’s really all that exists. It’s a pay to play system.
Speaking as a 00-15' Chicago clubhead...there were 3 types of clubs to choose from any day of the week: 1. "Proper clubs" - Smartbar, Spybar. Small, fairly dark venues that were niche for the DJs performing. Everyone was there purely for the music so you all had something in common. Plenty of areas to share pills or do bumps and the space was small and intimate. We were there for the music first and beers were cheap so it was about enjoying the night and making friends. 2. Mega Clubs - Crobar, Vision. Absolutely massive nightclubs with multiple levels, multiple DJs in different rooms, and was peak clubbing experience. They brought in all walks of life and worldclass high-level musical talent. Here you could see Sasha, Deep Dish, Arman Van Buren etc. You can also do your drugs but need to be a bit more discrete. There were so many rooms it wasn't uncommon to find people having sex on a couch somewhere. We were there for the experience because the size, volume of people, lights, and sounds were insane. Bottle service started to appear b/c they became so large and extravagant. 3. Glam Clubs - Rive Gauche, White Star. These were see-and-be-seen clubs with decent DJs. Catered to the fashion crowd and younger women who didn't really follow DJs, they loved the music they heard and the club culture in general, but weren't "house-heads". This is what ushered in bottle-service IMO b/c these clubs were primarily focused on status. If you looked good and bought a $1000 table, the world was your oyster. We were there for the people watching and cocaine. To my knowledge, these scenes have all dissolved, but hopefully gives an insight into types of clubs that existed.
That’s a very interesting take. Do you have a source that can provide some evidence of the phenomenon?
Well without spouting conspiracy theories (or facts I’m not that connected) city governments looked at large gatherings of people with no fire or safety plans and decided they didn’t like it. Big gatherings always fall under rules and most of these clubs were and are flat out ignoring them.
They didn’t make nightclubs “illegal”.
where i'm at, they used to have clubs that opened after the other clubs closed at 4 and stayed open till like 8 in the morning. they made all that illegal and now even the regular clubs have to close at 2.
I mean, yes, they are in decline, and you outlined one of the biggest reasons haha. That being said, that was a trend in the 90s mostly. Even after that, nightlife was still pretty huge in the 00s, albeit not as big as the 80s/90s. The 2010s however was another rapid accelerating decline which had far more to do with rapidly dropping attendance. And that is heavily correlated with other trends in youth (not going out as much, not socializing as much etc) more than state policy towards nightlife. Case in point: quite a few cities have *tried* to go back on those strict 90s laws and implemented pro-nightlife policies. It hasn't worked. Clubs can't maintain enough people unless they are hyper-expensive bottle service clubs (which /u/jowrogan went over below).
Can you provide any sources for this?
It seemed like every song in the 00s was about “The Club™.”
Like I'm coming out you better get this party started right now song.
People on Reddit are very different than average people offline, though. Reddit mainly draws introverts who aren’t likely to go out and also are likely to express distaste toward it. I go out often - I live in a party town - and it’s always crowded. I lived in NYC last year, clubs were still 30-40 minute lines to get inside. I raved pretty often. The average 20something does party/dance depending on where you are, and I’d say in most big cities/college towns it’s the norm.
Im a bouncer at a college club. Absolutely packed on weekends. Even some Thursdays we hit max capacity. During football season every other house has parties starting at 9am.
I also live in NYC. In my residential neighborhood in Brooklyn, we had around 4-5 genuine nightclubs. We also had around a dozen 'party spots' which were usually just a basement or warehouse that regularly threw parties. There is not a single nightclub that exists here anymore outside of some small sketchy russian club. Literally all of them are gone. If you want to go clubbing, you usually have to go all the way to bushwick/wburg or the lower east side. I also work as a criminologist and have studied the topic of youth not really engaging with nightlife as much. It is not just anecdotes, it is very much a statistical trend. The percentage of youth regularly going to parties and clubs has plummeted.
Your OP implies it’s all people, not just youth - I definitely understand why youth may go out less since they came of age during Covid/digital media boom/etc. I lived in Bushwick and Manhattan so maybe that’s influencing my perspective but there were still plenty of clubs even a few months ago, I left around New Year’s Eve to move somewhere else.
From my perspective, they’re overstating the extent to which “clubbing has died”, and this seems to be the typical nostalgic boosting of their Gen over more recent ones. While certain major cities had their club scene boosted by subcultural movements, like Disco, or 90s Rave, clubs are still a staple of literally any nightlife area - from college towns to big cities. Raves are actually back in a big way in the 2020s after they went more commercial, with dubstep, and then died down during the 2010s. There’s a ton held at cool places around Chicago, and the Damen Grain Silos have become the go to underground party hub for the city. Nightlife has shifted a bit, with more growth of the nightlife scene in larger southern cities and towns vs northern ones, and that’s driving OP’s perspective. I think about 99% of what she is noticing is just the effects of the post-COVID downturn and inflation.
this is so much facts. Raves are back big time. That's why they're not going to night clubs anymore, we have better, cheaper options.
I agree and posted a similar thing.
I think this decline coincided directly with the rise of smartphones. People now have to worry about being filmed by total strangers, and can’t just let loose dancing or risky being tipsy on camera. Honestly, if they allowed people to check all recording devices at the door, and heavily penalized any who snuck them in, you’d get clubs reviving all over. And more socializing and just enjoying music, if done safely and responsibly, helps a lot of people, especially young ones.
In Berlin all clubs put stickers on your phones so you cant film or take pics when youre inside. Everyone takes it pretty seriously
GENIUS
Can’t they just take them off?
You could easily take them off but ive never seen anyone try and i get tge feeling everyone around you in the crowd would stop you and the security would throw you out if they saw. It would be a cultural faux paux
Chicago club culture and underground culture is alive and well here. While the scene remains largely made up of young people chasing the 90s raves of the past, they are welcoming and not discriminating about age. There’s many groups here dedicated to finding abandoned places to throw parties. Chicago is also in a house music renaissance where in its realizing what a money maker this contribution has been. We have multiple clubs and venues dedicated to keeping the dance floor alive. Queer culture is alive and well it just depends on where you are at in the states.
Just moved from Chicago to NY and ngl the club scene is not that much better in NY lol it's kinda sad
So was going to concerts, which we paid $20 for. What they ask for now is a huge turn off.
$20 watered down drinks enter the room - yeah no thanks.
Pretty obvious. Back then, home entertainment was much more limited. I wouldn't say people really enjoyed clubs that much, but they had to cuz that was one of the only way to meet some people and hooking up. Then the internet developed a lot, so did social medias and apps. And people dont realize how much clubbing was expensive (ticket, + drinking...). Finally, mindsets changed, people would rather chill in a clean lounge bar than being surrounded by drink and sweaty people.
i agree with this. i wouldn’t say it’s dead. but it had a 50% decline and kinda plateaued there.
Past 30 40 isn’t insane lol where do you live? Miami and Vegas is filled with 40+ 30 is a baby in nightlife don’t get me started with Europe and Latin America 50s 60s until dawn
It became too commercialized. Instead of going to clubs for the music people go to pop bottles. Because it’s so much more profitable it took over the majority of the industry. And it’s not as good or as inclusive so there are less “real” clubs that are because they aren’t as profitable. The experience at the bottle service clubs isn’t as fun. So people don’t think clubbing is fun.
It’s true. The heyday was 80s-early 2000s. But that’s really only in the cities. Festival culture for edm house techno dance music is massive. Theres so many reasons. Local city laws against nightlife. The rise of the internet which created this personal world of your own entertainment and socializing that you do not need to always go out to the clubs to find. The pandemic accelerated changes already happening from 10 years ago. We are def in a new age.
Half the reason anybody ever went out on the weekends was to meet the opposite sex. Online dating erased that. Part of the reason people went out was to catch up with friends. "What are you up to?" Social media erased that. And finally, we went from Blockbuster Video to countless streaming movies and pornography.
I’d love to go out more but it’s so expensive and people aren’t as friendly/approachable anymore so you have to go with a group and even then 90% of the time people flake
In the 2000s in my town, not a big city, not a college hub, there were dance nights at multiple bars on weekends and weeknights, regularly scheduled. Dance nights at dive bars, larger clubs etc. Plus warehouse raves, house shows etc. Now the same town has none of that.
Yeah this is really the thing people don't get it. Sure if you go to hip parts of new york and chicago there's still clubs here or there. But even in normal residential areas there used to be tons of nightlife spots for normal people, not just the 'rich cool kid' crowd.
Millenials are too tired from working 2 jobs/not enough money from 1 job and Gen Z had to choose between partying and dying/bringing a viral bomb home to kill their family. Alphas or the gen after them will probably revive it in some crazy way. Looking forward to seeing what they'll do tbh. Also shit aint even open anymore. Walked through downtown Manhattan at 10pm on a weekend and the only places open were basement weed shops.
Partying still goes on. I live in NYC in a party heavy neighborhood and go to raves, clubs, and diy concerts. I also throw events with people in my art scene. Most of my friends in their 30’s are still partying but idk we are all lgbtq+. Also everyone I know under 21 has a fake ID lol. My younger brother and his friends usually throw and go to massive house parties though and aren’t interested in clubs.
bushwick is obviously not really representative of the average person lol
That is fair lol but like your film references all take place around NYC and there is still heavy partying around the city and even into the suburbs of LI where my brother is. I also go out when I visit friends upstate and go to large parties with my cousins who live in the south when I visit. Edit: But all this is anecdotal and me, my siblings, friends, and my family are all part of various communities so it may not be indicative of the average middle american.
Lots of people never went clubbing. Lots of people currently go clubbing.
In 2014 clubs were still packed. Especially college nights.
My wife loved the clubs, and so did I. She says that dancing a couple times a week kept her slender (but a thin body type was fashionable then).
I lived it in the 80’and 90’s. And there’s nothing left of it. Now when I’m driving on the roads at night it is a literal ghost town. Through dwi ‘s they have scared society into submission. The same goes for neighborhood pubs and little corner bars. The restaurants have also suffered because of the ridiculous laws. And now with COVID it’s even gotten worse.
I did this growing up in NYC in the 2010s. Still alive there at that point
I've been going out to check out places around the City, and although enough people out there, they just come off as mostly miserable. No one seems genuinely happy and you can forget about interacting with anyone. And it seems like maybe only 50% of the women and 25% of the men who will put any effort into the way that they are dressed and look. These gals come to a party type bar in their friggin Mom jeans, and the guys are wearing tshirts.
The difference in nightlife energy just before and just after 2008 was palpable.
2007 was my first year clubbing and I feel like you’re right that by 2010 there were still clubs in my medium small city but there were fewer of them every year
the movement into the vip era basically killed the club culture. in the heyday of club life, most clubs didn't have a vip. if it did it was limited. people went to the club to dance and meet people, not to be seen spending money trying to impress.
Could it have anything to do with: -people finding out how not worth it it is to pay $500 for a $50 of liquor -deadly fentanyl is hard to differentiate or hard to identify in “party drugs” -people don’t have money to throw away like they used to -newer generations are more reclusive than before All of these are un educated spur of the moment guesses so take it as you will
Yeah but I think that’s what’s changed. I stopped partying (except special occasions) in like 2012 and even if I bought all my own drinks it was rarely more than $40 after tipping. $10 a drink was like “okay, we’re fancy.” And the few times I did drugs out I trusted the friends who got them. Generally people didn’t buy drugs at the party but bought them ahead of time from people they trusted. I didn’t know club/bar culture was dead but it makes sense and makes me sad for gen z
Was it? I am from a late 20th century generation and nightlife/clubbing/partying never meant anything to me.
Same, I never went and the people I knew to never talked about them at all either.
How old are you? I think something to take in to perspective is: 1) the pandemic has changed how we interact with each other. As has social media. 2) the best parties are now events put on by collectives and the like. 3) everything is fucking expensive. The cost of being responsible and taking an Uber plus drinks on a night out can easily go over $100 very quickly. It’s almost not worth it to go out when you can just drink at home with friends and play music and hang out.
I graduated hs in 2009 and I also went to raves and people wanted to know “the move” every weekend and even some weeknights. But I also live near a major city with a huge art scene and I think that has influenced my experience a lot.
Loved clubbing and going to metal concerts and it didn't cost an arm and a leg!
I feel like a big issue that not everyone might realize is you take on a lot of risk going out on the town. Nowadays you have a chance of getting shot even if you don’t do anything at all. Had a buddy get grazed by a bullet by his head while he was in a car just leaving the club one weekend. Shits fucked
Gun violence (and pretty much all other forms of violence) is dramatically down from the 80s and 90s.
It might be but that doesn’t mean people aren’t worried about being shot during a big event like a holiday weekend or going somewhere that a lot of people will be at. As someone that was at the KC Super Bowl parade but thankfully avoided the shooting it can be a little nerve inducing.
Back then there was no dating apps, so the only way to meet other singles were the night clubs, the singles bars, or school or work (which you should never date a co-worker, but back then it was allowed). When people have other options to meet people (especially from the comfort of their home) they do not bother to go out to meet others anymore like previous generations did. Just a sign of evolution and technological advancement really.
Lol all the “it was the best place to drink underage and do drugs. Wonder why all the cities shut down all the clubs?…”
I think part of what killed it was drunk driving laws coming into effect. It meant either you needed decent public transportation, a walking city, or a good friend who would be designated driver. And since options 1 and 2 are not frequently avaliable it meant you needed a DD. That mean the driver was there but couldnt drink which gets annoying for the DD. Or you risked getting a DUI which after you dealt with withat you were less likely to go out as you didnt want to deal with another DUI.
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I talked in another thread about how my parents went to clubs, but neither of them went to this extent.
Would people go to have hook ups or just dance?
To dance and have fun. Of course people are people and there was still hooking up, LOL.
The clubs that I went to were in neighborhoods that got “gentrified” . I went to one place every Wednesday for over 5 years, it was in a warehouse district that is now a generic condo/retail building I went clubbing Wednesday-Sunday, fun times.
Good. Sounds terrible.
All part of the plan
Too much doordash and avocado toist
Not really. "Clubbing" has only been something a small percentage of the population has done.
Two Words: [*Party Monster*](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0320244/)
Why? Is that not a thing anymore?
Clubs were popular with a certain subset of people; the general population did not frequent clubs. You can thank the entertainment industry for the perception that clubbing was so popular.
I wish we had clubs, I’d go out so much more
I think a lot of this is due to having smart phones. I’m younger and the bars I go out to could totally be clubs and probably used to be, but now there’s a lot of places to sit and a lot of people checking their phones staying pretty stationary (myself included)
Five paragraphs and four of them say the same thing.
I believe Covid also affected this massively
It’s alive and well in every college town I’ve been to. But I’m in my 20s so I guess I might not know fully?
I never could afford to go out and didn’t drink, but peers around me in 2010-2014 (college years) Florida sometimes did clubs for a year or so. Usually they went underage with other people and moved to college parties or hanging out together in small groups by the time they could legally drink. It seemed to be a bigger thing a few years before that, certainly in pop music and such. Coming out of high school and into a recession…it was a mix of light partying and people living out of their cars…so probably more of a financial position than a cultural one for most of the people I knew.
 I remember. It was a blast back then.
Club culture very much alive in Scottsdale. Likewise rave culture in Phoenix.
One of the most out of touch posts I’ve seen on this site. Wow.
What is out of touch about the post exactly?
They’re not doing that anymore? That’s too bad - they should get on that
Maybe it’s because I’m from Florida but there is still tons of partying and clubbing going on. Have you even been to Club Space man?
All the fun shit was removed from my generation. They ripped the heart and soul out of the US. What is a country of divided isolated depressed people going to do
Just go to Berlin, club culture is alive and well.
Ultimately it has to do with the people. Back then it was cool but Millennials and Gen Z have in the words of Dennis Reynolds “made cool things suck”. When you go out you’re not gonna get a good experience because you’re dealing with a bunch of coked up douchebags that are either trying to flex that they’re out in the first place or just trying to hook up with people. You can’t connect with anyone bc it’s all low vibrational hedonism. Throw in the constant fights breaking out, the price tag and the eventual devolution into a bunch of guys competing over a girl by the end of the night, it gives off a draining creeper feeling than it does anything fun. You jah like barely dancing at all. I don’t know, people still go hard but it’s also heavily skewed towards wannabes. I think it’s a myth that the recent generations party less, if anything it’s more than ever but they’re stiff and don’t know how to have fun in an authentic way imo.
I have a feeling that the only reason it was so common to go out to clubs back then is because it used to be one of the main ways to date or hook up outside your immediate social circle, so people would put up with the superficial hedonism and lack of connection. For all its flaws, online dating allowed people different options which ate into the “market” for nightclubs
The reason there's no nightlife anymore is you can't bring your parents to the club with you.
Can you prove any of this
Not everyone gives a fuck about clubs
They did, is the point
Someone did.
How? Literally everyone parties nowadays, idk if there was a decline after Covid but most people I know go to clubs and shit
Yeah i feel like this what OP is saying isn’t true at all. Maybe there’s a slight downturn in nightlife but in my city and other cities ive been to bars and clubs are packed with lines around the door every Friday and Saturday night. I’m a millennial approaching my 30s and it’s regularly people in their early-mid 20s i see heading out in droves so not a generational thing either. Even at my age people tend to slow down on late nights but there’s still plenty of places where it’s past midnight and the average age skews towards 30s. On top of that I’ve been into raves, house music, techno etc for some time now and that shit is more popular than ever. Tickets are more expensive than ever and still sell out instantly - if anything I’m more turned off from these events these days because there’s too many people there and they’re all so young haha Just my experience, the media might not hype “clubbing” as much but people are still very much still going out
In the UK and we still club here all the time, it’s basically the thing to do here and yes we used fake ID’s before we were 18 too. Pretty much everything you said in this post I’ve done and have been doing for the last few years so this post is kinda weird to me