I've told my wife countless times and to this blog one time that I think UC Davis students don't seem to party nearly as much as I'd expect. In comparison to my recollections of Ann Arbor when I was a student, I'm still flabbergasted at how rarely I see students out drinking at the bars, and rarer still a drunken student stumbling down the sidewalk like I used to do every weekend when I was in school. Rarely do I see a lawn littered with solo cups on a Sunday morning or even a keg on a porch. I have always chalked this up to UC Davis just not having a party culture. (I asked our kid's babysitter who is a senior at UCD which were the cool student bars was and she was very unsure, but she probably also didn't want me trying to go there)
In recent months I've seen more and more reports about how Gen Z is drinking less, doing less drugs, having less sex and generally partying less. It's made me consider that when I compare Davis to Ann Arbor, I'm comparing 2022 Davis to 2008 Ann Arbor, and perhaps I'm really comparing Gen Z with my fellow Millennials. (But also based on my travels, I think the midwest state schools just drink a lot more)
I'm sure sociologists are hard at work studying why Gen Z is behaving differently than the Millennials that came before them. I suspect one of the biggest changes between when I was in college (2005-2009) and now is that the current generation came of age with the Me Too movement where society really reexamined their views on sex and appropriate sexual behaviors. (In addition to many of them being unable to party for 2 years due to COVID, and now they don't know how to throw down)
My generation came of age with movies like American Pie, Road Trip, and Old School guiding our views on sex and what high school & college should be like. It's not entirely surprising that we came to college expecting wild parties, casual hookups and wild adventures. And at least for me, my expectations for college were really shaped more than anything else by the writing of Tucker Max.
I discovered Tucker Max's website right after graduating from high school. He had these stories about wild nights spent drinking, getting into hilarious situations and scoring chicks. If 18 year old me had an idol he would have been it. I clearly was so enamored by him that no less than 5 times during college I wrote on this very blog about wanting to have a "Tucker Max Level Story". I still have his book, and I picked it up while writing this post and read back through some of it. 17 years later it really feels like those stories were from a different time and place and I'm not sure there would be the same audience for that the way there was in 2005 (both broadly, and personally).
It does make me wonder what our generation will be known for. Sure, I've heard us described as the internet generation or social media generation. But I think a generation is probably more defined by the generation that comes after it than by the those that came before it. Maybe I was part of the last carefree generation that grew up on 90s consumerism, raunchy comedies, a party culture, and before we really worried about our health, the environment or having our life ruined by a meme or misguided tweet like Gen Z does. It seems like Gen Z is under more pressure to do good and be good, and with all that pressure, I'm amazed they aren't turning to sex, drugs and alcohol to cope with it.
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