alt Hacker NewsI’m going to add a strange note here:
I recently moved into a very upper class neighborhood (pacific heights) and enrolled my child in the neighborhood private school.
The social hosting skill I’ve observed and and able to do as well is extraordinarily high. People throw parties, know how to act, are cordial and polite and seem to reasonably enjoy each others company while also teaching their children the same.
This is how I remember mere middle class parents acting in the late 90s and early 2000s but my fellow millennials and z seem to be completely incapable of.
One huge aspect I’ve noticed is that it’s wildly expensive in time and money to host. An open cocktail night cost me nearly 3000 dollars to host. I can imagine this would not be common for Gen Z these days.
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I am a millennial and my parents did no events, since they both worked and had long commutes. I wonder when the middle class entertainment slowed down—I want to guess it’s when you have more two income households, that don’t earn enough to hire home help.
How the heck do you manage to host a $3K cocktail party?
You can run an open bar with two bartenders for 50 people for that price? (Unless everybody is a complete lush, I guess ;)
People surprised by Mr. $3000-cocktail party's expenses are forgetting about class and wealth differences.
Up to a point, expenses are elastic and proportionate to income. Across different incomes, things like "dinner" or "cocktail" mean (and cost) very different things, to the point that someone on either end of the scale doesn't even know what is on the other end. A very wealthy individual might not know about the $1.50 Costco dog, and a less wealthy individual won't know about the $10,000 bottle of cab sauv (okay I'm making that up, I don't know either, but you get the point).
If you have $100k you'll make do with that, if you have 10x more, most people will find ways to scale the expenses accordingly. If you have 1,000x more, that's just wasted cash that does nothing for society, but that's another discussion...
I know the US is ludicrously expensive, but 3000 dollars for a cocktail party? Did you have a couple of hundred guests? The kind of party where you can lock in friendships, have meaningful conversations and personally play host tops out around 30 people. At those kind of numbers, you really don't need to hire a staff - you can provide canapés and make cocktails and or have a friend so at very reasonable cost. Source - I had hundreds of (often fairly raucous parties) at my old apartment. Alas I no longer live in a basement so my entertaining options are much more limited.
One is reminded of this - https://x.com/dril/status/384408932061417472?lang=en
Three grand! For a cocktail night?
I mean I've spent a couple hundo at Costco buying booze and food and paper supplies for a party I hosted and THAT was flabbergasting. How the fuck do spend three grand on cocktails? Is it like all top shelf liquor or something?
>> I recently moved into a very upper class neighborhood (pacific heights)
A neighborhood which is sometimes referred to as "Specific Whites" (but only tongue-in-cheek, right?)
That seems to be a very narrow definition of a party. I have friends over for pizza and board games. We've had ice cream making parties. Cheese dinners.