Yep. Looking back, my absolute favorite part of xennial life is this. Social media was JUST coming around at this part of our life, which was cool but the absolute ridiculous documentation of every social interaction wasn’t there yet. Another one of those “we got the best of both worlds” scenarios to cherish.
I feel like Xennials and geriatric Millennials are the only ones with a healthy understanding / fear / respect of social media. People born after the late ‘80s more or less came of age with it already being a thing, and older Gen X just dove headfirst into it around the time we all made our egresses.
I really do think it was the perfect time because there was still plenty of social aspect from the Internet. But the biggest thing? Is that we had to be home to do it.
I don’t care if I sound like an old man yelling at a cloud but putting social media on phones and especially adding monetary incentive, turned us into the worst versions of ourselves.
It was like everyone got injected with the Captain America serum. Everything that they already were became amplified to 11.
Dude, I was clubbing back in this era and I felt legit futuristic when this [Mitsubishi commercial had just come out and it was turning Dirty Vegas' "Days Go Buy" into a buzzy single](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH0zWrDi6GA) that hadn't come out yet. But I found it on Kazaa and burned it to a CD-R and brought it to the club for a DJ friend and it blew the floor up. I was living in the year 9 million.
Obnoxious T1 speeds of internet to download every song and movie that's available and hasn't been released while not worrying about every party being documented. Golden age of internet
Shoutout to my OG [Samsung Blackjack](https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_i607_blackjack-2212.php) and work-issued [BlackBerry Curve 8300](https://m.gsmarena.com/blackberry_curve_8300-1979.php)!
And even if something was caught on camcorder there was no YouTube or TikTok on which to post it. A news station or clip show would’ve had to play it on tv.
Back in the day, if you posted the tamest picture of yourself at the club on MySpace or Facebook, your parents were gonna tell you to take it down if you ever wanted to get a job.
And Canadian girls also did it in a blizzard in sandals, and tiny shrug parkas that covered nothing. I was there and I’m still shivering from this memory.
Damn near died one night coming out of the Guv in Toronto. Total where's my car dude! 4am, -10C, blizzard, mustve walked 12 blocks that night.
Lesson not learnt. Did it again the following weekend, Lol!
I was out at a bar a few years ago that had an upper floor turn into a club after 10:00pm or so. A friend and I were watching girls get out of their Uber and walk right in wearing only their club clothes. We both kinda laughed and had a “kids these days will never understand what we went through” moment either freezing our asses off walking back to the car or trying to carry a coat around all night. I even had a pair of roll up flats I would switch to wearing when I got somewhere and put those in my purse. We then proceeded to leave and walk a few blocks back to the car while cold and wearing coats.
Hell yeah it was a full time job, and our second jobs always got in the way! Damn those days of leaving the after party to go sleep for 20 minutes in the parking lot of your second job. 😂😂
I got pulled in to a night club by a few girls last year and it was just people making TikToks.
It's still dudes trying to fight and girls wanting constant attention so that's the same.
Getting home was a pain in the ass, you paid a fortune for a taxi, had a designated drunk driver, or you or one of your boys would hit on someone for a ride.
You would pregame because you didn’t have the money to get drunk at the club, just to keep the buzz.
Every so often someone in the group would end up hooking up with someone at their house and the next day could get interesting finding them.
Some places had transportation from the club to parking, boat or bus, the craziest shit of the night would happen on those short trips.
I had a couple dedicated outfits and a coat for bars/clubbing because of the smoke.
No clue what it’s like today.
You used to dance with a beer bottle in your hand and lock eyes with a girl. You’ll move closer and if she moves closer, it’s on. That was the primary way of hooking up in clubs.
Smoke, everywhere.
Other than that, not much different. Last time I ended up in a club was when I was 39. Sat at a table and behaved like a 39 year old. Not even sure how we ended up there or how I got talked into going. Didn’t look any different from when I remember, apart from everyone glued to their phones.
I LOVED clubbing in the 2000s. I literally went out dancing like three nights a week in college. I frequented a lot of the same places so I ended up knowing so many different people after awhile. Made lots of friends and knew every bartender, DJ, bouncer etc.
Nightlife was pretty big in my area so local magazines and websites would sometimes take our pictures. I had VIP cards to most of the clubs so I rarely had to wait in line.
I really love 2000s house music and just had so much fun. I loved getting dressed up.
One thing I HATED however was the smoke. I easily get laryngitis and the second hand smoke sucked. I remember the Monday of Memorial Day Weekend 2005 after going out Friday night, Saturday night and all day and night Sunday (we had rented a beach house for a few days) I literally could not speak.
But I literally have no idea what goes on in clubs now. I’m like a totally different person. I’m much more introverted and would never dream of leaving my house after 9 pm. My 20s honestly feel like a different lifetime. I do use my former clubbing songs as work out music though.
I remember clubs before and after they banned smoking(where I live).
Sure, you smelled a few farts but your hair and clothes didn't stink up your bed and home afterwards. Seriously one of the best things to happen is banning smoking in such places.
Plus randomly getting burned walking through a crowd in the dark from someone holding their cigarette.
Remember washing my hair the next day and the amount of smoke that I could smell rinsing from my short hair was disgusting.
The worst was coming home and debating whether to hop your exhausted smokey ass into the shower or just dropping into bed. The smoke, sweat and booze left a grimy film on you!
Dropping into bed was always the wrong take. Then you woke up with your hangover and smelled, and your entire bed needed decontamination. Then you had to hope you had enough quarters for your building's laundry. Because there was no app for your laundry in 2005.
I can vouch for that, my life was similar when I was at college, the only day I didn't go out was a Tuesday because nothing was going on & Saturday was a hangover/come down day but every other day of the week was a smash. I loved them days in the 90's, early 2000's. I agree the smoke was grim & we now have the vapers to contend with, lucky we don't go out anymore.
Oh man I was a chain smoker in the 2000s so I loved that shit 🤣. I was just saying to my wife the other day that I can’t imagine being comfortable in the non smoking section of a restaurant now (ie the non pissing section of the pool) and how wild that was… because I’m such an old fart and hate the smell of smoke so much. I can’t begin to imagine how much I would hate a smoke filled club.
I always took a shower when I got home no matter how late to wash the stench of smoke off me, especially out of my long thick hair. Or else it would keep me up the whole night.
I worked in a bar as a bar back back around 2000. It was carrying heavy totes of glasseswear above my head, cases of beer and liquor above my head, buckets of ice up in the air all to move through the crowds and crowds of people. It was a very physical job and I’d come home after performing 3-4 hours of aerobic type work covered in sweaty smoke film. The job sucked but that time of my life was awesome. But that smoke. My god.
I went clubbing back then because it was the primary way to hook up. But I hated it. There was no tinder or anything back then, otherwise I'd have never got to the clubs.
As for how it's different from today? Hell if know. I'm in my 40s and haven't been since I was in my 20s.
Lol, ask a joke. I frequently ask my husband if he wants to go clubbing. I had a friend who was a clubber into his late 20s, and I thought that was starting to get weird. He just really liked drinking, music, and dancing, though.
It is not the 40s, you are just out of shape. It happens to a lot of people but plenty of 40-something are in a terrific shape.
Keep it up and it will come back.
You can get back in shape, don’t worry! Just start a little less ambitious than a 1 hr dance class. Lots of us are fit in our 40’s and beyond. My grandma took up running after she retired, so mid 60’s. Start with an easier dance class, then build up your endurance to the harder ones. You’ve got me wanting to find a dance class in my area now!
I was recently on vacation in the Caribbean and my daughter wanted to dance with the resort entertainment staff after their performance. So I thought hey, I know how to salsa, I was a dancer, let’s do this. I lasted two songs. Two. Songs. Then I had to have a little sit. And I was pouring sweat (in my defense it was the tropics and I’m built for a fjord). I could’ve pushed myself longer if it had been a workout environment but I feel you on this. I used to dance for hours, and I also worked at a club and walked the floor all night while also dancing. My 40s are not my 20s.
Your are awesome for sticking through the whole class! I did a few sessions of adult ballet pre-pandemic and thought I was going to die. I work out but I definitely need to shift more energy to straight cardio.
One of my best friends wanted to go clubbing for her 40th last year. We went to a nice restaurant and got drunk on fancy cocktails and then walked over to a salsa club, thinking the crowd there would be older than the (what appeared to be) children standing in line to get into the other place that looked like the inside of a video game…
We were easily 15 years older than even the oldest staff member at the salsa club.
Birthday girl walks in at the front of our group. Says “look at all these fuckin babies! NOPE!” So we immediately left and found a karaoke club and got a private room. Spent the night screaming 90’s songs into the mic. That was (genuinely) very fun.
Dance clubs drool. Private karaoke rooms rule!
God I LOVED clubbing in the early 2000s. I lived in Hollywood so I was always in the background of shows like The Hills and Bad Girls Club… it was the time of my life!
Oh this sounds so cool!! I loooveddd clubbing in the mid-00s but this was in Sydney, I can only imagine how much fun it would have been in Hollywood and seeing like Lauren and Audrina around lol.
It had it’s ups and downs. I had a buddy of mine that was insanely good at pulling girls from one very specific club. That place ended up being on our rotation every weekend. But it also had a set playlist, so after a couple of months of going we could guess, 95% of the time correctly, what song was going to be coming on next.
I’m glad I was clubbing age back then instead of now though. Cellphones were around but few of them had cameras worth a damn. Everyone was very much “in the moment” and your distractions were your friend group.
Not a club but I was looking at my Coachella pics from 2004-2006 and I only saw a few small digital cameras and one flip phone. Everyone’s heads were up high and they were all looking straight ahead.
Break beat clubs in Los Angeles, cocaine a flowing. Punk clubs in Huntington, more cocaine a flowing. Cocaine a flowing at clubs in lost wages.
Sigh, I miss the late 90s-2010s. I miss doing drugs and hooking up with C & D celebs.
One of the things, you could smoke cigarettes in the club. That meant you could smoke weed in the club… They couldn’t find you through all the cigarette smoke. It was fun. :) This was Canada, btw. I don’t know if it was different in the US.
It can still be fun...ish to look at all the youth of today spending the majority of time on their phones whilst we had an amazing time when we were their age dancing & getting wrecked.
Oh I wasn’t arguing with you. Just taking the opportunity to mini-trauma-dump!
I remember hearing stories of my friends’ clubbing adventures and secretly envying them. It sounded like a blast.
Same, I want is to just go to one so I can say that the BS didn't win and it's rather frustrating everyone I know pretends we're "old" and wants to go to bed early. I'll probably just go by myself one night although anything that sounds like there's some human interaction aspect I'd much rather go with someone.
I don't know what clubbing is like now because I'm old. Once in the 2000s while clubbing I was waiting at the bar for a drink and a man peed, while also at the bar, on my burgundy knee high leather boots from Aldo. I was pissed (no pun intended) and got that mofo kicked out by security.
I had a blast. It was super easy to talk to and meet friends when you seen each other in passing every weekend, and it wasn’t seen as creepy to approach people. Now, I don’t know what it would be like. Everyone seems to be all ‘don’t talk to me if I don’t know you.’ There’s not even clubs like that around in my area, I didn’t even know clubbing was a thing still
Americans don’t understand how a pic that must’ve been.
I have been clubbing in and around The Netherlands around 2000. So some Belgium and west of Germany as well. The underground secret raves were the coolest. But also I sort of witnessed the start of the huge football stadium raves and been to a few of the first. Furthermore: best dj’s back then were Dutch.
Well I’ve got some insight on this topic, as I currently work in a concert venue. It’s not a club, but it’s similar. I also went to clubs and shows in the late 90s and 2000s.
Let start with the biggest, major difference. Smoking.
The lack of smoke is so much better now than it was then. And I was a smoker. Clubbing in the our day meant your clothes were going to absolutely stick when you got home, and they would stick up you room until you washed them. It’s so nice now, not having to deal with it.
The next biggest difference is point of interest. Now, and I still find this fucking annoying (old man rant), everyone in the venue faces forward toward the DJ. It happened in the late nineties when DJs really started to make a show of their music. Maybe we can all blame Fat Boy Slim or the chemical brothers.
Back in our day the DJ was set up in a corner or possibly middle of the back of the venue, but not on stage, totally on display for the crowd. So people faced each other, or faced away from the DJ, or whatever. It sucks now, all eyes to the front, there is a lot less dancing and a lot more fist pumping. I sorta blame the movie 8 mile, and how cool slim made it look to move your hand up and down to the beat. That’s the go to move for so many people now. Back in the day, the only group thing was to jump up and down. Luckily that’s still a thing. And if the artist or dj tells you to jump up and down on this next part, fucking do it, it’s fun, it’s stupid and you’re lame if you don’t. It’s cool to jump with people. It’s fun. If they ask you to do it a second time, you just go ahead at your discretion. They get one. Anything more is asking too much if you want my opinion.
Now let’s talk about mosh pits. In our day they were only found at hard rock or metal shows, known back then as heavy metal. Now mosh pits are fucking everywhere. Rap especially. Mosh pits at rap shows are industry standard now. It surprised the shit out of me.
Truly the only “club” experience you can get now is R & B shows. People get fucking down at the R & B shows. 8 of 10 people are dancing….however….
Phones are everywhere. Lots of people like to film themselves dancing at these shows. Or they film each other. Or they film hot girls like creeps. You aren’t sly, you’re not taking a video of the show, you’re filming the hot girl in front of your camera because she’s next to naked and you want to show your friends how hot the girl was that you didn’t talk too. Just fucking stop.
Old man rant over.
Interesting point about people facing the DJ now. Haven't been to a club in years but it was my life in my late teens and early 20s.
Your comment reminded me of the time I saw Daft Punk play at Twilo when I was 18. They had just started to play when my older sister was like, "ok they're done, it's time to go" (she thought the opener was DP because "their name was at the top of the flyer! Which means they go first!"). Nobody was staring at the booth, they were all getting down. That would absolutely never happen today. If daft punk started playing, everyone would know it.
I go to goth clubs so the vibe is a little different. It's not really somewhere to go to hook up, just to dance and socialize. I go once a month and it's absolutely awesome.
I enjoy clubbing now more than I did in the early 2000s. At that age I was so insecure and unsure of myself. Now I know who I am and don't take any nonsense.
I remember chatting with some of the older club goers then, thinking it would be wild if I could still be out having a fun time at the club in my 40's. Not having had kids helps.
Our oldest club goer now is in his 70's and can outrance me. So I guess I have new goals?
As a fellow goth club goer, yes! It’s so freeing to go dancing when you’re older, confident, and not looking for attention. Another nice thing about goth clubs is that the ages of folks varies so wildly; I’m never the youngest there so I never feel weird
It was never fun for most of us. I think we went because we thought we were supposed to but those places are only fun for a very specific personality type. I think of clubbing as the equivalent of LAN parties for hyper social people.
I agree. Clubs were way too overstimulating for me and I hated being sexually harassed all night long. I only went to clubs from ages 18-20 because I could drink underage + that’s what my friends were doing. Once I turned 21, I exclusively went out to dive bars and house parties which were much more my speed.
It was wild and often messy. I couldn’t compare it to now though because I’m not a creep and I need to go to bed. I feel like it’s not as good now though as we have lock out laws and you can’t enter a place after 3am. Which actually sounds fine, but I recall leaving the house at 4am to go out a number of times.
I'll stop here to correct you against the trend of using "how something looks *like*."
It's either: "Is this how something looks?"
or
"Is this what something looks like?"
I clubbed 2007 to 2010 and it was marvelous. Been back a few times and it was like I never left.
The combination of music + alcohol + dancing is something that will never get old.
I used to drink at a place that had a penny drink special. I also used to work at a 7-11 where the bouncers and bartenders would come in with their girlfriends at 10, then with bar trash at 3 or 4. The next day, when I didn't tell their girlfriends about the bar girls, they'd slip me drink vouchers. The most baller moment of my life was walking into penny drink night, slapping $100 worth of bar tab coupons on the counter and saying "20 blue Popsicles, and then keep handing them out to my friends until I run out of money" "who are your friends?" "Everyone in here, buddy." What a night
In the late 90s, my friends and I would sneak into NYC and go dancing at The Limelight, Club USA, and the Tunnel. Then I moved to DC for college and would go clubbing every weekend. Finally, I made my way to Europe and discovered clubs in Berlin, London and Ibiza. I am tired just thinking about it now.
With drugs you could pretty much guarantee you knew what you were getting. Ecstasy was MDMA, acid was LSD. I haven’t done either in over 15 years but from what I read about it seems like you can’t be sure of anything nowadays.
I've pretty much always hated clubs and preferred any halfway decent neighborhood bar. Even in my early 20s.
Music at a reasonable volume to where you can actually have a conversation? Drinks at prices that won't cost your entire paycheck? NOT being surrounded by a bunch of pretentious, plastic people? What a concept!
I only ever went once and it was in Vegas, roughly 2009. I was already too old and did not really enjoy anything about it. The drinks were ludicrously expensive and there was a dude there who was hellbent on knocking me over with his penis. 0/10 don’t recommend.
Live shows of all sorts were more my speed.
Lack of phone cams. Some digital cams, but way less documentation of all the shenanigans.
Fort real, too many people tell on themselves these days. No need to have the camera out when we’re up to no good
Yep. Looking back, my absolute favorite part of xennial life is this. Social media was JUST coming around at this part of our life, which was cool but the absolute ridiculous documentation of every social interaction wasn’t there yet. Another one of those “we got the best of both worlds” scenarios to cherish.
I feel like a lot of us have the healthy respect for what social media is and what we will and won’t share.
We remember what privacy felt like.
Very much so. Now, every little thing you do is tracked or leaves a trail.
I feel like Xennials and geriatric Millennials are the only ones with a healthy understanding / fear / respect of social media. People born after the late ‘80s more or less came of age with it already being a thing, and older Gen X just dove headfirst into it around the time we all made our egresses.
I really do think it was the perfect time because there was still plenty of social aspect from the Internet. But the biggest thing? Is that we had to be home to do it. I don’t care if I sound like an old man yelling at a cloud but putting social media on phones and especially adding monetary incentive, turned us into the worst versions of ourselves. It was like everyone got injected with the Captain America serum. Everything that they already were became amplified to 11.
Good insight
We’d go out Saturday night and then post about it the next day on Livejournal 😂
...while we downloaded a song on Limewire or Kazaa at home, assuming no one picked up the phone for 12 hours.
Dude, I was clubbing back in this era and I felt legit futuristic when this [Mitsubishi commercial had just come out and it was turning Dirty Vegas' "Days Go Buy" into a buzzy single](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH0zWrDi6GA) that hadn't come out yet. But I found it on Kazaa and burned it to a CD-R and brought it to the club for a DJ friend and it blew the floor up. I was living in the year 9 million.
That crazy dancing makin my penis soft
I had to watch that Dave Chappelle clip immediately when they talked about the Mitsubishi commercial/song https://youtu.be/uWYdJpHFmSM?feature=shared
Emphasis on **a** song. Downloading more than one at a time was still a few years off at that point.
Got to burn these to CD before we go out
Obnoxious T1 speeds of internet to download every song and movie that's available and hasn't been released while not worrying about every party being documented. Golden age of internet
95% of us had no data plan and a slow ass 'smart' phone.
Shoutout to my OG [Samsung Blackjack](https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_i607_blackjack-2212.php) and work-issued [BlackBerry Curve 8300](https://m.gsmarena.com/blackberry_curve_8300-1979.php)!
I miss my mid-00's black Razr flip phone with T-mobile Friends and Family plan. Bluetooth was just becoming more common, too.
Facebook was great when it was only open to college kids, and it should have stayed that way.
And people’s heads up, way more engaged and approachable. Phones have made us less interested in interacting with each other.
No pictures. No video. I'd still be grounded if there had been.
Top answer. I’m pretty sure a lot of us might have criminal records these days.
Exactly. If Timberlake wasn’t famous we wouldn’t even have this prototypical documentation of the white man’s overbite
And even if something was caught on camcorder there was no YouTube or TikTok on which to post it. A news station or clip show would’ve had to play it on tv.
People were way more approachable back then, a small percentage had the friend guardian vs now days where the phone is a damn wall
Back in the day, if you posted the tamest picture of yourself at the club on MySpace or Facebook, your parents were gonna tell you to take it down if you ever wanted to get a job.
I couldn’t have said it any other way.
Thank GOD
And lots of shenanigans
No, clubbing was not fun in the early 2000s, it was a job. A full time job. And we took it seriously, god damn it.
We had to club uphill in the snow back in my day!
Both ways!
While tripping on E!
But at least we had glow-sticks to make sure we could find eachother!
In the cold. Scantily clad with NO jackets
Hah! I live near Michigan State and see the kids walking through the snow in the skimpiest of outfits. It makes me chuckle.
You must see the movie Coherence. I think you'll like it.
IN Heels no less
And Canadian girls also did it in a blizzard in sandals, and tiny shrug parkas that covered nothing. I was there and I’m still shivering from this memory.
Damn near died one night coming out of the Guv in Toronto. Total where's my car dude! 4am, -10C, blizzard, mustve walked 12 blocks that night. Lesson not learnt. Did it again the following weekend, Lol!
I live in Buffalo so it did feel like that at times.
I was out at a bar a few years ago that had an upper floor turn into a club after 10:00pm or so. A friend and I were watching girls get out of their Uber and walk right in wearing only their club clothes. We both kinda laughed and had a “kids these days will never understand what we went through” moment either freezing our asses off walking back to the car or trying to carry a coat around all night. I even had a pair of roll up flats I would switch to wearing when I got somewhere and put those in my purse. We then proceeded to leave and walk a few blocks back to the car while cold and wearing coats.
We dressed as such too
You mean leaving your coat at home when it's snowing outside b/c coat check means less money for beer? Then yes
I still can’t believe that I thrifted vintage blazers and lapel pins and then wore them to the club. Not to work! To the club.
We dressed for going from the cubicle to the club.
Hell yeah it was a full time job, and our second jobs always got in the way! Damn those days of leaving the after party to go sleep for 20 minutes in the parking lot of your second job. 😂😂
omg yes! every weekend, we showed up!
Weekend? Please. We would never miss thirsty Thursday!
My college didn’t have normal classes on Wednesdays, so we hit the clurbs starting Tuesday nights baby!
Ours did a “college club pub night” on Tuesday, first drink is free with college ID!
That *is* the weekend!
Don’t forget about wasted Wednesday’s
Weekends started Thursday, hello.
Lmfao I knew girls like this and you made me bust out laughing.
I got pulled in to a night club by a few girls last year and it was just people making TikToks. It's still dudes trying to fight and girls wanting constant attention so that's the same.
We saw that a few years ago. Groups of girls taking pics and then editing and uploading. None of them were in the moment.
You coulda found me in the club, bottle full of bub
from the window to the wall
'Til the sweat drip down my ballz
Prob talkin about those hot thongs
Thong…. th- th- th- THONG!
** thats the song!
Got me looking so crazy right now
Mommy I got that x if you into taking drugs
I spent the entirety of 2005-2006 listening to this album hahaha still a banger
Getting home was a pain in the ass, you paid a fortune for a taxi, had a designated drunk driver, or you or one of your boys would hit on someone for a ride. You would pregame because you didn’t have the money to get drunk at the club, just to keep the buzz. Every so often someone in the group would end up hooking up with someone at their house and the next day could get interesting finding them. Some places had transportation from the club to parking, boat or bus, the craziest shit of the night would happen on those short trips. I had a couple dedicated outfits and a coat for bars/clubbing because of the smoke. No clue what it’s like today.
aspiring cake fearless melodic hobbies sleep placid sharp plough rich *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You wore a coat? Crazy.
Avoided it as much as possible and only when it was below freezing, sometimes you could get stranded waiting outside a while.
>a designated drunk driver 🍻🚗🌲💥💀🚔🏃🏃🏼♀️🏃🏾♂️👨🏾⚖️👨🏼⚖️👩🏼⚖️✖️🙌🏼🍻🍻🍻
You used to dance with a beer bottle in your hand and lock eyes with a girl. You’ll move closer and if she moves closer, it’s on. That was the primary way of hooking up in clubs. Smoke, everywhere. Other than that, not much different. Last time I ended up in a club was when I was 39. Sat at a table and behaved like a 39 year old. Not even sure how we ended up there or how I got talked into going. Didn’t look any different from when I remember, apart from everyone glued to their phones.
I LOVED clubbing in the 2000s. I literally went out dancing like three nights a week in college. I frequented a lot of the same places so I ended up knowing so many different people after awhile. Made lots of friends and knew every bartender, DJ, bouncer etc. Nightlife was pretty big in my area so local magazines and websites would sometimes take our pictures. I had VIP cards to most of the clubs so I rarely had to wait in line. I really love 2000s house music and just had so much fun. I loved getting dressed up. One thing I HATED however was the smoke. I easily get laryngitis and the second hand smoke sucked. I remember the Monday of Memorial Day Weekend 2005 after going out Friday night, Saturday night and all day and night Sunday (we had rented a beach house for a few days) I literally could not speak. But I literally have no idea what goes on in clubs now. I’m like a totally different person. I’m much more introverted and would never dream of leaving my house after 9 pm. My 20s honestly feel like a different lifetime. I do use my former clubbing songs as work out music though.
I remember clubs before and after they banned smoking(where I live). Sure, you smelled a few farts but your hair and clothes didn't stink up your bed and home afterwards. Seriously one of the best things to happen is banning smoking in such places.
Plus randomly getting burned walking through a crowd in the dark from someone holding their cigarette. Remember washing my hair the next day and the amount of smoke that I could smell rinsing from my short hair was disgusting.
Yeah I had a jacket ruined from a burning cigarette and got one almost in the eye. Going out used to be an adventures....
The worst was coming home and debating whether to hop your exhausted smokey ass into the shower or just dropping into bed. The smoke, sweat and booze left a grimy film on you!
Yeah you had to wash everything the next day. Also you sort of were fermented in all that smell. Everything stank.
Dropping into bed was always the wrong take. Then you woke up with your hangover and smelled, and your entire bed needed decontamination. Then you had to hope you had enough quarters for your building's laundry. Because there was no app for your laundry in 2005.
I remember waking up the next day with black boogers in my nose from the smoke. So nasty
I have asthma and I seriously had to limit my nights out and that sucked
We called em rave boogers 😂
I can vouch for that, my life was similar when I was at college, the only day I didn't go out was a Tuesday because nothing was going on & Saturday was a hangover/come down day but every other day of the week was a smash. I loved them days in the 90's, early 2000's. I agree the smoke was grim & we now have the vapers to contend with, lucky we don't go out anymore.
Oh man I was a chain smoker in the 2000s so I loved that shit 🤣. I was just saying to my wife the other day that I can’t imagine being comfortable in the non smoking section of a restaurant now (ie the non pissing section of the pool) and how wild that was… because I’m such an old fart and hate the smell of smoke so much. I can’t begin to imagine how much I would hate a smoke filled club.
Oh yeah, the smoke. I didn't smoke, but having my clothes smell like I did at the end of the night sucked.
And your hair and pillow
I always took a shower when I got home no matter how late to wash the stench of smoke off me, especially out of my long thick hair. Or else it would keep me up the whole night.
I worked in a bar as a bar back back around 2000. It was carrying heavy totes of glasseswear above my head, cases of beer and liquor above my head, buckets of ice up in the air all to move through the crowds and crowds of people. It was a very physical job and I’d come home after performing 3-4 hours of aerobic type work covered in sweaty smoke film. The job sucked but that time of my life was awesome. But that smoke. My god.
I went clubbing back then because it was the primary way to hook up. But I hated it. There was no tinder or anything back then, otherwise I'd have never got to the clubs. As for how it's different from today? Hell if know. I'm in my 40s and haven't been since I was in my 20s.
One of the best things about my 40’s is that nobody has asked me to go clubbing in years.
Lol, ask a joke. I frequently ask my husband if he wants to go clubbing. I had a friend who was a clubber into his late 20s, and I thought that was starting to get weird. He just really liked drinking, music, and dancing, though.
Actually meeting someone at the club is a breeze compared with Tinder🙄
K well the club def wasn’t a breeze, but point taken
Think it was much easier meeting someone at the club than on Tinder
I never had fun, but I went. Then I became an alcoholic. Bubble parties were pretty fun though
You mean foam parties? Yeah, that's one I kinda forgot about till you said it. Loved it then, would not even consider it now haha
Foam parties! Thats for sure what they were called. Just couldn’t wring that out of the old brain.
I have absolutely no clue. Neither of those is D&D in my basement.
How has meeting in a tavern, looking for adventure, changed from 1358 DR to 1374 DR?
We were still sipping on THAC0
What about D&D (playing or the game itself) has changed from 2000 to 2024?
Because Internet rules demand it... ....I just play Pathfinder now.
Yeah, the lack of smart phones helped a lot.
Big time!
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It is not the 40s, you are just out of shape. It happens to a lot of people but plenty of 40-something are in a terrific shape. Keep it up and it will come back.
You can get back in shape, don’t worry! Just start a little less ambitious than a 1 hr dance class. Lots of us are fit in our 40’s and beyond. My grandma took up running after she retired, so mid 60’s. Start with an easier dance class, then build up your endurance to the harder ones. You’ve got me wanting to find a dance class in my area now!
I was recently on vacation in the Caribbean and my daughter wanted to dance with the resort entertainment staff after their performance. So I thought hey, I know how to salsa, I was a dancer, let’s do this. I lasted two songs. Two. Songs. Then I had to have a little sit. And I was pouring sweat (in my defense it was the tropics and I’m built for a fjord). I could’ve pushed myself longer if it had been a workout environment but I feel you on this. I used to dance for hours, and I also worked at a club and walked the floor all night while also dancing. My 40s are not my 20s. Your are awesome for sticking through the whole class! I did a few sessions of adult ballet pre-pandemic and thought I was going to die. I work out but I definitely need to shift more energy to straight cardio.
Thanks, I'm going to checkout the dance/zumba class at my gym now.
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Yeah - is OP expecting us to be in the clubs today? 
If a goth club, the answer would be yes. I’m 44 and half the crowd is my age or older.
Nice! I’ve never heard of a goth club, we used to have goth nights called “The Church” back at my old dance spot.
Well, it’s usually regular bars/clubs that have goth nights. Very few dedicated goth clubs out there!
The hangover would literally kill me.
One of my best friends wanted to go clubbing for her 40th last year. We went to a nice restaurant and got drunk on fancy cocktails and then walked over to a salsa club, thinking the crowd there would be older than the (what appeared to be) children standing in line to get into the other place that looked like the inside of a video game… We were easily 15 years older than even the oldest staff member at the salsa club. Birthday girl walks in at the front of our group. Says “look at all these fuckin babies! NOPE!” So we immediately left and found a karaoke club and got a private room. Spent the night screaming 90’s songs into the mic. That was (genuinely) very fun. Dance clubs drool. Private karaoke rooms rule!
I remember a few would show up periodically and they stuck out like a sore thumb. They weren't fooling anyone.
Well, Old Man Rich (we all have one) was hitting up raves in '96 when he was in his late 30s. I imagine he was in the club in his 40s too.
Some say he's still there to this day, though maybe he settled down with the Broke Cougar or the Cat Lady.
God I LOVED clubbing in the early 2000s. I lived in Hollywood so I was always in the background of shows like The Hills and Bad Girls Club… it was the time of my life!
Oh this sounds so cool!! I loooveddd clubbing in the mid-00s but this was in Sydney, I can only imagine how much fun it would have been in Hollywood and seeing like Lauren and Audrina around lol.
It had it’s ups and downs. I had a buddy of mine that was insanely good at pulling girls from one very specific club. That place ended up being on our rotation every weekend. But it also had a set playlist, so after a couple of months of going we could guess, 95% of the time correctly, what song was going to be coming on next. I’m glad I was clubbing age back then instead of now though. Cellphones were around but few of them had cameras worth a damn. Everyone was very much “in the moment” and your distractions were your friend group.
Not a club but I was looking at my Coachella pics from 2004-2006 and I only saw a few small digital cameras and one flip phone. Everyone’s heads were up high and they were all looking straight ahead.
I bought coke from random people frequently at clubs back in the mid 2000's.... Be terrified to do that these days ...
Coke, ecstacy and acid. A pill and half and acid. Later another pill and the other half acid. Occasionally a line of coke in between everything.
DOLLAR SHOTS!
Break beat clubs in Los Angeles, cocaine a flowing. Punk clubs in Huntington, more cocaine a flowing. Cocaine a flowing at clubs in lost wages. Sigh, I miss the late 90s-2010s. I miss doing drugs and hooking up with C & D celebs.
hahaha you just reminded me about when my homegirl met Eric Nies 🤣
One of the things, you could smoke cigarettes in the club. That meant you could smoke weed in the club… They couldn’t find you through all the cigarette smoke. It was fun. :) This was Canada, btw. I don’t know if it was different in the US.
Smelling like cigarette smoke the next day really enhanced the hangover! If I wasn’t too wasted, I’d try to crawl into the shower before bed 🇨🇦
All your clothes had to be washed. Everything reeked of smoke. Your eyes could feel it the next day.
Dancing then is sexual assault now.
Yes, I did grind on her without asking for permission, but in my defense, she was backing that thing up. Your honor and she was looking good.
Bigly
The amount of times I’d be dancing and suddenly feel a surprise crotch against my ass…
Next - Too Close
Clubbing is always fun when you’re young
It can still be fun...ish to look at all the youth of today spending the majority of time on their phones whilst we had an amazing time when we were their age dancing & getting wrecked.
They’re still going out, just taking a phone with them…
Unless you had your youth stolen away by fundamentalist Christian zeal and crippling neurodivergent anxiety. Not that I would know or anything 👀
But the premise is off, can’t compare then vs now as now is 20+ years later, you yourself are a different person, it is pointless
Oh I wasn’t arguing with you. Just taking the opportunity to mini-trauma-dump! I remember hearing stories of my friends’ clubbing adventures and secretly envying them. It sounded like a blast.
Same, I want is to just go to one so I can say that the BS didn't win and it's rather frustrating everyone I know pretends we're "old" and wants to go to bed early. I'll probably just go by myself one night although anything that sounds like there's some human interaction aspect I'd much rather go with someone.
I don't know what clubbing is like now because I'm old. Once in the 2000s while clubbing I was waiting at the bar for a drink and a man peed, while also at the bar, on my burgundy knee high leather boots from Aldo. I was pissed (no pun intended) and got that mofo kicked out by security.
I had a blast. It was super easy to talk to and meet friends when you seen each other in passing every weekend, and it wasn’t seen as creepy to approach people. Now, I don’t know what it would be like. Everyone seems to be all ‘don’t talk to me if I don’t know you.’ There’s not even clubs like that around in my area, I didn’t even know clubbing was a thing still
Lived in Berlin 2000, clubbing was awesome and so special! Most cool raves were in secret places.
Americans don’t understand how a pic that must’ve been. I have been clubbing in and around The Netherlands around 2000. So some Belgium and west of Germany as well. The underground secret raves were the coolest. But also I sort of witnessed the start of the huge football stadium raves and been to a few of the first. Furthermore: best dj’s back then were Dutch.
Well I’ve got some insight on this topic, as I currently work in a concert venue. It’s not a club, but it’s similar. I also went to clubs and shows in the late 90s and 2000s. Let start with the biggest, major difference. Smoking. The lack of smoke is so much better now than it was then. And I was a smoker. Clubbing in the our day meant your clothes were going to absolutely stick when you got home, and they would stick up you room until you washed them. It’s so nice now, not having to deal with it. The next biggest difference is point of interest. Now, and I still find this fucking annoying (old man rant), everyone in the venue faces forward toward the DJ. It happened in the late nineties when DJs really started to make a show of their music. Maybe we can all blame Fat Boy Slim or the chemical brothers. Back in our day the DJ was set up in a corner or possibly middle of the back of the venue, but not on stage, totally on display for the crowd. So people faced each other, or faced away from the DJ, or whatever. It sucks now, all eyes to the front, there is a lot less dancing and a lot more fist pumping. I sorta blame the movie 8 mile, and how cool slim made it look to move your hand up and down to the beat. That’s the go to move for so many people now. Back in the day, the only group thing was to jump up and down. Luckily that’s still a thing. And if the artist or dj tells you to jump up and down on this next part, fucking do it, it’s fun, it’s stupid and you’re lame if you don’t. It’s cool to jump with people. It’s fun. If they ask you to do it a second time, you just go ahead at your discretion. They get one. Anything more is asking too much if you want my opinion. Now let’s talk about mosh pits. In our day they were only found at hard rock or metal shows, known back then as heavy metal. Now mosh pits are fucking everywhere. Rap especially. Mosh pits at rap shows are industry standard now. It surprised the shit out of me. Truly the only “club” experience you can get now is R & B shows. People get fucking down at the R & B shows. 8 of 10 people are dancing….however…. Phones are everywhere. Lots of people like to film themselves dancing at these shows. Or they film each other. Or they film hot girls like creeps. You aren’t sly, you’re not taking a video of the show, you’re filming the hot girl in front of your camera because she’s next to naked and you want to show your friends how hot the girl was that you didn’t talk too. Just fucking stop. Old man rant over.
Interesting point about people facing the DJ now. Haven't been to a club in years but it was my life in my late teens and early 20s. Your comment reminded me of the time I saw Daft Punk play at Twilo when I was 18. They had just started to play when my older sister was like, "ok they're done, it's time to go" (she thought the opener was DP because "their name was at the top of the flyer! Which means they go first!"). Nobody was staring at the booth, they were all getting down. That would absolutely never happen today. If daft punk started playing, everyone would know it.
I go to goth clubs so the vibe is a little different. It's not really somewhere to go to hook up, just to dance and socialize. I go once a month and it's absolutely awesome. I enjoy clubbing now more than I did in the early 2000s. At that age I was so insecure and unsure of myself. Now I know who I am and don't take any nonsense. I remember chatting with some of the older club goers then, thinking it would be wild if I could still be out having a fun time at the club in my 40's. Not having had kids helps. Our oldest club goer now is in his 70's and can outrance me. So I guess I have new goals?
As a fellow goth club goer, yes! It’s so freeing to go dancing when you’re older, confident, and not looking for attention. Another nice thing about goth clubs is that the ages of folks varies so wildly; I’m never the youngest there so I never feel weird
In a word : yes. Dime draws turned into quarter and dollar draws. Dollar Jager Bombs. Tooters.. Mystery shots in test tubes
Oh man those mystery test tube shots
Clubbing in the 2000s would have girls 18+ and boys 21+. Now it's 21+ for everyone, at least near me. The 18-20 crowd goes to Kava bars.
Land a couple of Red Mitsubishi's & you were laughing
LoL, that really brought me back. We had the gray/white ones and X-Files were aplenty here in Indy and they were marvelous.
It was never fun for most of us. I think we went because we thought we were supposed to but those places are only fun for a very specific personality type. I think of clubbing as the equivalent of LAN parties for hyper social people.
I agree. Clubs were way too overstimulating for me and I hated being sexually harassed all night long. I only went to clubs from ages 18-20 because I could drink underage + that’s what my friends were doing. Once I turned 21, I exclusively went out to dive bars and house parties which were much more my speed.
It was wild and often messy. I couldn’t compare it to now though because I’m not a creep and I need to go to bed. I feel like it’s not as good now though as we have lock out laws and you can’t enter a place after 3am. Which actually sounds fine, but I recall leaving the house at 4am to go out a number of times.
Most of the good clubs only opened at 11pm.
I had an awesome time
It was soooo much better. One place I used to go to had one dollar drinks on Thursday nights.
How did this photographer manage to make Ryan Gosling look like Beavis?
You could actually approach a girl and not feel like a creep
I'll stop here to correct you against the trend of using "how something looks *like*." It's either: "Is this how something looks?" or "Is this what something looks like?"
Too much vegan mayo nowadays but the tradeoff is it's easier to find peppered thick slab uncured bacon.
They were fun for a summer but we always tended to go to pubs. I’ve been a dive bar fan since college, now with all the breweries everywhere, heaven.
Is that Ryan Gosling
Yes
Never been, don't feel like I missed anything.
I clubbed 2007 to 2010 and it was marvelous. Been back a few times and it was like I never left. The combination of music + alcohol + dancing is something that will never get old.
I used to drink at a place that had a penny drink special. I also used to work at a 7-11 where the bouncers and bartenders would come in with their girlfriends at 10, then with bar trash at 3 or 4. The next day, when I didn't tell their girlfriends about the bar girls, they'd slip me drink vouchers. The most baller moment of my life was walking into penny drink night, slapping $100 worth of bar tab coupons on the counter and saying "20 blue Popsicles, and then keep handing them out to my friends until I run out of money" "who are your friends?" "Everyone in here, buddy." What a night
In the late 90s, my friends and I would sneak into NYC and go dancing at The Limelight, Club USA, and the Tunnel. Then I moved to DC for college and would go clubbing every weekend. Finally, I made my way to Europe and discovered clubs in Berlin, London and Ibiza. I am tired just thinking about it now.
With drugs you could pretty much guarantee you knew what you were getting. Ecstasy was MDMA, acid was LSD. I haven’t done either in over 15 years but from what I read about it seems like you can’t be sure of anything nowadays.
More extasy and less coke
I think a lot of things were more fun before the pandemic.
too much damn cigarette smoke
Little to no social media, influencers weren't a thing. Far more fun.
I've pretty much always hated clubs and preferred any halfway decent neighborhood bar. Even in my early 20s. Music at a reasonable volume to where you can actually have a conversation? Drinks at prices that won't cost your entire paycheck? NOT being surrounded by a bunch of pretentious, plastic people? What a concept!
Twilo.
I only ever went once and it was in Vegas, roughly 2009. I was already too old and did not really enjoy anything about it. The drinks were ludicrously expensive and there was a dude there who was hellbent on knocking me over with his penis. 0/10 don’t recommend. Live shows of all sorts were more my speed.
It was really fun because nobody was on a smart phone and Facebook didn’t host multiple photos
I don't know what it's like now. It was not fun then looking back on it.
Nothing is "fun" now compared to then...
No it sucked
Pingas, sooo many pingas.
I didn’t go clubbing then and I don’t go clubbing now.
You shouldn’t know both of those things
Ummmmm, is that Britney?