Parties

It has been a little while, and I’ve had heaps of criticism for this blog, with people calling my home phone at 2.00 am, yelling social media, and others pretending to praise me and then suddenly laughing and calling me pathetic over Facebook. I knew this blog could be badly received, but that said, some people have told me they’ve enjoyed reading it. I apologise in advance for anything that may offend anyone. I am not trying to target individuals or our generation, nor do my criticisms apply to everyone. It is difficult for me to not generalise at times. I am not forcing anyone to read this or to even pay attention; but I’m going to continue writing because I care about these things and because I think awareness can be a helpful thing.

I cannot remember the last time that I went to a party where there weren’t people that had either “crashed” or were attempting, to gatecrash. I’ve been thinking about what parties mean these days, the implications of hosting, and the general disrespect a lot of people have when someone offers up their home as a venue for the night.

This might be because in recent years, invitations are no longer handwritten or printed and distributed to friends in their mailbox, but rather are received on a screen. Parties are now not about celebrating an occasion, such as a birthday, but about getting a large group of people, and often include drinking, smoking, a dance floor with loud music and a strobe light, and of course, photography. I’ve been to enough parties to know they aren’t all like this, but parties (these days I’d say a party is classified 50+ people, generally having over 100) have become few and far between.

And as embarrassing as some may think this is to admit, I went to a party around a month ago now, and it was the first party I have been to all year, keep in mind, it is almost October. I got home and I realised, that I could not remember the name of the guy who hosted the party, nor did I attempt to find and introduce myself to him. And I feel really awful for not even saying hi or thanking him. I was a plus 1.  “Plus 1” implies that you scored an invite by a mutual friend, and most parties have several recipients of this type of invitation. Plus 1’s also generally seem to be to the same girls and guys over and over again, the ones considered typically popular perhaps.

I mentioned before, parties are becoming less and less common. I think the main reason for this is the gatecrashing, but also, the general disrespect. It’s hard because a lot of people expect to be able to drink, and with drinking comes drunkenness; which is hard to monitor and a pain to clean up after. Drinking is difficult because it places the host and the host’s parents in an awkward position, and is essentially something illegal. For this reason, people prefer not to host parties because for them, the night usually involves running around dealing with parents, gatecrashers, drunkenness and frequently police.

Crashing means that you have people who often take advantage of your home. I had my own birthday party last year, and in total around 20 people gatecrashed throughout the night. I actually tried to physically and forcibly drag a few guys out; who tried to win me over with words and refused to move. There was no way they were here to wish me a happy sixteenth; but rather get with some chicks and use my house as an excuse to have somewhere to go on a Saturday night. It is the height of rudeness, I think, to crash someone’s house when you are uninvited, to avert their eyes and hope to blend in with the other partygoers, and to leisurely dance, eat, and drink with no intention of celebrating the occasion at hand.

 With the 20 succesful gate crashers I had to my party; another 15 or so turned up as it was wrapping up. I discovered at around 10.00 that many of my friends phones and ipods were missing. It didn’t take long to realise they had actually been stolen… that’s to say; someone actually found out my address, made their way to my house, jumped over my gate or lied to my dad about who they were, came into the room where girls had their bags, and removed goods that totalled to $1600. I wonder if these people are people I know. I’ve had several friends who have had their belongings taken at parties too. I ended up trying to replace as much as I could that was stolen, while feeling very embarrassed and distressed that my party had caused my friends to lose things they thought would be safe. If you’re the host; you’re going to feel obliged to replace stolen items, and you’ll feel guilty. I don’t think our generation has much trust for each other, most people know to keep any personal items on their person, and not even fizzy drink is safe because people spike it. Parents have to pay for bouncers if they want any chance at avoiding gatecrashing, and even then, people go to the extent to claim someone else’s identity and take their spot on the list!

It’s kind of sad really, because we no longer celebrate significant moments in people’s lives. We get excited to captain our Instagrams’ as “Annie’s 18^th” and anticipate the upload of the professional photos the following morning. People feel no shame in vomiting on someone’s lawn, or running through several neighbours houses; acting as if this is a normal entrance/doorway into a party. No one thanks hosts or offers to clean up or introduces themselves to the parents of the host. The host is simply the means to party, due to their provision of a party space.

One of my close friends had a party last year. It began at 7.00 pm, and by 7.45 pm it was over, with people laughing at the warning of police, and sprinting at the actual sight of them. 150+ people had gatecrashed. I stood there, absolutely stunned at the amount of people I had recognised who were standing all the way up the road, attempting to climb over the neighbour’s fence or dodge the bouncers. When you think about 150 people having the nerve to come to a 16^th birthday celebration uninvited, it seems impossible that we consider this to be normal… My friend not only had a terrible birthday, but in the weeks leading up to the party, was harassed and bullied over social media due to requests and declines of invitations and plus 1’s.

I had my own rough experience that night. I tried to step up onto the driveway, and asked people to leave, telling them that they were uninvited, that they were ruining my friend’s night, that the police were on their way, and that I thought it was extremely rude. As a result, I was punched in the face and fell to the ground, and do you know what people did? They laughed and cheered and actually congratulated this person. They thought it was a brilliant thing, that I had been hit, for asking strangers to leave my friend’s property when they were uninvited. Earlier on in the night, I recognised a girl by the side door, who I knew was uninvited. I knew her name, though I wasn’t friends with her. I heard her say to my friend’s mum, “hey can you please mind my bag, like inside or something, thanks yeah,” to which my friend’s mum responded, “of course, are you one of my daughter’s friends?” to which she lied saying, “yes, yes, my name’s Hannah.” I walked over to and I asked her why she just lied about her name, and before my friend’s mum realised what had happened, she was sprinting up the driveway, mortified.

It’s sad because it seems that we’ve taken this kind of party behaviour as the norm, and everyone honestly thinks it’s acceptable to behave impolitely. I can’t put the blame solely on the crashers, not on anyone really. It is honestly just the way of parties in this generation. For the crashers to find out though, the invitees would have had to spill the details of the event, another example of the wavering trust and idea that it’s okay to invite whomever, once you are invited to a party.

It seems that parties are "gay" when the people are sober, the music isn’t from last month and doesn’t have a constant bass, and when there aren’t more than 100 people. Good parties are where there is alcohol everywhere, so many people you can hardly move, a lack of parents, no bouncers, a late finish time and a location easily achievable by public transport. Honestly, many parents probably have no idea which events their children are actually invited to, and which events they hope to successfully camouflage into.

Look what some of the party behaviour has resulted in.. Liam Knight ended up in a coma after a brawl at a party. I know several of my friends who have been hospitalised due to being encouraged to drink. And I know many of my friends who have had cash, jewellery and iPhones stolen.

The next party you go to, do me a favour. Be invited J! Don’t tell anyone what the address is that begs for it. Introduce yourself to the host and their parents, thank the host and their parents as you leave, bring some food along! And wish the host a happy birthday or whatever the occasion may be. I hope you don’t think I’m some party pooper who stays at home each Saturday night. I don’t mean to be a killjoy, but it’s time some of the hosts deserve a little more respect; they are entitled to enjoy their night.

Liam Knight

Purposeful Living

At this moment, there are more people online on Facebook than there were in the world less than 200 years ago… The impact that this world-renowned site is having on today’s adolescents is one of extreme detriment, and has turned our cyberworld into an invincible, addictive, fickle, and futile online realm. Facebook is a dictator, a hierarchy, and an esteem sucker, which categorises teenagers and promotes social suicide, rather than social networking.

Today’s youth are constantly bombarded with endless contradicting advice. One moment we’re told to “be ourselves,” and the next we’re denied of this freedom with television and magazines encouraging otherwise. Similarly, Facebook takes society’s alleged notion of accepting individuality and destroys it. For the average teenage girl there is an ideal profile that she is forced to aspire to fit. There is net lingo that must be learnt, with constant expressions being added to the expected vocabulary of the average teen. From photos to status updates, nothing can be lame, or have the potential to be scorned. It is a wonder there has not been a Facebook Bible produced that we must adhere to as a generation… It extends as far as to how you should “pop up” to someone. Naturally, you don’t want to always be the person to initiate the pop-up. At first it was cool to say “Heyy”, with two y’s. Then it became two e’s, “Heey”, and for a while you’d ask someone “sup” to which they’d reply, “nm”. As far as I’m concerned, this is not a conversation.

The uploading of photos is an art in itself, or so it seems. First of all, the photo has to be appropriate. And by appropriate I don’t mean in a conservative skirt at  an awesome landmark. I mean, either, posing in heavy makeup and a short skirt with a sultry pout, or a lovely filtered snap of your breakfast.

I am going to post some photos of me at the bottom when I was younger, when I took photos of weird things, just some genuine photos that were not taken to serve the demands of followers. I also challenge you, to not share your photos, tag yourselves or your friends (YES I can tell that your friend does not feature in that particular photo), or religiously stare at your computer screen, fixated on watching the likes slowly accumulate on a new upload. Send me any photos of food that tasted wonderful, or any photos of you and your friends that capture a sincerely happy moment.

Facebook is now the place where relationships begin, where friendships are formed, where misinterpretations craft conflict and where people develop a reputation. In the past, interactions such as these occurred face to face or through the telephone or mail. These days, almost every teenager has access to this vast cyberworld, and in this new environment the rules are still being written. You can be anyone behind your computer, and so many are seizing the available occupation of keyboard warrior. Facebook has been blamed for causing the onset of mental illness, suicide, unsafe relationships, fraud, privacy issues and addiction to the site itself; and rightly so.

Think about how many fights you’ve had with your friends that have been initiated online, that occurred online, or were caused because of something they witnessed or misinterpreted online. I know that for me, it has created a lot of unrest in certain friendships.

Facebook gives anyone the ability to be someone they’re not, and that is ultimately what is occurring.  It is a form of social conformity that is changing the way our generation behaves. I detest it, but I am no better. I openly have Facebook, to not solely keep in touch with old friends but because it is like a drug. Once you’re hooked on it, it’s an inexpensive and hard habit to break. I love having access to so much information in an instant, and being able to see so much in a single website. But I know deep down that Facebook is dangerous, and it’s harming our generation. It is starting to be the only thing we do; the purpose of our lives.

On one hand; you can’t afford to not have it. As that’s where people talk, where you meet new people, where you are invited to parties and gatherings, where your friends upload the photos you took together. We have become lazy - we can’t print out disposable pictures because it’s too much of an effort. We can’t pick up the home phone and call someone, because it’s easier to type them a message. We can’t mail invitations to our friends, because half the time we don’t even know their address.

It would be okay if no one had Facebook – but seeing as they do – you become an outsider without it.

Recall the last time you received a letter or card, that wasn’t from a relative or for your birthday… If you have received one in recent months, I think you’d agree with me in saying how special it was to get something that had “thought” put into it. It has become rare for people to give each other handwriting on paper. And that’s sad in itself. Perhaps consider doing something sweet for one of your friends. Grab a piece of paper and a nice coloured pen and just write them a simple note telling them something you like about them. This gesture will go so much further than a “like for a like” on their metaphoric wall.

What is more appalling is how people think that typing “HB” on someone’s timeline constitutes wishing someone a Happy Birthday. This requires next to no effort. I’ve stopped posting on people’s walls for their birthday. It doesn’t mean anything to them, and it just goes to show how little I care that they are having a happy birthday.

It sounds like such a huge assumption and generalisation, but it is honestly adversely affecting the bulk of my generation. Facebook has a couple of really great points to it, but when it strikes it is lethal. It is a site with harmless intentions but when available to temperamental teenagers it becomes the ability to stalk, bully, compare and lie, disguised within a website. I hope that one day it will not consume our lives as much as it currently does. It’s time we start living real life.  

I don’t want to be a lame challenge person but I think I have to do this regardless. My friend Lucy said to me, “Annie it is all well and good you speaking the truth, and voicing your opinion about social media. But I am often what you describe, and maybe you can offer up some solutions”.

And she is right, most of us have contemplated the detriments of social media at one point in our lives. And I want to try and actually make a change, rather than just make people aware.

Think about how many of your Facebook friends are actually your friends.

First look at the number of friends you have. How many do you have? 800? 1700? 2300? 950? 300? I can confirm right now that I have 446 Facebook friends. All of which I know. I myself, once had about 900 - thinking it was cool, that it didn’t matter if I didn’t know certain people, and that it would help me get more likes.

I once had someone say to me, surely you do not really have 900 friends… And they were right, I didn’t.

Then I used this question to decide which ones I would delete:
To each person I said – If I were to see you in Chatswood and walk past you, would we acknowledge each other and would I say hi?

If the answer was a blatant or hesitant no and I was thinking about how awkward it would be or that I’d avoid an interaction, I deleted this person. Now, if I go to a gathering and meet people there and don’t say more than hello I’m Annie nice to meet you, I do not accept their friend request when I am home. Because believe it or not, someone being aware of my name, and me of theirs - does not make us instantaneously friends!

You’d be surprised at how many people you really don’t know, but think you do, just because you see their day-to-day activity on Facebook.
Try taking a look at your Facebook now, it's probably open in the tab next to you. Why must you have all these people viewing your every move on the internet? Deleting the unnecessary people could make you a step closer to caring less about your uploads/status'. 

Also, consider just trialling what your life would be like without Facebook. It is very easy to deactivate your account (you do not lose anything when you do this). I have deleted my Facebook on a few occasions, and tend to deactivate it around exam periods too. I can honestly swear that my life has drastically improved during these times. I had time to read books. I didn’t fight as much with my parents as I wasn’t slamming my door in their face telling them to get out so I could continue analysing my newsfeed. I went to bed at 9.00 pm, something that I never did because I was always chatting to people late at night. I wasn’t worried about how skinny so and so looked in her latest DP, or how many likes another girl got over me. Nor was I concerned with looking at ex-boyfriends Facebook moves (we’ve all done some FB stalking in our lives, come on). So if you can bear to be disconnected for even a week, I encourage you to give it a go.

Instagram is possibly just as bad. It has become perhaps even more widely used than Facebook in recent months. Instagram in a way is more competitive, as it has only a single purpose: to upload photos. In this respect, it is an app defined by image, appearance and aesthetics. It is a bit of a competition, where people boast their newly purchased designer clothes, the most radical fro-yo, and their costumes for a Saturday night party. The worst thing is – every photo is rated.

Maybe Instagram would be okay if you couldn’t like or comment photos. I wish that was an option, to just be able to upload a photo for the pleasure of people to view it, rather than for the affirmations via likes that we crave so badly. I have had friends message me asking my advice on an Instagram upload of theirs, and if they should perhaps delete it. They were so concerned about the likes they received in a certain amount of time. Seriously – there are so many more important things to worry about than working out the rate of likes per minute.

I deleted my Instagram about a month ago and it was a great decision. I had about 130 photos, and 580 followers. Again, I was uploading photos to satisfy people I didn’t know, and I had the app to see who had un-followed me, and I found myself taking photos solely for the purpose of later uploading them. I can honestly say that I do not miss it. I don’t miss seeing what other people ate. I don’t miss seeing photos of sunsets. I didn’t need Instagram, all it truly did was make me jealous, insecure and obsessive. I received about 8 texts from different people demanding to know why I had unfollowed them. This just goes to show how conscious people are of their followers, and how worked up they can get if someone unfollows them. One of my friends explained to me the other day what an “Instafag” is. And I have to say, the definition (someone who takes photos of say, leaves, water, or a meal, for the sole purpose of uploading it to “Insta” as it is nicknamed), couldn’t be closer to the truth. I don’t particularly like the word “fag” but really, the people who do this are quite lame, and perhaps are deserving of this expression.

I challenge you to delete the app that enables you to see who unfollowed you, if you have it. Don’t be concerned with how many people are following you, as hard as that may seem. In real life there is no way to measure true friends, and realistically - a leader can’t count their followers. So neither should you. 

 

PRESSURE

The pressure that I live with is insane. And I know that almost every single one of my friends live with this similar pressure.
Can you remember the last time you felt genuinely relaxed?
The last time you weren’t anticipating your plans for the weekend?
The last time you’d finished all of your schoolwork, were on good terms with all your friends, and felt content with your appearance and body?

We are always striving, and never succeeding quite enough. There’s always something more to do, we have to be thinner and smarter and more tanned, we have to have more followers, more clothes, and more meals at Armchair Collective.

The expectations from our parents are usually very high, and this is fair enough. I feel very fortunate to live where I do and go to school where I do, and with the amount of things my parents have given and invested to me, I feel an obligation to give back to them. As a result, however, I’m always quite stressed. Maybe it would be manageable if I only had to get a good night’s sleep, study hard, clean my room, play a sport, have a part-time job and spend Sunday nights with my family. Even that is a lot on its own, but when you add in the pressure from boys and peers to be excelling in social areas too, it becomes virtually impossible to be both happy and in control.

 I once felt pressure to be thin, to be tanned, to have perfect skin, no regrowth, to go out once on the weekend to either a party or a gathering and to upload the correct amount of photos (of course at primetime, with the most innovative caption, perhaps in another language). I am a little over a year away from finishing school. And still, people are so concerned with these things. I highly doubt my friends at Uni or people I meet when I travel will care that one Sunday I had fresh muesli and that I have 500 Instagram followers... I've realised that I should be living my life for myself, not for the purpose of satisfying others' watchful expectations.

I think that unfortunately, social media and the media in general have melded and projected this image of a perfect woman, in terms of physical appearance. And our generation has taken this image, and set it as the norm. For girls, we need to be thin, (often in reality this is underweight), but we need to have big boobs and a “nice ass”. We need to have flawless skin and popping eyes and plump lips, but too much make-up gets you called a cake-face. We need to wear the correct clothes from Glue, Tigerlily, and Zimmermann, but we get criticised for showing too much cleavage. What I’m trying to say is, that there is a very fine line in being able to fulfil everyone’s expectations, and not receive disapproval.

Popularity, defined by a dictionary is: the state or condition of being liked, admired, or supported by many people. I think it is a very difficult word to pinpoint, as it can really be interpreted in many ways. Popular for being kind-hearted, is not what we would consider the definition today. I would probably say that someone is described as popular if she or he has many Instagram followers, over 200/300 likes on their photos, who is generally quite thin, buff or attractive, generally appears in most photos of big parties and who’s name is recognised by many people. It is disgusting to think that people measure popularity on the amount of people that have clicked the “like” button on the Internet, or the centimetres between each of their legs. But it is us that have coined this definition, and us who continue to let it apply to these people who really have done very little to be admired or worshipped in such a way that they are. I listen to the conversations of my peers at lunch and they are discussing the things they saw on the newsfeed the night before, or they ask one another, “omg did you see that photo of her?” We are so judgemental and it is honestly lame how concerned we are with other people’s business.
It has gotten to the point where the purpose of our lives is to do things, wear things and say things, in the hope of impressing others.

We all need a bloody reality check. I will say it: ACAI DOES NOT TASTE GOOD, nor does organic quinoa chia seeds drenched in overnight fatfree soy milk from Mickey’s Café in Paddington. We take photos of our meals instead of enjoying them. We take photos of our outfits and makeup before a party so that people know where we are going tonight. We caption our photos in Spanish with II lines and semi-colans, and an emoji that hasn’t resurfaced for a while. We share our photos – WHY! Why can we not see how vain it is? Oh but we do. Hence why we get our friends to share our photos, or we upload them at a time where enough of our Facebook friends will see it, and godforbid we go to TAG OURSELVES in our own photos. Could I just take a minute to say thank you, honestly I would never have guessed with your name on your profile and a photo of you, that you were the one in the photo. Really, thanks for that clarification.

We are getting to the point where the youth of our generation are skipping the awkward stage. I myself, wore clothes from Target, Supre, Equip and Piping Hot long before I heard about the cool labels within General Pants. My sister's grade, two years below me, insisted on buying seafolly bikinis and glasshouse candles, Tiffany jewellery and Raybans sunglasses whilst at their age I settled for some diva bangles and a speedo tankini.

And the worst part is, that we go out and slave in these underpaid jobs just so we can buy a dress that we can wear once. Yes, that’s right – once. Why? Because there is bloody photographic proof wherever we go. You couldn’t be caught dead in the same dress to a party within two months. Everyone would notice and comment. This extends as far as to wearing the same colour to two formals. Are you serious? It is a shade of cloth for god’s sake. 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have to worry about what girls wore to their Sceggs, Monte, PLC and Wenona formal’s. Now I wouldn’t even buy the same dress as someone, for fear of someone noticing, and either comparing that girl and me or accusing me of copying her.

I hate how I have to share these thoughts with you on social media. It is so ironic that I have to promote a post about social media on social media.

We all need a massive reality check. Let’s upload photos of comfy joggers and a good old ham and cheese sandwich. Let’s share funny youtube videos instead of music by Alt-j or whatever random letters that band has put together as a title. 

It infuriates me that it is so easy to change our nasty habits, yet we only have ourselves to blame. I challenge you to change one thing that you admitted you do whilst reading this. Whether this if finding a cool Instagram about me message, or commenting on people’s photos in the hope to get a comment back, or spending $900 on a few hours at one formal. Don’t put the corner of a Vogue magazine in the corner of the photo of your breakfast, eat it! Go to a café with your friends and order 9 hashbrowns and some bacon instead of an organic guava and wheatgrass juice. Who are we fooling really?

Annie