Yet another collegetown bar bites the dust

[Tcl123]

It's literally horrible how collegetown is now. I drove thru on a recon mission after getting accepted, but if it was then how it is now, it'd have been a much tougher decision. The juniors/seniors are missing out on so much of the college experience.

[Scersk '97]

It's literally horrible how collegetown is now. I drove thru on a recon mission after getting accepted, but if it was then how it is now, it'd have been a much tougher decision. The juniors/seniors are missing out on so much of the college experience.

Things are weird everywhere. I'm up near Potsdam right now (wife's sabbatical), and I hardly ever see Clarkson or Potsdam students off-campus. Potsdam has tons of vacant storefronts, the local diner closes at 1PM, students don't go to hockey games, and the bar/pub choices leave much to be desired. This in a town of 14,000 that welcomes 8,000 students each school year. Where are they?

We used to make fun of the kids who didn't go out and spent all their time holed up in their dorm rooms playing No-friend-os. ('Cause god knows you can only work so much. Everyone needs some release.) Now, that's every kid, briefly as a necessity or otherwise as a response to a lack of options, but mostly as a choice or a symptom of phone addiction. I have started to come around to the thought that we graduates of the 90s were benefitting from the social largesse of the pre-21 drinking age regulatory environment, i.e., we were experiencing the end of something as social "establishments," of whatever sort, continued to soldier on pretty much on autopilot. Except as anything but a spartan bedroom for a school where social life continues on diminished and behind closed doors, Collegetown has ceased to exist as it once was.

Any wonder why the kids are full of anxieties? Any wonder why more-than-every-once-in-a-while we end up reading some sordid, tragic tale emanating from the hidden culture of what counts for socializing these days? Things are weird.

[scoop85]

It's literally horrible how collegetown is now. I drove thru on a recon mission after getting accepted, but if it was then how it is now, it'd have been a much tougher decision. The juniors/seniors are missing out on so much of the college experience.

Things are weird everywhere. I'm up near Potsdam right now (wife's sabbatical), and I hardly ever see Clarkson or Potsdam students off-campus. Potsdam has tons of vacant storefronts, the local diner closes at 1PM, students don't go to hockey games, and the bar/pub choices leave much to be desired. This in a town of 14,000 that welcomes 8,000 students each school year. Where are they?

We used to make fun of the kids who didn't go out and spent all their time holed up in their dorm rooms playing No-friend-os. ('Cause god knows you can only work so much. Everyone needs some release.) Now, that's every kid, briefly as a necessity or otherwise as a response to a lack of options, but mostly as a choice or a symptom of phone addiction. I have started to come around to the thought that we graduates of the 90s were benefitting from the social largesse of the pre-21 drinking age regulatory environment, i.e., we were experiencing the end of something as social "establishments," of whatever sort, continued to soldier on pretty much on autopilot. Except as anything but a spartan bedroom for a school where social life continues on diminished and behind closed doors, Collegetown has ceased to exist as it once was.

Any wonder why the kids are full of anxieties? Any wonder why more-than-every-once-in-a-while we end up reading some sordid, tragic tale emanating from the hidden culture of what counts for socializing these days? Things are weird.

My son is a junior at Colgate, and I see a lot of what you describe going on up there. I paid him a visit this past weekend and we attended both a basketball and hockey game. Student attendance for hoops wasn't bad, which should be expected for a first place team. But there were relatively few students at their beautiful rink to see two decent teams play. But beyond the athletic events, the students (my son included) spend too much time isolated in their rooms glued to their video game consoles. It's a sea change from how college life was experienced "back in my day," and I feel badly for this "COVID generation" as some are now calling them.

[Trotsky]

We used to make fun of the kids who didn't go out and spent all their time holed up in their dorm rooms playing No-friend-os. ('Cause god knows you can only work so much. Everyone needs some release.) Now, that's every kid, briefly as a necessity or otherwise as a response to a lack of options, but mostly as a choice or a symptom of phone addiction.

I find it absolutely impossible to fathom that kids are staying in their rooms instead of fucking.  As long as boys 18-22 have brains wired solely for one activity, and as long as girls 18-22, well, look like girls 18-22, I do not believe there is any reason for moral panic.

Horniness finds a way.

[Scersk '97]

We used to make fun of the kids who didn't go out and spent all their time holed up in their dorm rooms playing No-friend-os. ('Cause god knows you can only work so much. Everyone needs some release.) Now, that's every kid, briefly as a necessity or otherwise as a response to a lack of options, but mostly as a choice or a symptom of phone addiction.

I find it absolutely impossible to fathom that kids are staying in their rooms instead of fucking.  As long as boys 18-22 have brains wired solely for one activity, and as long as girls 18-22, well, look like girls 18-22, I do not believe there is any reason for moral panic.

Horniness finds a way.

I just don't know anymore, considering the falling birthrates worldwide, the growth of "online gamer culture," etc. Yet, I'm not sure this social indolence poses a threat to Society.

I'm not in a moral panic; I more just pity them. Whether through a collective defect brought on by changing technologies or a lack of opportunities brought on by general societal collapse, I don't think they are having it as good as we did.

EDIT: And I forgot to mention, I think there are multiple societal forces that are perfectly happy with this glut in the supply of docile consumers. That's actually what worries me, because an economic feedback loop is forming.

[billhoward]

Dr. Ruth could not have put it better. And you did it in fewer words. #threaddriftwecanuse

[Cop at Lynah]

With all the Title IX stuff out there you pretty much need a signed affidavit saying that intercourse in consensual.  The hookup scene on campus has dramatically changed over the last 10+ years

[marty]

We used to make fun of the kids who didn't go out and spent all their time holed up in their dorm rooms playing No-friend-os. ('Cause god knows you can only work so much. Everyone needs some release.) Now, that's every kid, briefly as a necessity or otherwise as a response to a lack of options, but mostly as a choice or a symptom of phone addiction.

I find it absolutely impossible to fathom that kids are staying in their rooms instead of fucking.  As long as boys 18-22 have brains wired solely for one activity, and as long as girls 18-22, well, look like girls 18-22, I do not believe there is any reason for moral panic.

Horniness finds a way.

Search for stories/articles about porn addiction.  I'm glad this crap wasn't so pervasive when I was a horny 20 something.  I might have been a dope and never found the real thing.

I can't imagine a world without my grandchildren

[Trotsky]

We used to make fun of the kids who didn't go out and spent all their time holed up in their dorm rooms playing No-friend-os. ('Cause god knows you can only work so much. Everyone needs some release.) Now, that's every kid, briefly as a necessity or otherwise as a response to a lack of options, but mostly as a choice or a symptom of phone addiction.

I find it absolutely impossible to fathom that kids are staying in their rooms instead of fucking.  As long as boys 18-22 have brains wired solely for one activity, and as long as girls 18-22, well, look like girls 18-22, I do not believe there is any reason for moral panic.

Horniness finds a way.

Search for stories/articles about porn addiction.  I'm glad this crap wasn't so pervasive when I was a horny 20 something.  I might have been a dope and never found the real thing.

I can't imagine a world without my grandchildren

Right, but in this timeline somebody else missed out, and maybe theirs would've been bett-- kidding, KIDDING!

[Trotsky]

With all the Title IX stuff out there you pretty much need a signed affidavit saying that intercourse in consensual.

If there is a Non Sequitur Pulitzer, I have a nominee.

[Trotsky]

I'm not in a moral panic; I more just pity them. Whether through a collective defect brought on by changing technologies or a lack of opportunities brought on by general societal collapse, I don't think they are having it as good as we did.

Maybe living in a world of falling birthrates, with women who are more cognizant of their sexuality and their right to say no, IS having it better.

The only people I think have it "worse now" are the troglodytic rageaholics who poutrage their way through the geriatric pharmaceutical ads of Hate Radio.  Frankly, the more unhappy and anxious those cultural de sacs are, the better for humanity as a whole.

I love the Gen Zers -- they might actually be first psychologically healthy Americans in history.  "What a difference in this generation!"

[Scersk '97]

I love the Gen Zers -- they might actually be first psychologically healthy Americans in history.  "What a difference in this generation!"

We must know different Gen Zers. From what I've seen they're more unhappy than the Millennials and more bottled up about it.

[jtwcornell91]

When I was in college, I moved in circles without a lot of drinking, so bars weren't a big part of the scene, but there was a lot of late-night socializing over Hot Truck, which is also no more.  And the gaming culture was mostly table-top, in person, then.

[RichH]

When I was in college, I moved in circles without a lot of drinking, so bars weren't a big part of the scene, but there was a lot of late-night socializing over Hot Truck, which is also no more.  And the gaming culture was mostly table-top, in person, then.

Hot Truck was the great equalizer. All circles gathered in the same place to achieve the same goal. Nobody was above the others, be it 7pm or 3:30am. Discussions of any topic were welcome. Fights were rare, respect was not. And Bob's cabin was available as a warming hut.

For a time, SS kept things as they were. The first downturn was when you could call in orders, essentially avoiding payment the dues of the wait. Everything else was a slow descent to the ghost we have now.

[Trotsky]

I just had the following absolutely sincere thought, and it depresses me beyond words.

Good Self: "Self, if we wind up going against Clarkson in the QF, this is just like Colgate last year.  You should consider going to the QF for the first time in 20 years to root the boys on, they need your help."

Bad Self: (whining) "Yeah, but traveling sucks..."

Good Self: "Traveling sucks?  Fuck you, you've driven through white out blizzards in the North Country to watch a Tuesday night elimination, then gotten back in the car the following Friday and done it again.  'Traveling sucks.'  Fuck you, man."

Bad Self: "OK, OK.  But there is absolutely no reason to go to Ithaca, and nothing fun left to do there, and the campus has become an overcrowded STEMMY hellscape, and even CTown sucks."

Good Self: (long pause)  "I got nothin'."