This year, my New Year’s resolution is to party.Â
Many resolutions center around an underlying theme of productivity — as we know it. In society today, specifically in the United States, our idea of productivity is not sustainable nor effective. This idea is rooted in our capitalistic culture that teaches us to constantly produce, and as a college student, it is so easy to become overwhelmed and feel unaccomplished. As a generation, we are the first to challenge this idea and redefine our perspective of productivity. But to understand why partying is productive, it’s important to self-reflect on a larger lens or scope.Â
Partying often gets a bad rep. But it’s a space that allows us to fail and embarrass ourselves equally as much as it invites us to have some of the most meaningful nights of our lives or to simply just have fun. Though it may seem surface level or unproductive, it holds much more substance in our lives than it may appear. Partying naturally gives us a place to explore our interests, create new relationships, expose ourselves to new experiences, and most importantly learn more about ourselves.Â
The party doesn’t end at midnight, it ends at 11 a.m. after the morning debrief with your best friends. It often starts with us collectively meeting in De La Guerra dining hall, biting our tongues on different missing bits of information.
Before we can discuss, we obviously have to get our plate full of powdered eggs and breakfast pastries. Then, once we arrive at our signature table, we discuss. It may seem simple but these are cornerstone experiences or “canon events” that lead us to question ourselves and self-reflect on a more analytical level with some of the most important people in our lives — college best friends.
Above all, partying allows us to connect with one another, which in the midst of the loneliness epidemic, is important now more than ever. Over the past decade, micro-trends online cycle through quicker than ever before. There has recently been a wave of purity culture more specifically with the rise of the “clean girl aesthetic” and day in the life content that is highly unrealistic.
These trends exude an expectation for their audiences, which are predominantly young women like myself, to conceal and appeal to an unattainable polished look. This wave directly correlates to the loneliness epidemic as it’s an online cultural expectation that isolates and glamorizes performative productivity. A current microtrend circulating online is 2026 being the “New 2016” and predictions of party culture coming back. I believe this stems from a natural longing for community as humans are inherently social beings.Â
UCSB plays a unique role in this sense as it excels in both academic and party culture. At many universities there is a trade-off of either prestige or party culture but somehow our school’s culture has been able to mesh and balance the two. As important as it is to achieve, it’s significantly more important to be human. As I advocate for partying, it is not an attempt to negate prioritizing class, which obviously comes first, as there is a balance in any habit or practice.
My objective is to reframe the negative stigma around partying and highlight the insightful questions that it provokes for our identities. At this point in our lives, the stakes are not nearly as high as they will be in the next decade and as college students we should be taking advantage of this time.Â
With that being said, I am treating partying like any other resolution. So this quarter, in my meticulously color coded calendar, I will be booking my weekly Friday and Saturday nights on Del Playa from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m in pink. Take this as your sign to rally and add a little pink to your calendar.