Party culture: many problems, little action

Drunk student crashes car kills two.

Headlines like this send a call to action to end underage drinking.

Such accidents send shockwaves throughout the state, and schools invite guest speakers to educate students on the dangers of drinking and driving. There is a moment of sadness, and then the entire incident is forgotten. Repeat cycle.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that underage drinking is responsible for 4,300 deaths annually, but still, the rates of underage drinking do not seem to be curtailing. While many place the blame onto inattentive parents or irresponsible students, other factors aren’t addressed enough.

When I heard a year ago that one of my senior friends wanted to “test her limit” with drinking (seeing how much alcohol she could consume before getting tipsy), I was confused and upset, and I tried to talk her out of it. Her response was that she wanted to find out what it was like before she went to college.

At the time, there seemed to be no logic in it. In my own naivety, I assumed that drinking and partying were confined to the craziest of frats and sororities and were a rarity among high schoolers.

While Saratoga may not be as ingrained in the party culture as other high schools, some social aspects of colleges and high schools revolve around it. If you aren’t into the party culture, you're not cool; you’re an outcast.

Party culture at colleges has given rise to purity tests: tests judging (and usually making fun of) people based on their innocence. Quoted from the official Rice University purity test, the test “has historically served as a segway from orientation week to true college life at Rice. It’s a voluntary opportunity for orientation week groups to bond, and for students to track the maturation of their experiences throughout college.”

Whether written as a joke or not, it falsely portrays what college life is all about; the maturity of students is measured by their “impureness” instead of responsibility, leadership or decision making.

Under this social influence and peer pressure, people may find themselves doing something they are uncomfortable with just to blend in with the crowd.

To lower underage drinking in colleges, colleges should also continue to educate students on the dangers of drinking the way many high schools do. With more exposure to the party scene in colleges, older students still need to be hearing the right messages about the dangers of excessive drinking.

While the social stigma of parties will continue to linger, it will lessen over time if schools enforce underage drinking laws more heavily, rather than stepping in after yet another tragedy, when it’s already too late.

In addition, movies and pop culture do little to oppose substance usage. Rather, they seem to promote the things we warn others against: reckless partying centered around sex, drugs and alcohol. But instead of outwardly complaining about the messages pop culture sends, we embrace it: Music videos portraying these pursuits gain billions of views and movies sell out the day of release.

As long as we stay quiet, content producers will continue to pump out the same trashy content. By being more critical about the messages in pop culture, we can convey to the producers what we want and don’t want to promote.

If we truly want to do something to limit unhealthy lifestyle of partying and drinking in adolescence, we need to take action against it. Just saying the problem exists does little to change it.