Gen Z Is Testing the Limit of How Weird Parties Can Get
· The Atlantic
On a recent Thursday night, I sat among other guests at a house party and listened intently to a PowerPoint presentation about radium. Lauren Pickens, a 25-year-old who lives in the Washington, D.C., area, stood at the front of the room and flipped through slides about the carcinogenic chemical: A century ago, radium was marketed as a miracle. Americans added it to everything—including food and cosmetics. Within years, some had died. “We’re smarter than that these days,” Pickens said, pivoting to raw milk and other questionable substances people are ingesting today. Everyone laughed.
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The presentation was part of the theme that night. The co-hosts—Pickens and her boyfriend, Luke Brandl—had sent detailed instructions to everyone: “Pick a historically bad decision, from either personal or public memory, and tell us about it in the form of an 8–10 minute presentation.” We’d then vote and crown a winner. One guest discussed the chaotic 1904 Olympic marathon (one runner ate rotten apples and took a nap during the race, yet still managed to place fourth); another rehashed her relationship with an ex in the form of a book report. The party was held at Brandl’s home, which doubles as a museum of sorts to the various parties the couple has hosted. Sticky notes from an “embracing your cringe” party hung on a wall, as did a poster of the 1978 film Starcrash, which people had watched at another themed party—“bad-movie night.”
Pickens and Brandl are more ambitious than the average party planner, but their events lean into a common enthusiasm among young partygoers for niche, even absurd, themes. I’ve been collecting examples for weeks: “dress like your favorite Metro stop,” a murder mystery about tech billionaires on a private island, a farewell to Spirit Airlines (“bring the spirit and spirits”). In some circles, hyper-specific party themes are becoming a norm, sometimes a requirement. “Having a coherent theme is more of an expectation now than it was two years ago,” Alexa Jordan, a 25-year-old incoming law student, told me. She’s hosted a spelling-bee birthday party and a cul-de-sac 5K, which entailed running in a circle for more than 65 laps. She estimated that about eight out of every 10 parties she’s invited to now have a theme.
In one sense, the appeal of a niche party is simple. Themes are fun, as people discovered long ago. (In 1897, New York City socialites held a costume ball that has been dubbed the “most ostentatious party in US history.”) Now that friends are only a text message or FaceTime away, though, there’s also a higher bar for what gets people hanging out in person. Wearing a funky costume or presenting on a weird interest gives people “something to talk about,” Samika Lewis, a 25-year-old who also attended the bad-decisions party, told me. Especially at a time when some young adults are turning away from alcohol, a wacky party can act as its own kind of social lubricant. “I never really liked bars that much,” Brandl told me. “I always wanted something a little bit different and more creative.”
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These parties are themselves fueled by social media as much as they are a rebuke of hyper-online culture. The event I attended started the way it ended—on Partiful. The couple had invited everyone through the popular event-planning app. The morning after, Brandl sent a text blast via Partiful, announcing that a presentation on dueling had won. One of the guests added pictures to the app’s shared photo album.
Partiful, which was founded in 2019, has become especially integral to the rise of niche party themes. Events can be made public or accessible only to those who are sent the link, which is the setting that the hosts I talked with primarily use. Public events show up on the homepage for anyone to see, allowing the strangest parties to get lots of attention and priming people to get creative with their own themes. If you’re stuck, the app has a feature, “Ask the Party Genie,” that lets you choose a vibe (such as “chill” or “chaos”) to get specific theme ideas. When I tried it out, the genie suggested that I host parties including “make lamps out of non-lamps” and a “Lana del Rage Room.” On Partiful, RSVPs to “niche and high-concept events” grew more than four times from 2024 to 2025, Partiful’s CEO, Shreya Murthy, told me.
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On Instagram and TikTok, many recaps of themed parties draw millions of views, which help inspire more niche parties. Jordan, the law student, hosted her spelling-bee bash after a friend sent her an Instagram Reel of a similar event. At the extreme, social-media memes are themselves the theme. Komal Kamdar, a 27-year-old who lives in New York City, attended a party where guests dressed up like Adam Sandler, who has gone viral for his combinations of a baggy graphic T-shirt and shorts.
The result is a feedback loop: People get inspiration from Instagram and TikTok. Then they whip up an invitation on Partiful and upload pictures to social media when the party’s over. In some cases, the themes can start to feel forced—more of a performance for some brief attention online than anything else. In D.C., more than 5,000 Partiful users have expressed interest in attending a five-minute “eat an apple with me” event. Normal park picnics have been rebranded as “sit down and touch grass” events.
At the party I attended, one guest scrambled to finish making his PowerPoint before the start of the event. And hosts often drop hundreds of dollars on decorations and spend weeks planning to make sure that the theme comes to life. Kamdar said she spends an average of $200 to host a niche party, and has held fewer gatherings because of the cost.
Still, any kind of in-person gathering seems better than the alternative. Americans could certainly stand to party more. At its best, a niche party is not about chasing clout, but about actually getting to know people. At the PowerPoint party, guests initially exchanged awkward small talk and nibbled on homemade garlic knots. But once the presentations began, everyone loosened up. By the end, we hardly felt like strangers at all. As I slipped out, at close to midnight, the stragglers were already talking about Pickens and Brandl’s next party. Of course, there would be a theme: Guests would compete in a treasure hunt dressed up as either a Roman or a pirate.