20 things that happened at every millennial sleepover

No sleepover is complete until someone has dared their best friend to do something so ridiculous that it’s mentioned years later in their wedding toast speech.

Millennials were the first generation to grow up with the internet, and with that came logging into chat rooms as pre-teens, and truly laying the groundwork for what would come to be known as “catfishing.”

Peak millennial behavior at sleepovers was being in someone’s home, in a sleeping bag, and sweating to the point of dehydration, but saying nothing because you don’t want to be a bother.

Before every prank was recorded for social media, they were simple sleepover activities that caused embarrassment.

Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat went way too hard at sleepovers back in the day. Finish him!

Today, one can find their fair share of spooky stories online, but back when the internet was new, millennials relied on word-of-mouth storytelling and shared the scary tales they heard, likely from older siblings looking to cause their younger siblings to have nightmares.

Bloody Mary is an urban legend that has made its way through playgrounds for decades. Essentially like Beetlejuice, kids would say her name three times in a mirror in a dark room for a chance to see her.

Sometimes, millennials just sat around and talked. Yup, they had conversations without staring at an endless scroll of nonsense.

To Boomers and Gen X, M.A.S.H. is a TV show. To millennials, it’s a future-telling game where one could find out not only who they were going to marry, how many kids they’d have, and their career, but also just where they’d live; in a mansion, apartment, shack, or house. It was serious business.

The reason millennial playlists look insane is that they listen to a variety of music, thanks not only to MTV (when it was dedicated to music and not reality shows) but also to the radio.

The teen magazine industry peaked with millennials due in part to rabid boy band fans who bought anything their favorite group was on, but also just because printed media was still a huge deal, especially for teens who took in everything from fashion to dating advice from the likes of Teen People and YM.  

Millennials used to open a phonebook (it was a HUGE book that listed everyone in the area’s number) and would choose a random number, call it, say something wild, and hang up. Caller ID and cell phones took away the fun of this pastime.

When the TV channel was scrambled in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, it usually meant there was adult content. So, one can put two and two together as to why a group of adolescents would be trying to tune in.

The adrenaline rush of a parent letting their kid free in a video store to rent movies for a sleepover is unmatched.

Why has any kid ever thought a game from their local toy store was going to conjure up spirits?

A sleepover without pizza was and still is criminal.

The TikTok generation dances like no other, but before everyone was tailoring their lives for content, millennials were just dancing for joy in their rooms together. They usually made up their own moves to Britney Spears’ latest or followed dance routine videos they ordered off the TV. Darrin's Dance Grooves, shout out!

MySpace was and probably still is the social media highlight for many millennials, so it’s no surprise that a lot of them likely spent their later sleepovers perfecting their angled MySpace photos.

When people wake up now, they grab their phones and detach from the world around them. That was not and could not be the case years ago. Millennials had to get up and wander their friends' homes, which eventually led them to have a strange breakfast with their friend’s family until their friend came in.

The number of home computers that were lost to viruses from Limewire is too high, but that was the price paid to make the perfect sleepover mixed CD.