I can remember quite clearly the first time I heard "random" used in youth slang. It was at Middlebury College in the summer of 1987. A student from Princeton was telling me a story about something that happened to her, and she began by saying that it happened at "this totally random party." It struck me at the time, and it occurred to me that virtually all the college parties I had attended were well-described as "random"--chaotic, unplanned, thrown by people I didn't directly know, and usually descending into some level of law-breaking trouble. The Princeton student, on the other hand, was from a different (higher) class than me; her parties were usually planned and controlled.
On Our Obsession with the Word "Random": Fear of a Millennial Planet
I can remember quite clearly the first time I heard "random" used in youth slang. It was at Middlebury College in the summer of 1987. A student from Princeton was telling me a story about something that happened to her, and she began by saying that it happened at "this totally random party." It struck me at the time, and it occurred to me that virtually all the college parties I had attended were well-described as "random"--chaotic, unplanned, thrown by people I didn't directly know, and usually descending into some level of law-breaking trouble. The Princeton student, on the other hand, was from a different (higher) class than me; her parties were usually planned and controlled.