The Highlight of the DNC After-Parties Was Meeting Young Sheldon

Last week, I spent four days in Chicago attending a modest political convention organized largely for Meghan McCain's entertainment and pretty much nothing else. Much of my Democratic National Convention experience involved shuffling around a gazillion venues and hotel convention centers and trying to squeeze in as much time to write as possible between panels, protests, JB Pritzker speeches, and the DNC itself. By contrast, a lot of people were seemingly there mostly to party in some deeply unfortunate footwear.

During my short time in the windy city, friends from home kept pressing for any salacious gossip, sending me tweets quipping about how everyone at the DNC was cheating on their spouses or doing an inordinate amount of drugs. Speaking for myself alone, the wildest moment of my DNC afterparty experience was bumping into Young Sheldon star Iain Armitage at an afterparty hosted by Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.). Of course, it took roughly two days of figuring out the lay of the land to get anywhere near crossing paths with the dearly beloved sitcom star, who was simultaneously elusive and omnipresent at the convention.

Kylie Cheung x Young Sheldon pic.twitter.com/CKRqutgpjd

— Kylie Cheung (@kylietcheung) August 22, 2024

Throughout the week, different organizations and politicians hosted a range of afterparties for journalists, political staffers and whoever the hell else was at this thing. Most of the events listed 9 or 10  as the start time, even though the convention didn’t wrap until after 10. And some parties were at full capacity if you arrived at 12 and/or seemed to be wrapping up well by around 1, which is a pretty unfamiliar experience coming from New York nightlife, but whatever!

Also, I’m suddenly extremely self-conscious that other DNC attendees will read and call this dilemma a “skill issue” on my end, and you’re probably right! I am not particularly well connected and didn’t have a lot of free time to research let alone attend late-night happenings. So, my DNC afterparty path was largely just some friends texting me a location, then jumping in an Uber and asking zero questions. 

We'll start at the beginning: On Monday night, after a long day of flitting between Amtrak stations and airports, because Jezebel's Monday morning flight from JFK to ORD was canceled on Sunday night, I met friends at a rooftop bar party hosted by what appeared to be multiple groups of political consultants, according to the badge on a lanyard you needed to get in.

I bumped into a few political influencers I knew and unsubtly rubber-necked at the sight of one of the youngest members of Congress who was also in attendance. The party wrapped, on schedule, at 12, less than an hour after we arrived. So, next, my friend’s chief of staff brought us to Rep. Nikema Williams’ (D-Ga.) party at a nightclub, DJ-ed by Lil Jon just hours before his big splash on night 2 of the convention. This one was fun and felt like a real party, complete with the endearing sighting of one Congress member and their spouse very openly and lovingly grinding on one side of the room, while the white guy who went viral for his enthusiastic dancing to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” at an Atlanta Kamala Harris rally earlier this month danced and took photos with fans on the other side of the room. I got back to my hotel at 3 a.m. I'd easily rate the night four out of five coconuts—five if I'd gotten to stay even 20 minutes longer before everyone I was with wanted to go home.

Reporting from the Hotties for Harris DNC after party: pic.twitter.com/MaEa2h7J7G

— Rachel Hale (@rachelleighhale) August 21, 2024

On Tuesday Night, after the Obamas gave their speeches, I got stuck in a slow and overcrowded shuttle line. Meanwhile, everyone else in the English-speaking world seemed to be at the Hotties for Harris party, co-hosted by Liz Plank, Deja Foxx, and Ky Polanco—a pop-up of smart, fun, made-to-go-viral displays, like an icky couch with a sign that read “property of JD Vance,” and a room of going-out-of-business signs ushering in a second Trump presidency that read, “SEX MAY SOON BE ILLEGAL! ALL MUST GO!” and “FREEDOMS END SOON! ACT NOW!” But that was wrapping up, and predictably at capacity as far as I heard, by the time I successfully got on and off a shuttle. So, I wound up at my friend’s hotel bar, drinking and Doordashing Taco Bell with other college friends at the DNC. I would have loved to get a picture with any of those signs, but I'd still give the night a clean three coconuts out of five.

Then came Wednesday night, which will be forever immortalized in the historical record of my life as "Young Sheldon Night." Surprisingly energized after getting back to my hotel much earlier than I had on Tuesday, I was able to get an Uber before midnight and slide into Rep. Giffords’ party without issue. Young Sheldon aside, I had the most fun at this one for no other reason than all of my friends had finally coalesced around one party instead of scattering to a whole bunch of different ones. Call me superstitious, but I’d like to think it was the force of Young Sheldon bringing us all together.

Photos of Armitage inside the United Center had been popping up in my Twitter feed all week—but it's one thing to see a living legend on your phone screen and quite another to see them in person. I never spotted him inside the convention and never expected I'd see him at one of the after-convention events, especially since he's 16.

Iain Armitage from ‘Young Sheldon’ at the #DNC. pic.twitter.com/9zFrVyhAx4

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 22, 2024

But close to 2 a.m., we spotted him presumably on his way out of the party. I wouldn't exactly call myself a Young Sheldon fan, based on the handful of episodes I peripherally watched the one weekday when I went to my gym in the middle of the afternoon and TBS was playing reruns. But I am a fan of the internet, and "Young Sheldon," the concept, is as much the main character of Twitter as he is the main character of Young Sheldon. 

Before I knew it, one of my friends pushed me into Armitage, so I told him my parents loved his show, which was a little white lie, but I’m certain he hears it a lot and figured the sound of a familiar refrain might be the least uncomfortable way to be approached by a stranger. He cheerfully agreed to take a photo together, and we shook hands like a couple of Western leaders at the G7 conference. While one of my friends took photos of the seismic meeting of the minds, another recorded a video of most of the exchange. Slightly less fun was waking up at 6 a.m. the next morning to see Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and other Democratic Party big-wigs speak at a 7 a.m. delegate breakfast. But worth it. 

Finally, on Thursday night, my last night in Chicago, in lieu of any themed party, I met media friends at a dive bar at 1:30 a.m. hours after Harris gave her keynote speech, to throw back my first shot of Malört, DoorDash Taco Bell (again), and make it to bed by 5 a.m. No muss, no fuss, just sleep deprivation, and lingering PTSD from watching an arena of Democrats cheer incessantly for Harris as she called for the U.S. to build the “most lethal fighting force in the world.”

Now that I'm home and continuing to field questions from New York friends about my DNC memories, I don’t know that I have more to say about the convention other than some version of what Veep’s Karen said about Tom James: “What do I think of him? I think there’s a lot to think.” I can't wait to crash a Bushwich party that goes on past 1 a.m, I spent the weekend—and will likely spend this week—curled up in my bed, watching Young Sheldon, and I'll never, ever drink Malort again.