Are Tech Meetups Dead?

I work with a bunch of people that just left college and we were discussing how to avoid deskilling and I said "well, you could go to local meetups". They're in NYC (I'm in Florida right now) and said there isn't much going on and I couldn't believe it. Asked some more experienced friends that have been living there for longer and they said that it all died during COVID and never came back.

I ran or helped organize meetups in multiple places, back in Brazil where I'm from, Boston and then Philadelphia. We used to joke you could have pizza and coke for dinner every night in PHL during the week for the number of meetups we had. You'd meet cool people, see people sharing their experiences, build your network and make friends all at the same time. During COVID we moved to Florida and got kids so I kinda got out of the loop with meetups, but I had no idea it was this bad.

How are these kids going to meet other practitioners, build their network and even put themselves out there by presenting?