You have heard it, you have seen it – nightclubs are closing down, the party scene is dying. The reasons given for it are many – young people can’t afford going out because it’s expensive, or they don’t drink that much anymore. I’m going to propose something else entirely: what if nightlife is dying because social media killed the fun of dance parties?
When you go to a nightclub, in the 2020s, what you see is groups of people dressed up, with phones in their hands, constantly posing for pictures. They take pictures of their drinks, of themselves, of the furniture. Nightclubs have the expectation of looking cool because people will only go if they can post pictures of it online. They also have to serve cool looking drinks and food, so influencers can share the experience on their socials. Suddenly, the music and dancing doesn’t matter. It’s about seeing and being seen on some social media feed. The dancefloor is secondary.
I attended a retro music party where I doubt there was anyone younger than 35. The place was a dark basement, there weren’t any fancy cocktails, there was no food. It felt like going to a dance party 25 years ago, or more. Not a single person had a phone on their hand, and people were crowding the dancefloor, dancing all night long, applauding the DJs musical choices, singing along. It was about the music, not about being seen. But these were people who grew up before social media was such an ubiquity, and when clubbing was at its peak.
My sad conclusion is that younger people never had the opportunity to experience dancing for five hours without thinking of it as a performance for external validation on social media. They have been harassed by cameras their entire lives. The pressure of performing a certain image for others. I, on the other hand, have been free to just dance. Social media destroyed that concept for them.
We all have been to concerts with walls of people with their cell phones up filming the concert. All those videos are terrible and I doubt anyone even watches it later. I personally hate when people share hundreds of short videos of concerts they attended, 3 seconds of poorly recorded music of some band we like? No thanks.
Here’s an experiment: go out dancing, or to a concert, without your phone, and just enjoy being there. Focus on the music, on the experience. Feel the moment, don’t worry about how you are being perceived – live those few hours only for yourself.
Reclaim the joy of music for yourself. While at this point it may be too late to save the dancefloors from the mass murder they have been subjected to, we can still save our own fun.
(I tried to find the final scene of Saltburn (2023), where the title of this post comes from, but I’d strongly recommend you watch the movie. Happy dancing!)