This is a long blog post. If you’re not inclined to read something long, please still click through and read the one section the author recommends!

for those who believe they might be inclined to read something long, the fact that you’re hanging around this website is enough to make me moderately confident you’ll enjoy it:

  • It links its multimedia so you can listen to these DJ sets while you read
  • There is an incidental sick burn about people who stand dead still at indie shows
  • There is a consideration of recsys and a mention of Mastodon
  • It discusses the Great Male Renunciation, linking the Wikipedia entry

Okay, I feel like I’ve done my main job as a linkblogger here. Here follow some of my “yes, and”s.

Afterwards it brings a lightness of being, and a chill, positive attitude that takes a full day, day and a half, to dissipate.

A footnote defends this against the allegation that it’s about drugs. It’s true! And sometimes it lasts a bit longer, even! A really good friday night can carry me through some point Tuesday morning.

Most importantly, this show taught me that I didn’t have to be totally wasted to be disinhibited, to let loose, and let the music move me. That was a new experience. At my first rave, back in May, I had assumed that I needed to be smashed in order to not be turned off by the environment. And yet here I had had a great time, and didn’t have to get destroyed to do it.

“Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.” Cicero isn’t alone in maligning the sober dancer. I mostly go to shows and sets alone, which requires I maintain my wits about me for tedious reasons of safety.

To let loose, you’re more dependent on the energy of the crowd, which is often a transitive dependency on their drinking. It’s annoying to have to wait on a critical mass of people getting Three Drinks In before people start moving enough to get it going.

How much of the drinking that happens on any given weekend in America is chemical assistance for those uncomfortable with dancing? If you could force gym classes to get students up to a point of comfort with basic shuffling and shoulder movements before graduating high school, would the world look any different?

Demographics!

…x social dynamics while wasted. There were just way more straight people (men) around. Are the straights OK? Eventually, around 1230 or 1am,…

I felt more uncomfortable around one single dude at the Jamie XX show than I did from all the gay guys who were trying to move around me. Now I am very curious about what a predominantly femme space would be like. Those parties exist, but they seem to be way less common than the gay-man or mixed-queer-space shows.

I accidentally end up at demographically incorrect events by finding them online. Once: mostly folks in their thirties but way too many men. Even in an overall pretty packed crowd they gave me a nice amount of space – the least bruised I’d been in a long time. Contrast: last weekend, gender ratio not great but not rancid, but a too-young crowd. Ow, ow, ow.

My conclusion: I don’t want to go out where the early twenties straight guys are. (Not a genre axis by which anything can be filtered, I’m afraid.)

Contrast contrast: Reysha Rami, an event discouraging cis het men from buying tickets. What a vibe. Like the cluster of straight women and queers having a good time that you’ll sometimes find mid-front center at a show, except that was the whole venue. If I could do that twice a week, I would. A tech-worker’s ratio corrective.

…er that is normally kept dark. Every now and then someone at a rave will approach me and say something nice about my dancing. (My partner says I’m a very goo…

… to not think about how I look. I’m just moving how my body wants to move. I dance because it feels good. I imagine this is what people are picking up on. Maybe it’s just fun to see someone else have fun. Why did it take me so long to f…

I’m not a good dancer but I get this from people too. There are so many people at any given event radiating insecurity and discomfort that just

a. having a good time

b. allowing yourself to show that you’re having a good time

stands out. (Pitfall: eye contact with strangers interpreted as availability. I need to get some of those y2k shades made prescription.)