The dance floor is disappearing in a sea of phones (opens in new tab)

Wait, were things different as recently as 2018? I just remember when I was into concerts, circa 1998, most people just stood there unless it was a big hit playing, but a significant amount of people would always dance or just jump like crazy near the middle of the pitch. I did recently went to a punk concert from a band from the late 80s , so most people there were my age. It was just like the old times. A lot of people went crazy as this was a band that had only good songs to play! But some around me thought that they could just stand there and film with their phone. They quickly realized that they would had to move away as nearly everyone around just started jumping like maniacs, just like in the 90s . I can’t comment on the new generation though as like I said, I don’t frequent the scene much anymore and when I do the younger people only go to accompany their parents, I guess.

I'm so happy that my prime concert-going days were 1998 to 2013. People just came for the concert and were fully immersed in the music and the vibe. Though admittedly, concerts of groups that were not too well-known, but also not unknown, were the best. At more mainstream bands people would come for the hits. But as something like a Nomeansno concert everyone was locked in.

I also don't really understand what the point of constantly filming is. Some groups regularly put high-quality concerts on Youtube [1], so if you want to re-experience a similar concert afterwards you can.

I guess it's more about documenting your life's story on socials. But what's the point of documenting the life that you don't really live?

Some artists (e.g. John Zorn) forbid filming, which is IMO the best way to go. It's all about experiencing it in the moment.

[1] Bands like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard even put pretty much every concert online now in full 4K, professionally filmed glory.

> I've been dancing - it's a usual thing all humans naturally do when they hear rhythm that resonates with them unless they consciously resist dancing for one reason or another.

When I went to concerts it was heavy metal.

No one was dancing. Unless you consider banging heads a form of dancing. People did sing along though.

Last concerts I went to (respectively 2019 and 2024, I don't go to many concerts nowadays) people mostly behaved as they did in the past. Only a few were filming the concert with their cellphones, but this was definitely the minority.

I don't live in the US. Maybe this is a bit of cultural differences in terms of geography and in terms of demographic for the genre?

I don't think they were scrolling. They were recording, which I think is a very very different thing from doom scrolling addiction.

But man that sucks, there should be a phone free zone in the concert.

This is mentioned in the article:

> More clubs have also been instituting “no phones” policies to reclaim the dance floor’s social energy. Venues including Signal, a small club that opened last year in Brooklyn’s East Williamsburg neighborhood, and recent addition Refuge, located just around the corner, cover all phone cameras with a sticker. Other larger, established venues like House of Yes and Elsewhere have also banned the use of phones inside.

It's pretty much the norm in all "proper" German techno/electronic music clubs I've been to, Berlin and elsewhere.

I went to a show at Fabric in London during Kubecon last spring and they did the same thing. I still saw the odd person who peeled it off taking selfies or pics of friends inside but that was definitely the exception.

In Berghain this is also done for tangential, yet, rather specific reasons that do not apply to most clubs and discos.

It's becoming more common in SF and LA too, although it's usually done by the promoter and not the venue.

Anyone else that has been outside in the past 10 years can see it. Doesn’t have to be dancing it can be eating in a restaurant, going to a public pool, walking down the street. Younger folks absolutely are feeling the sense of everything being recorded. It sucks because you don’t know what will pop up online so a lot will not do anything (swim, dance, do anything moderately weird).

Maybe read the article? It’s more nuanced.

We have Mets glasses now, you don’t even have to pull a phone out.

Bloomberg News is at least 2 organizations (and maybe 3+ now).

The original Bloomberg News was purely financial. They then bought Businessweek and published Bloomberg Businessweek but also leveraged the acquisition to build out their general news under the Bloomberg News banner. They’ve had other acquisitions as well to expand their scope. The one I’m particularly interested in is Citylab which means they have probably some of the best urbanism and housing policy related news coverage.

> Maybe journalism isn't totally dead yet.

it never was, nor will ever be :)

they have to start pivoting as their core business model of charging a human being ~$30k USD to access a data terminal is dead with AI.

now instead of having 10 human agents using 10 human terminals that costs $300k you can have 100 AI agents orchestrated into a single terminal that costs $30k

its especially dead because people can begin to develop macros and tools to create alternatives to their system using raw data models, and filters, as well as machine-tools rather than just using transformer models to process reports

Thank you, seeing that Instagram video linked in the article is a great detail a lot of people are missing because they won't look past the paywall.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBMh48KvHYz/

It is utterly pathetic.

I also find that if you’re at the right show there’s very few people who hold their phone up for very long. There’s a reason their banner image is Fred Again hah.

Experiencing life not as living but as an anticipated memory.

Sounds like you agree with TFA:

> “Nobody was asking for the screen to be bigger. Nobody was asking for more production, more lasers. Literally, the number one complaint every year was, ‘Hey, you guys are overselling these shows, we want more room to dance.’”

Just regarding the drugs: I can totally understand when people are anti-drugs. I’d say it still depends on someone’s personality though. I’ve always thought that drugs and alcohol don’t really change your personality they just amplify it. If someone’s not really a dancer and maybe a bit anxious (seemingly every kid these days) they end up taking a load of drugs to compensate but just end up vegetated. If you’re already someone who feels the music and feels free enough to dance then honestly taking some drugs can be quite the experience.

The attention economy requires sacrificial likes, lest you lose followers. People can't just enjoy themselves, they need to generate FOMO or do/show something outrageous in front of a camera 24/7.

Dancing is fun. Dancing in a crowd is freeing because you feel less self conscious. I encourage my kids to dance. DJs.. I don't know. I guess I grew up in an era when they weren't stars.

Well, yes. I was in Ibiza in a techno club (Pascha) and yes. I had a great time dancing the first two hours but by the time it got 2am the club was so jampacked it took me half an hour to crawl through the crowd to the exit.

I don't think this is fun either, no. Definitely not possible to dance. They do have an expensive VIP area with lots of space but there people were just sitting at tables, not dancing either.

But most clubs I go to aren't overfilled like that.

My seven year old boy likes to spin in circles. I think he likes the stimulation from the inner ear fluid sloshing around. Dancing in a club seems similar.

you know that people really go there to dance and enjoy the music?

A friend of mine is a professional (modern) dancer, so has as much credentials as you can, and she enjoys dancing in berlins nightlife. She finds the space for expression and creativity in her movement, in tune with the music. Of course, the is not much physical space, which is how the dance-movements evolved as they have (e.g you never spin and you feet never really leave the space they are on). But this is part of the culture, and not a problem. If you can't find it then that's your problem, but doesn't mean that other's can not freely express themselves there.

There's more dance-events. Not sure where you are, but you can usually go to a bachata night as it's quite trendy now, northern soul is also getting some revivial. There's also more disco-oriented events usually at various LGBTQ+-parties, I think especially italo-disco is a lot of fun. You can just go out and dance. Lindy Hop also has a solid community around the world.

I'm a Scottish Country dancer. Our events have actual dancing, though of course in a particular style that requires quite a bit of practice to get comfortable with. There are (often small) groups all over the world. Likewise for many other sorts of social dance, we often have shared events with English Country dance groups, Ceilidh groups, and Contra groups, because all 4 styles are related. "Dance" no longer means much, but it's very often possible to find some form of dance that involves actual movement.

Alternatively, the pit at a metal show is much more than just swaying around.

I grew up in the 90s and we already had XTC. (Funny story about that it was invented by an actual chemist student like a real life "Breaking Bad")

Perhaps they could have communicated beforehand that the performance would be available for free on YouTube afterwards, so that people don’t need to record.

I'm mostly too old to go to clubs, but to me techno and other electronic music is not about stages or visual effects, quite the opposite. Well OK, VFX can be cool.

But getting lost in music, in a darkened room with some intentionally disorienting VFX; or simply none, loud electronic music in a room with many people is already quite an experience...

that's quite different from being at a festival or at a show like this, which looks more like a musical opera performance to me.

For big room EDM, was there ever a time when it was not about laser shows etc?

I mean there's nothing wrong with stage shows, pop music and lasers.