I get the feeling sometimes that everyone has gone slightly mad. Maybe it’s the lockdowns, maybe it was brewing before all that; perhaps it’s social media algorithms, or the weird, extreme political climate of the past few years. Or maybe it’s just the circles I move in.
Just before the second lockdown, I had some friends over for a mix. The conversation took an odd turn. What they all basically ended up saying was that they would eventually be packing in the music to go off and start cults. None of them referred to their plans explicitly as a cult, but that is pretty much what they were all describing.
“It’s a shame” said one of them, “Because I love DJing. But I know that I need to follow my calling and dedicate my life to something more important.”
They all seemed to be in agreement with this. I was the odd one out.
“I think I’ll just stay here and carry on mixing” I said. I guess I just wasn’t as switched on as them.
Six months would go by before I saw any of them again, and none of them have mentioned any of it since, but I have noticed a lot of people becoming increasingly serious. It seems difficult, nowadays, to go to a party without having someone preach at you about something. I left a party not long ago, because everyone there seemed to have forgotten about having fun, and they were having a hard time dealing with life in a world where they were marginalised. Most of the people there were straight, white and middle class.
I went to another party. The second party was a lot more fun. Everyone was E’d up and dancing, and nobody was talking about being marginalised. The funny thing was, most of them actually were. But they would have been extremely surprised to hear it if you’d told them. If any of them did see themselves as outsiders, they were clearly unbothered by it, and fully in for having a good time.
That was nice for a while, until a couple of people started raging about the Covid vaccine, and state control, and how they wouldn’t let anyone put something that hadn’t been tested properly in their bodies. Which would have been fair enough, except for the drugs they were swallowing and sniffing all night, which made their concerns seem a little ridiculous.
It seems like wherever I go, I’m going to run into someone being overly serious in an environment that’s supposed to be about a party. Detached from all of this, that sounds reasonable – there is plenty to be serious about at the moment – but unfortunately people are busy being angry about all the wrong things, while huge injustices occur, wars rage on, and the world continues towards an environmental catastrophe. Often, I just go home.