RAVE NEW WORLD is a newsletter on drugs and nightlife by reporter Michelle Lhooq. This is a view from the streets, no bullshit!
Rave New World investigates how counterculture is evolving in an era of major paradigm shifts. Psychedelic legalization under late capitalism is shifting policy and culture, changing the ways we relate to these substances—and consciousness itself. Rising authoritarianism and Silicon Valley’s technocratic hegemony are also raising the stakes of what music and drug countercultures are resisting… especially when the opposition is co-opting the very tools of resistance itself, via right-wing psychedelia and raving.
This newsletter takes a global perspective, tracking how subcultures from Los Angeles to New York, Bangkok to Berlin are searching for cognitive freedom and political autonomy—and navigating the messy politics of forging new worlds.
Paid subscribers get full access to every story, plus subscriber-only meet-ups and other perks.
A little taste of what we’re packing:
The politics of New York City’s secret pandemic raves
Hollywood protests that feel like Coachella
SUBSCRIBER PERKS
Free subscribers get sporadic (~monthly) emails
Paid subscribers get weekly dispatches, plus exclusive access to a community of fellow freaks to share resources with, including CLUB SOBER—a virtual space for people interested in sobriety and post-alcohol culture.
