PROTESTCHELLA
What is the place of pleasure and partying in this moment of emancipatory struggle?
Welcome to RAVE NEW WORLD—a newsletter on the intersecting futures of nightlife, weed, and counterculture. This week, as influencers get death threats for treating Black Lives Matter protests like Coachella, I wrestle with the messy politics of PLEASURE and SOCIAL MEDIA OPTICS from the perspective of queer rave culture. Paid subscriptions give ya girl the time and resources to carry on with this newsletter, so if you’re with it, you know what to do!
I was strolling down the street in Hollywood last Sunday when, waiting at a traffic light, I was suddenly surrounded by swarms of protestors, average age probably ~23, who crested over the sidewalks in endless waves, hoisting signs in the air, hooting as honking cars rolled by. I’ve been agonizing over whether it’s appropriate to pull a lewk at a Black Lives Matter protest, not wanting to detract from the issue with flashy clothes; at a previous protest, I ended up swapping out vinyl pants for muted yoga leggings last minute. But here, the propriety of protest fashion was not even a question, and the lewks were on full parade: camo pants paired with combat boots, silver chains glinting in the sun. I thought to myself: the last time I felt this type of crackling energy—this electric thizz that only thousands of extremely hyped people can generate—was at a music festival. Lord knows it’s been a long time.
Then, for the first time in my life, I stared at a seductive scene and turned around, walking away in the opposite direction because of goddamn ‘rona fear. “How’s the protest? It looks lit,” I texted a friend.. “Extremely lit,” she confirmed. My FOMO intensifying with every IG Story I saw, I tried to parse complicated feelings arising: comparing the protest to a music festival felt instinctively problematic—when black people are on the streets literally fighting for their lives, lighthearted carousing is an affront to an issue that deserves grave seriousness. But I couldn’t ignore how much the vibe on the streets felt like BIG FESTIVAL ENERGY, and many of my friends were wondering the same thing: How many people were coming out because they were just bored of being locked down?
That Hollywood protest—organized by Black Lives Matter LA, the rapper YG, and BLD PWR, an organization that works with celebrities to promote social change—ended up drawing 100,000 people, including J.Lo and A-Rod, Jamie Foxx, and Vanessa Hudgens in a Gucci mask. YG performed his protest anthem “Fuck the Police” on top a car, while choppers filmed the cheering crowds for his new music video. No doubt the timing of this march—which unfolded the same weekend LA emerged from lockdown and seniors graduated from school—pushed up the levels of lit. Summer partying is the traditional avenue for this sort of cathartic release, but with every music festival and major party cancelled indefinitely (even Coachella’s postponed date in October got re-cancelled this week), all the pent-up energy and emotion from the past few months exploded on Hollywood Boulevard that fiery afternoon, spooling out in all sorts of libidinous and iconoclastic forms.
Public backlash against perceived political posturing was immediate. A popular IG account called Influencers in the Wild started chronicling the antics of dolled-up glamazons taking selfies on the streets with protest signs. “THESE PROTESTS ARE NOT COACHELLA” scolded people of color on Twitter, as videos of people stunting for selfies with their friends, or twirling around in a dance circle, went viral. The Guardian published a piece about influencers getting called out for capitalizing on the movement, and the New York Times’ Opinion warned white people against activist-chic. In the New Models Discord, I debated with others over the place of partying and pleasure in protest culture, wondering if hedonism hinders moral growth. One user also worried that neoliberal ACAB sloganeering has paved the way for “abolition” to become a buzzword without deeper class analysis. A third person asked: “In order to Do Politics, one must suffer?”
The place of pleasure in political revolution is not a new question. Bakhtin coined the term “carnivalesque” to describe the sumptuous, chaotic energy of festivities where social norms, hierarchies, and prohibitions are subverted—letting us dance out of the existing social order. (You can see why he’s one of rave culture’s favorite thinkers.) “The principle of laughter and the carnival spirit… frees human consciousness, thought, and imagination for new potentialities,” he wrote. “Festive folk laughter presents an element of victory not only over death; it also means the defeat of power, of the earthly upper classes, of all that oppresses and restricts.”
Let’s get this straight: Black Lives Matter is a movement about black death. We’re stuck in a horrific historic loop of state-sponsored lynchings, and the sight of people faking activism for clout opportunism is nauseating. In the same way that early protests were nearly overshadowed by police violence and looting, the momentum of this movement cannot be co-opted by bored kids blowing off steam. There’s a collective rage over many issues, like mass unemployment and social instability, that’s boiling over into the streets right now. But when people of color call out clout-chasers for “microwave activism,” they’re saying that protests are not a release valve for people to scream slogans, then go home and forget about the long battle ahead to dismantle systematic racism.
Still, this idea that the revolutionary politics of Black Lives Matter and police reform is somehow being subsumed to selfies is too reductive—especially when social media activism has been a driving force of this pandemic-era political movement, and internet optics are both messier and more relevant than ever. Influencers, because of their dominance in the attention economy, are stuck in a tricky bind: cancelled for not using their platform to speak up, called out if they do so in a way that looks ignorant. The punishment for fucking up falls hardest on young women—one LA influencer received hundreds of death threats for posing for a pic at a protest while wearing a billowing gown. Not too long ago, we were yelling at people to take down their black squares, and now we’re telling them to take down their squad pics at a protest. It’s understandable why many are confused about what they’re allowed to post, even if the rules are pretty easy: just don’t be a fake activist.
As a devout raver, I also balk at the stigma that lit party energy, or Bakhtin’s carnivalesque, is inherently superficial and apolitical. Holding both pleasure and pain in an emancipatory struggle is something that queers and people of color innately understand—and this is the vibe at the most cathartic raves I’ve ever been to. Marginalized people have always lived at this complex multitude, and this dyad of depression and dopamine is the most real and complex expression of our existence.
Rather than shaking our fists at Hollywood kids having too much fun at protests, maybe we see protest-partying, especially by youth and people of color, as the real-time manifestation of a new political pop culture, which has so far lived in the circles of Teen Vogue and other Gen-Z hangouts. Maybe we celebrate that seniors are spending graduation weekend at protests, and huge rappers are shooting their music video there. If anything, these are signs the needle is moving from the margins to the mainstream.
Protest partying is going to keep growing with Pride this month, and I’m excited to see how this evolves. If partying at a protest is so bad, then I don’t want to be good. When the streets are singing in the name of black pain—and black joy—it feels like a revolution. Let’s fucking rage.
RAVE ALERTS
The Saddest Spiral—Pride Miami is going off with this entire stacked festival, which aims to raise $100k for criminal justice reform. Don’t miss The Saddest Spiral (best party name tbh) which features the homies MikeQ and Bianca Oblivion. (Saturday, June 13)
“Grand Park Sunday Sessions: Home Edition”—This popping house music party, usually outdoors at LA’s Grand Park, rings in summer-in-place with a roster of all-black/Asian femme DJs, including Weed Rave fave Suga Shay. (Sunday, June 14)
Boiler Room Low Heat: Floorgasm—LSDXOXO’s super cute party Floorgasm is streaming live from Berlin, with donations collected for 70+ Black Lives Matter bailout funds. (Friday, June 12)
The Carry Nation’s Sweet Carry High—Iconic New York DJs The Carry Nation (aka my rave aunties) are throwing down on Twitch to raise money for @glits_inc, a charity for housing the black trans community. (Saturday, June 13)
QUICK HITS
“How the Psychedelic Movement Can Support Black Lives Matter”—The editors at my favorite tripper magazine Double Blind reckon with racism and inequality in the psychedelic space. (Double Blind)
“Grammys Dump ‘Urban’ Category to Make Awards More Inclusive”—The homie Lucas Shaw reports on the music industry's move to chop the "urban" genre—a racist category that pigeonholes black artists, in order to exclude them from bigger awards and audiences (Bloomberg)
“Cannabis Has a Race Problem”—Fellow stoner newsletter Cannabitch asked black leaders in the cannabis industry to share their experiences, and the commentary cut deep. (Cannabitch)
TOP OF THE BOPS
Quest?onmarc—”Cabin Fever (?'s Radial Blur Tool Live Edit)”
Weed Rave fam Quest?onmarc drops an antsy ambient-meets-club track for anxiously bouncing off the walls in this new livestream party era. It’s on a fire new comp of New York dance music that’s raising funds for Black Visions collective and National Bailout.