Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Gen Z Partying & The Death Of Nightlife

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Whoah – the number of messages in our inbox for this week's Everything In Conversation was huge. Turns out you all have lots of thoughts for.... our deep-dive into allegations Gen Z are killing the club, and forecasts nightclubs are set to become extinct as a result.Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts. It was such a pleasure to sift through them and wade into this topic with your help.Please consider giving us a review and following us on your podcast player. It ensures we can go on making EIC <3----------Central London to get designated “quiet zones” amid ongoing nightlife battle Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Rachera. And I'm Anoni. And this is Everything in Conversation, the episode where we brief you on the biggest pop culture stories from the week before diving headfirst into the discourse. Remember, if you want to take part in these extra episodes, just follow us on Instagram at EverythingisContentPod. That's where we decide on topics and open the floor for all of your opinions. And just a quick note to remind you that we are doing another book club in about two and a half weeks time where we'll be discussing All Falls by Miranda July. It's been very highly reviewed, quite controversial, has a lot going on

and we want to hear from all of you what you thought. So if you do want to read long and participate, there is time to grab a copy or get the audiobook. If you have read it already and have thoughts, RDMs are open. But first, the headlines from the EIC newsroom. Megan Fox has given birth to a baby girl, her fourth child and the first with ex-partner, Machine Gun Kelly.

After three years, environmental campaign group, Just Stop Oil has announced it will cease its direct action operations this month. In a speech made outside Downing Street last week, activist Hannah Hunt said, Just Stop Oil's demand to end new oil and gas is now government policy, making us one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history. We've made fossil fuel licensing front page news and kept over 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the ground, while courts have ruled

new oil and gas unlawful. But it's time to change. We are headed for 2 Celsius of global heating in the coming decade, resulting in billions being killed, mass civil unrest and social collapse. Meanwhile, we are seeing corporations and billionaires buying political power and using it to punch down on the weak and the vulnerable. After months of teasers, Miley Cyrus has shared the cover art, title and release date for her next album on Instagram. Something Beautiful is set to come out on May 30th of this year and will feature 13 original tracks.

North West, the 11-year-old daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, has collaborated with FKA Twigs on a new track, Childlike Things. Denise Welsh has addressed rumours that she vanished in a hot air balloon over the weekend. The fake story starts on Axe, with many users fabricating reports that the Loose Women presenter and actress had been on a scenic balloon voyage over the south of England before being swept dramatically out to sea and towards France. An account pretending to be a Kent police officer wrote, We lost contact around 11.30am. The balloons transponder stopped pinging and there's been no word since. It's utterly baffling.

In a story posted to Instagram, Denise wrote, Thank goodness they found me. WTAF. Over 600 Academy voters have signed an open letter condemning the Academy's lack of support for Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Bilal after he was detained by Israeli authorities last week. The letter reads, Documentary filmmakers often expose themselves to extreme risks to enlighten the world. It is indefensible for an organization to recognize a film with an award in the first week of March and then to fail to defend its filmmakers just a few weeks later. The signees include Mark Ruffalo, Penelope Cruz, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Todd Haynes, Olivia Coleman and Joaquin Phoenix. include Mark Ruffalo, Penelope Cruz, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Todd Haynes, Olivia Colman and

Joaquin Phoenix. WHSmith is set to vanish from UK high streets after the 233-year-old chain shop sold part of its business to the owner of Hobbycraft. The 480 remaining stores will be likely rebranded as TG Jones. Elon Musk has sold X to his own AI company, XAI, for $33 billion reportedly. The deal was announced on Friday, with Musk posting to say that sale would, quote, unlock immense potential by blending XAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X's massive reach.

Incidentally, X, formerly known as Twitter, was unusable for many users several times over the weekend. And that's all from the headlines this week. So I recently read an NME piece by Laura Malloy about Westminster Council's plans to create so-called late night entertainment zones in Oxford Street, The Strand and Victoria Street in an effort to make certain areas in central London less noisy for those living there. Loud events like concerts will be encouraged to take place away from the proposed quiet zones in the heart of the city. The piece explores this controversial move, which has

been met with pushback from venue owners and nightlife enthusiasts, as well as looking at the state of nightlife more broadly in the UK. A report last October from the Nighttime Industries Association, the NTIA, revealed that clubbing in the UK could be extinct by the end of this decade if the current trends of closures continue. The number of nightclubs in the UK has dropped by over 37% since March 2020, with 461 venues permanently closed. The NTIA has predicted that if these figures don't improve, December 31st, 2029 will be the last night out as we know it, and the UK's iconic nightclub scene will vanish,

leaving, in their words, a cultural and economic void. Nightclubs like Fabric, Ministry of Sound and SubClub are more than just places to dance, they are cultural institutions vital to our economy, community and identity. They foster creativity, build lifelong friendships and keep local economies thriving. And this is all happening alongside another trend, which is Gen Z's apparent disinterest in partying, drinking alcohol and going to the club. Recent data from CGA by NIQ reveals that Gen Z are consuming less alcohol than previous generations, with around a third of people aged 18 to 24 not drinking alcohol at all,

and those who do drink tending to drink as a treat to relax or on a special occasion. In A Brilliant Piece for Days, Serena Smith explores this further, but floats the idea that the economy and financial precarity is what's driving young people to stay home, with figures collected from the NTIA suggesting that of just over 2,000 18 to 30 year olds surveyed, about 68% were staying in because of the current economic climate. So what is happening? Is Gen Z shunning a good night out? Have nights out become unrecognisable with the advancement in technology and smartphones? Is it the booze? Is it the economy? What's going on? I know the three of us have hot takes and as always, because it's a Wednesday, we asked all of you at home what you think and I think this might have

been the most responses we have ever had to a topic. So I'm very excited. But to kick it off, what do you both make of these figures that I mentioned about nightclubs closing and the very real possibility of the end of nightlife as we've known it in the UK? Well, it's really interesting because I had two of my girlfriends around for pizza when I just moved into my flat. And one of the first things one of them brought up was I saw you're going to be talking about nightlife and everything it's content and she wanted to talk about it. These are two friends that I've been friends with since university. So over a decade now, we've been partying together for ages, but we were saying that in the last five years, nightlife as we know it has kind of already

ended, especially in London. We were saying how like, if you want to go for dinner and then get drinks after that's all well and good, but you might go for dinner in one area, then to find a bar that's still going to be open past 11, you might have to go somewhere else. To find somewhere else that's open until three, you might have to travel all the way across London to a completely different bar that happens to have someone that's still going to be open past 11, you might have to go somewhere else. To find somewhere else that's open until three, you might have to travel all the way across London to a completely different bar that happens to have someone that's open. And so that kind of disjointed nature of nothing being centralized, like Soho used to be back in the day, the place to go out. Nowadays already, so many places have curfews, very few places are open late. And then couple that with like the

increasing prices of drinks and the fact that going on a night out easily end up with you spending hundreds of pounds, not even by doing anything crazy, but by just, you know, saying, I'll get this round, I'll get this round, probably maybe having to get a cab. And we were saying, it's like all of those barriers make it so much more difficult. This is just like the final death toll in what was already quite a dying culture, which is an absolute shame because London is famous for being, you know, like this city that has so much going on. We've also traveled to loads of places together and one of my friends, the one who brought it up, lived in Sweden for six months and we went to see

her in Sweden. We could not believe that on any night of the week there was opportunities to drink, dance, there were clubs open until 6 a.m., literally any night of the week. So much variety in the types of music, the type of places to go. Same pretty much in any European country I've gone to. Everywhere has a really good vibe. In London, that's kind of died out. And then my second thing I want to say on Gen Z and not drinking was my sister took me to see Alex Warren in Birmingham last week. And I was with her and two of her friends. One of them is my sister and her friend in her mid thirties. And we were standing at the bar and we were like, got it so easy to get drinks. And we realized we were the only people that had bought drinks all night long.

And everyone else there was much younger and no one was dancing, no one was drinking, no one was talking. They were all just standing there and filming on their phones. And we were like, oh my God, what does this do to venues? Like not one person, I'm not joking, not one other person bought a drink.

And so that culturally was really fascinating to watch. So that's my two cents on just like my personal lived experience on both things. What about you, Ritera? I completely agree with you about London nightlife. I remember maybe three or four years just having this constant repetitive night out format that would happen where I would be out for drinks like you were saying with friends, it might be a Friday night and you have that let's just see where we end up atmosphere to it all. And what would happen was, you know, the year before that you could just end up having a really fun, spontaneous night out and just end up in all of these

places that a lot of them were free entry as well in Dolston, which was the beauty of it because we were just, you know, super skinned at the time and it just felt like there weren't any kind of real limitations to being able to have fun if that's what the night led you to. But what kept happening was we would wanna do that and repeat that again, but places were closed. Entry to getting in was like, I don't know, 10 to 15 pounds, wherever we were trying to get in.

So we kept circulating the area, kept trying different places and just kept finding the same situation coming up and blocking us. And we would just have this depressing moment of being like, I guess we'll go home now. And that happened so many times to me that I just stopped trying and I inevitably just kind of changed what I was looking for because I was just so depressed having that happen so many times and

I also didn't really want to plan big nights out in the same way unless it was a birthday or something. I just wanted to see where a night would take me rather than just constantly having to plan those big nights out and paying for tickets way in advance. So I feel like London for a while has been diminishing returns on spontaneity and that's such a big important part of nightlife. It's not just the fact that big clubs are open and you can pre-plan to go months in advance. I think that aspect of nightlife where an area just gives you fun and unexpected joy wherever you go or whatever you want to do. London hasn't been doing that for me for a while and it's really depressing and I think what you

said about places closing early is such a big factor to it and then now with the prices being so extortionate I wouldn't want to do that. It just feels like there's so many barriers to having a good time at the moment. And also my second thing is I get quite defensive of Gen Z seeing the Daily Mail call them Generation ZZZZ. I saw that today in some of their coverage of why Gen Z are killing XYZ about nightlife, and I find that really frustrating because I think tabloids love to poke the youngest generation out there when they can. Obviously, Gen Alpha is much too young for them to go for, but I feel like in five years they'll probably go there. But I remember when we were young, tabloids would constantly be blaming us for breaking this industry and that industry and

whatever. And as we've said, it's so understandable and so beyond their control what's happened to their generation. I think post COVID, so many places have closed down because of the fucking economy, not because of them not drinking. And then coupled up with the fact that drinks cost so much at venues, of course they're not going to be drinking. I just think it's so bizarre to blame them for a dying industry that has nothing really to do with them and the fact that they've had a pandemic that's shaped their entire social lives. So I feel like fighting the fight for them to be honest. I feel like they get so much blame for this and it's not really their fault. And then when I first moved to London, Fabric had closed down for a few months because

of I believe a few drug related deaths and also the council being very pressured by local people to shut down the club because it's a very wealthy area. If you own property in Farringdon, obviously you don't love the fact that there's this raging club going on. So I think councils have been battling just like, I don't want to be rude, but like very low vibes Londoners trying to close down these central clubs for a while. And I think that's also a problem. The fact that you're battling people who have bought property in London in these incredibly wealthy areas who just don't want drunk people and parties around them. You can't really blame young people. You can only blame the people who have the power to be able to lobby councils

to shut these places down, I think. What do you think, Beth? I'm really glad that you kind of set the tone and said like, definitely not a blame game for Gen Z, because I mean, we were accused of killing absolutely everything and spending our house deposits on avocado toast. So we know how the tabloids and the media operate. But I had to really wrestle with my assumptions about Gen Z and going out and who is to blame and like what it all means. I think I found the messages that we got really enlightening actually and it's given me a lot of context about how people five years, 10 years younger than me are actually feeling in the culture and it isn't black and white, isn't, well I don't like going out and so I don't go out. Even though that is absolutely the case for some people and I think verbatim what some of the messages said, it's not like I'm scared

of clubbing, I'm scared of Sabrina Carpenter, alcohol is horrible, I want to sit home and burn a beige candle. It's like, It's so many attitudes as informed by the economy, by the culture, by COVID. I don't think we got as many messages from people mentioning like, you've got to remember, a lot of us came of age during a pandemic, we did not have the club. And then in the years, it was like the recovery years. So the clubs all closed, as I said at the top, a lot of them didn't reopen again. So it is, it's like, here's a shitty situation and we're going, why aren't you at the club? Why aren't you dancing? It's like, oh, you were kind of coming of age during a deadly pandemic. Whereas for us, for me, if I wanted to go out in my twenties, I could go out somewhere. There was

always someone or somewhere or a group to go with. It was easy. It didn't cost the earth. Nowadays, none of that's true. And I think it's very possible I would have just gone, okay, clubbing up for me. So I think there's all the reasons there's the clubs are closed, or they're living in the arse end of nowhere. Because I think I lived in like, my friends lived in Central and Soho in Hackney, I lived in Camden with a horrible boyfriend. We all were very centrally located for far less money than it costs now. We had friends in the same situation. Whereas now, I mean, if all of your friends either live at home or live in the arse end of nowhere, or they're not going out, or they've never had a club culture,

it's really odd, I think, for me, which I sort of was doing to be like, well, just get out there, guys. We're relying on you. It's not that simple. If you don't pick it up as a hobby, how do you continue it as a hobby? And we did get so, so many good messages. There's one that I wanted to read from Rach, who says that she is feeling very passionate about the death of nightlife. She says, I'm in my late 20s in London and feel like despite having a decent job, a night out is unattainable. It's far too easy to spend £80 on a night of drinking. Seems like everywhere shots at midnight and navigating the city at night, especially as a woman, feels like

a risk not worth taking with very little being done to make it safer. It's disappointing how much nimbyism, that's not in my backyard-ism, is going on even in historic nightlife spots like Soho too, devastating for businesses and makes socialising in a central occasion harder. I can't argue with the Gen Zs saying it's not worth it. A hangover is one thing, but the bank account damage and associated hassle is salt in the wound. Don't we all just want some affordable pints and laughs with our pals? I think that's a great message. I think it speaks to this artificial divide that is being drawn while we ignore the real villains of this, which is every single person in government who has made it more difficult to have a pint with your pals, to do things

fun, to remain safely out at night. And I have to admit that isn't now I'm living in the countryside. That is just something I completely forgot to consider. Also, because I would just hop on the night bus and probably wasn't as like, I wasn't thinking about as much as they should have, but so sensible and what a huge factor that just being ignored. I agree. Also, I just quickly want to say I feel bad now. I wasn't blaming Gen Z when I was saying about the concert. I just found it really fascinating as did my sister and her friends. And we were talking about it. We were like, it must be because of COVID, just because they've experienced things differently. But even with like the going out thing, everyone had kind of queued, which I think is different from our

concert days, like this queuing before concerts hours before is a new thing, getting to the front. There's also this idea of sort of music belongs to the biggest fans rather than years ago, if you went to a concert, it would be like, oh, look, there's someone playing, let's go and listen. So I think because of being so online, that generation also just has such a different experience. And maybe they do have a real lack of access to spontaneity, which I think we really grew up on, like everything I ever did was spontaneous. And talking about licensing and like late nights and things, before I moved to London, I often used to go out with both my sisters lived in London. And there were all of these clubs and bars I used to love going to with them.

And by the time I moved, every single one of those venues had changed into like more of a bar slash restaurant that then closed at 11, when they used to be open till like three because of residential pressure from people who were buying and living in these areas. And to that I just think,

why do you want to live in a buzzing city if you can't deal with noise? And why would you buy a property in a hub, an area that's famous for nightlife and music and stuff? And I just think it's really devastating. But anyway, I wanted to share a message that I thought was interesting because I feel like I sit here. So Anonymous said, I'm in my mid to late 20s and in the last couple of years, I've had so many friends tell me completely unprompted that they don't go out anymore or don't really like going out anymore. And it all feels quite final like they're warning you of a big lifestyle change before denouncing going out forever,

rather than accepting that you go through periods of doing different things and enjoying different things and your preferences can change with seasons. It feels very much like you're a party girl until you decide to be wholesome and there isn't room to dabble in each camp. You have to pick one. I find it really deflating because I love a night out and it makes me feel like I'm eventually going to be forced to give it up prematurely by everyone around me doing the same. I also love being wholesome, self-care, exercise, et cetera.

Life's about balance, not being one or the other. And it also might be worth mentioning that people denouncing going out are the people that a few years ago that were loud and proud about being party girls, call you boring if you went home early, missed a night out, wouldn't pull in the club because they're in a relationship. It makes me think everyone is obsessed

with labeling themselves and making others feel bad for not following suit instead of doing what they enjoy and letting others get on with it. Which I thought was a really interesting message because I do think that the internet makes us feel, and I feel this so much in my work, where people really want you to be one thing and people very much don't like it if you're doing one thing one day and one thing the other day. And I think that has transferred into our real lives where instead of being these interesting dynamic people that might have lots of interests and desires and some which might be completely in conflict with one another, we've kind of learned whether

you're an influencer or whether you're just someone using the internet about like personal branding and it's made us all feel like we have to shoehorn ourselves into one category. And I was interested to know whether that's something you've noticed. I also have to say to this person as well, I do think this is just getting older. Like for instance, my friends had around the weekend, none of us were drinking just because we cannot deal with the hangover anymore.

So drinking is a less frequent part of our lives, but I'm definitely still gonna party. It definitely won't be to the extent that I did in my 20s, which was most nights of the week. But I wanna know if you guys feel this kind of labeling or feeling the need to shoehorn if it's something you've experienced as well because I do think that is a newer phenomenon. I definitely agree with that.

I think that kind of identity signifier of what kind of person you are feels so real. You know that meme like the two genders, astrological girlfriend, whatever boyfriend, it does always feel like there's two camps with a lot of things. And even with Brat Summer with everyone kind of denouncing the clean girl thing for a bit and being like, you know what, actually I'm a brat girl. And that feels like that has fallen away super quickly when people return back to their nests and it's winter and everyone was like, you know what, actually I'm a clean girl again. And I've definitely fallen into the trap of being that person who's really annoying and

just says like, oh, you know what, I just, I don't actually really enjoy drinking anymore. Like don't really like going out anymore. Like, you know what, I think maybe I'm just past that time in my life. And I think the reason I do that, to be honest, is because I'll have a very big night and just feel so anxious for like a week that I think it's like my mind trying to control the situation and think, you know what, you don't have to go through that again. You can have agency. You could just not go on a big night again. But that's just a huge part of my character.

I love when I'm in the mood and doing that party girl thing. I love being with my friends, staying up late when the mood is there and I'm having a really good time. And I think it is just, it's hard to know that I like doing that even though it comes with a cost to my mental health. And I think I'm still kind of in the throes of understanding how can I be kind to myself whilst also accepting I am just going to do things that make me feel kind of shit as well. And there is a payoff to that, even though I'm not completely optimizing my life to be

the purest mentally sane person because of it. So I think that's where mine comes from personally. And I think it is that difficulty of accepting sometimes you make yourself feel worse, but there is a point to it and having fun and being silly and kind of being anxious is fine because there is a greater joy in the process. So it's true though, isn't it? It's like balance is balance is balance and it does mean something different for a lot of people. For some people it may be the monthly blowout, for some people it might be a really sober living and then they go to Ibiza and then that is their kind of stay up all night, turn their schedule on its head and drink and dance and whatever

else enters their mouths. For some people, they won't be able to have balance and so they won't be able to drink, things like that. And I think it is when we assign these labels and when we go searching for these signifiers to slot into an existing mold of a person and we do ourselves a disservice because it is not a one size fits all.

It's the point is you explore in your 20s and then you find out hopefully by the time you're in your 30s to 40s, what works for me and actually what is my optimum life and going out clubbing every night of the week and having a permanent hangover and no time for anything else. Always feeling too rough to see your friends, pursue hobbies, do any exercise, even read a book because you feel so sick. That's not great for, I think, most people. But balance is not just then tipping the scales all the way the other way to do the morally neutral and actually those healthy activities that we're told to do, the clean girl activities.

Sometimes it does mean getting feral on the dance floor or pursuing going out with your friends and doing silliness because silliness is at the core of clubbing and silliness is fantastic. Doing that sober or doing that with fewer, no substances, whatever it is, sweating your eye-lure, eyelashes off on the dance floor. There's a lot of time, I think you have to make space for those things. And in a wellness obsessed world, as Daisy said, she says, I think the growth of mainstream wellness culture in the past 10ish years has a lot to do with this. Seems like so many Gen Z, especially compared to we millennials, are far more health conscious and clubbing is seen as opposing these mainstream wellness ideals. I think she's right. I think there is an anxiety around a lot of the aspects

of going out that we just didn't have. I mean, you'd go out with your manager from work, you would go out and you'd see in the club, everyone was in functional work where there was so many different subcultures. It was not a thing that you go, oh, you go out, I don't go out. It was like, well, I'll see you out at the club. Whereas now it is anxiety about the implications, anxiety, sadly about how to get home and the safety of going out and seeing men in public and what they're gonna do. I mean, we've not even really touched

on the surveillance aspect. I think that there is an inbuilt anxiety in being in public that we didn't have because we were not all working around smartphones. Whereas now I think if it was time for me to go to the club, I would feel, I can't dance, I certainly can't dance, I can't let loose, I can't be silly. I mean, I threw up on the floor of many, you know, a nightclub and then carried

on with my night not long after that. If I did that now, I think I'm going to go viral. I am going to be in the background on someone's TikTok. I'm going to be on Labbible. I think anxiety is huge around it. I think it's, yes, anxiety about the wellness aspect, but I think it's about so much else as well that I don't even, I think we've not even touched on. I so agree about the idea of being out for drinks with your manager, it being socializing and it being like, it wouldn't be, oh my God, you went to a club, you're then like a party girl.

It was just something that everyone did. I actually wrote a sub-stuck about this last summer, I think that was called Honour, Zempit, Beauty and Desire. And it was kind of about the way, there's two things that are true, right? Which is that the UK has a bad relationship with alcohol in some aspects and there is a really heavy drinking culture and there is so much to be said for trying to find ways to give people happier lives that doesn't rely on a crutch of kind of like binge drinking, which

like we all did and both sounds a bit really enjoyed for a time. But the other side of it is this really puritanical attitude towards alcohol, which suggests that any drinking and any heavy drinking is actually a form of addiction or self-harm. And I really don't subscribe to that. And I wrote about this in this piece, but it's basically this idea that humans have created communion over drinking using the social lubrication of alcohol for literally since we figured out how to ferment things, like that's what we've been doing. And there is a benefit to that. And it doesn't have to be this like kind of really sad,

like depressing thing to go out drinking. It can come from a place of joy, from socializing. And I think we can't lose sight of that. And interestingly, I wasn't drinking at the beginning of the year. I was training for half a mouth and I'm now training for another one. And I wanted a bit of a break, you know,

I had a really bad mental health period and I just knew that drinking wouldn't be useful. So I drank a few times, a handful of times, and I had so many messages from people going, oh my God Sue, you're gonna be sober now. And I was like, no, I'm just gonna drink when I think it's appropriate for me. I love alcohol and I laid out all the reasons why.

And I had so many responses from people going, oh, that's so interesting. You're right, you're so right. But people were really quick to want to go, great, she's sober, okay, we'll pop her in that box. And I was like, no, absolutely not. And I will do nights out that I'll like be up till seven in the morning. I will have awful hangovers. I'll do them few and further between because I can't cope with a hangover and it's so expensive. But I don't see this lifestyle, these things as a lifestyle choice. I just think like,

I don't see it as the way that it's being framed currently, I think, and I think that's kind of dying. And as you say, that pressure on Gen Z, it's almost being seen as like an immoral or amoral choice to enjoy kind of going backwards in that way, I think. I was so obsessed with this message from Bella that said, an Anglo Aussie perspective, I think this is also a symptom of the corporatization of venues, many of them are now chains delivering very generic experiences that are overpriced and pretty blah. Same with gig festival culture."

And this hit the nail on something that I've definitely thought about festivals previously. I don't feel like naming and shaming them because also I probably will still go to them. But I definitely felt this in recent years, having gone to a festival and seeing that everything was absolutely branded to the life of it. Like all the tents were X thing or like blah thing or whatever. And I just was like, is this a SponCon? Like what the hell is going on here? This feels like the Coachella ring. We spoke about it last year with Glastonbury. I feel like it's just everything. It felt like I had dollar signs to all of these brands the minute I walked in and I was just being sold to aggressively. And I don't know, it was just such a strange vibe. It didn't automatically

make me feel like this is a place where people are having fun. It felt like everything was a shock. You immediately then do think about the finances of it. And it's weird because all of that is true. It's all like the Barclays tent. And then you're like, well, a pint is still 15 quid. And we got quite a few messages about the financial aspect of going out, like recession coming and saving my pennies. We had a nand who said, Nimbies have ruined inner city life. New builds in once thriving social areas need to be outlawed. Also, it costs 10 pounds for a drink in a club. Fuck that. My old ass had five pound entry and all you could drink vodka nights. When I think about what you could

do with a tenor and a prayer when I was 18 years old, the world was open to you. You were VIP. I could use a morning salary from M&S. That's where I worked. Or I used to make like nine quid an hour being an in-home or care home nursing assistant. Two hours work that would pay for my night out, kebab, cab home. And I think the cost of living is a very real thing, the complete corporatization of all the fun things. And so if you do want to go out, they feel justified in saying, okay, it's an elite experience. We can charge you a premium. This is not your sticky floored nightclub with the best DJ in the world and the best kind of culture in the world. This

is a new thing. It's shiny and new, so a hand of 50 quid for cover. I think my life in London, just before I left, was a lot smaller because I couldn't afford to do anything. Also, I was 31. Also, I kind of think I maybe fooled myself into thinking the club culture is out there, but I've just gone. I've aged out of it, but the young ones are taking up the mantle. Actually, they are being presented with all of these really shit, shiny, but shallow and hollow options and going, Oh, I'm not really enjoying this. And we're going, just go out, get to the club. And actually so different. Like imagine trying to go out on a 10 an hour. You wouldn't have changed from that first drink. You wouldn't get a first drink.

I used to, at uni, we used to go out with a 10 pound note, packet of cigs, and I would come home with a fiver. I wouldn't take a card. I would literally have a 10 pound note stuffed into my bra, packet of cigarettes in the other bra and my phone in my hand. No coat, middle of December when it was snowing. It was such a good time. Also, not just the corporatization, but the privatization. So I got rid of my Soho House membership last year, which is way too expensive, but that did afford me access to Knights Out because Soho House is one of the only places in London where there's like, they're in kind of East, West, South, whatever, and they were open

later. But this is the thing, like members clubs, access to nights out is now obviously like often, sorry, privatized and it's like a corporate thing. It's like, it is literally an elite experience. You have to pay for the privilege to go out. And then there are those clubs that are open late, like the Box and stuff that have crazy entry. You have to have, you have to know someone's number. The other places that are out this is making me think

of Retira's birthday. We were like, let's go somewhere else. And eventually we found it was either like Tonight Gloria or Tonight Josephine, one of those, which again, there was some of these bars that popped up in London that people go to because they're open late, but then often like not that good. There was no one in there. It was just us or Rachira's friends. We were all like dancing around Rachira in a circle.

There was literally no one else in the club. And that's kind of what it's come down to is like even the places that are open aren't very good. And this person said 10 pounds for a drink. When I went through my big breakup in 2022, I lived really near to an Archer Street and I was in there, honestly, way too much. But a cocktail in there was 17 pounds. That was three years ago. I don't know how much it would be now. But like it was extortionate. Like that is absolutely nuts. And that's quite normal now. Like I think cocktails being 15 pounds in London is pretty much the standard.

That is too much money. What you said about going out with a 10 pound note is so my reality. I had the exact same experience in Sheffield. It was actually crazy. A bank card, it would never leave you just in case you lost it on a night out. You would just go out with cash, pound coins in my bra,

literally like flying on the dance floor. So we've spoken a lot about what Gen Z don't like to do. We actually had quite a few messages from Gen Z slash Gen Z listeners telling us about what they like to do when it's not clubbing. Salish said, older Gen Z 98 and my mates and I prefer other activities as we can chat while doing them, especially as we don't get to see each other a lot after uni, so non-club stuff means we can chat. Think that's really nice. G said, I'm Gen Z and I'm happy not going to the club. I prefer to be at the cinema or chilling with a little tea.

What's a little tea? I think they mean like a cup of tea, yeah. But they use the- Oh my God, I thought the same thing. I was like, what is little tea? Is that a wrapper? Oh my God, we thought the same thing. I was like, what is little T? Is that a rapper? Oh my God, we are so old. What's wrong with us?

This person just wrote it like the letter T and I was like, what is that? Maybe it does be a little T, a little takeout. No, no, it must be T. That's lovely. Yeah, that's lovely. Dina said, I'm Gen Z and couldn't think of anything worse than going out past 3 p.m.

Yeah. We have to be outside after three o'clock. What if you need to get the food shop? It's over. What if you need to walk your dog? What is she doing? I'm obsessed with Dina. Amelia said, it's too spinny and the world's changed.

They like actually talking to their pals. Very good point. Lara said, Gen Z satisfied their need for community and other rituals. Nightclubs are just one way to connect with people and I think the lockdowns have a long lasting effect on our understanding of having a good time. Nightclubs have been romanticised for too long. It's quite harsh that I think the thing is, I found a lot of these messages were just people saying, I don't want to do this and I'm not going to do this. But we actually had another message, which

I don't think I had time to put in, but they called clubbing gross and boring, which of course any activity can be gross and boring. I mean, having a little tea can be a little gross and boring sometimes at home. It just depends who you are. I think if you don't like being out, if you don't like sweaty dance floors, late nights, dancing, whatever though, like that adjective might be bang on the money. But I think it's quite a narrow way of thinking about something which does have a deep and long and complex history like club culture, rave culture, nightlife. They were not created in vacuums. I think we have to try and be respectful of other

people's interests, whether that is a little tea or whether that is all night at the club. A nightclub in its origin is, and also now actually, is an escape for a lot of, I mean for everyone, but for a lot of marginalised groups historically from a very miserable society, nightlife does spring up to represent a lot of different groups, a lot of different musical styles. They are created in almost like a protest way, like anti-capitalist, anti-discrimination, people building areas for themselves that society would not build on their behalf. And I know that nightlife in its current iteration has been buckled, commodified, strangled. So oftentimes it is gross and boring with no cultural payoff. But talking like no good

clubs exist and there's no good reason for clubbing, I think that's smaller minded and a bit ahistorical. I don't go to the club currently. I live in an area with like 900,000 cheat. I couldn't go to the club if I wanted to. I think I'd have to do like a hundred mile round trip. But I think I will defend to the death club culture because it matters to people. I mean, even just on a fundamental level, it matters to people to be able to dance and cut loose and go in the dark somewhere. Even to kind of seek a snog or casual sex or yeah, just to dance by themselves. I think we are living in dark cultural times with very anti-culture and very anti-fun. And this is not happening separate from that. I think there is a bigger picture

here where yes, have your little tea, I will have mine, but let's maybe be on the side of culture as much as possible. I also think it's important to remember that this is an ancestral thing that humans have done since the beginning of time, dancing around music, around fires, singing together. There's something really special about listening to a choir and that's because we as humans have always kind of done

these means of community, again, since humanity started organizing. So there is something really kind of like in our bones to do with communionizing, it's not a word, maybe not, like together in that way. And I know that club culture feels different because maybe people are thinking of like those green shots and sticky floors, but also to the point of the fast

and say I like to meet up with my friends and talk. I meet up with my friends and talk, we go for lunch, we then go for dinner, we then go for drinks, and the next, you know, it's five in the morning, we're in a club. One thing leads to another. But there is something about, as much as I hate the hangovers, you don't, you also, you can, you know, go out and dance over.

There is something about sweating, dancing, whipping your hair. It's like endorphin boosting. Also being around strangers and new people and opening your eyes and minds to different people that you maybe don't hang out with day to day because you're in. I think it does point to where we've got to, especially post pandemic, especially generation as we've spoken about that were really curtailed in their ability to socialize.

This feeling of it being safer to be inside, to be individual, to hang out in smaller groups was we were really exposed to the opportunity and the excitement of constantly being exposed to new and different people and new and different ideas. And I think society now is set up to be individualistic work from home where cup as early as possible thinking about, you know, the last bonus that we did on crazy morning routines. And I think that is really sad. We have to remember where we've come from as humans, where we started pre-capitalism, pre these routines, pre individualistic neoliberal societies, like dancing to music in the dark is something that we've done way before anything else. And so I think that,

yes, I understand that clubbing can seem gross in all of its other ways. There's so many reasons why it exists beyond the reasons that people think it's gross. I don't know. So we did also get a message from Abby who said, I'm a teacher and I think this generation are generally less social due to anxiety. They prefer staying in and socialize with their friends through their phones or gaming. And this was also echoed by Sophie who said, people used to seek connection in clubs, now they do it on their phones. And Lucy also said, I'm 24 turning 25 in summer and I swear all my pals are boring bastards. Insert crying emoji. The human instinct party didn't just evaporate in 2020. We all need to get a grip and get on the dance floor. Self-care has gone too far. We need debaucherous

memories. Where did all the YOLO spirit go? Which I think actually just echoes what Anoni said. I think all of that speaks to maybe just an anxiety that is learned and is taught by a pandemic life and by society basically is encouraging all to go underground. But actually how do you address that? I think it is what Lucy says, get on the dance floor, get a YOLO spirit going and actually have fun. Because those debaucherous memories, I won't lie, they keep me going. I'm so glad I had all the fun I did. It was really instructive. I learned how to meet people. I learned how to think on my feet. I learned how to dance badly.

But also they are just fantastic memories to have. They're so communal and they're so bonding. And I think there is a lot to be said for that and not to do down the anxiety, but you will not find that same joy alone in the flat and you will not find, well, okay, maybe that's too broad a statement. You will not find that same joy in your phone most likely is all I will say. Thank you so much for listening and for all of your opinions and takes on this topic. We do read them all. Sorry, we didn't get to read them all out,

but we really enjoyed hearing from you. We love being in conversation with you all. Remember to give us a follow on Instagram and TikTok at Everything Is Content Pod. And please, please, please give us a review wherever you listen, if you haven't already. We read every review. We love every single person who's reviewed us,

and we will love you if you do it now. We'll see you as always on a Friday. Bye. Bye.