Are young people still partying?
dry january & a social renaissance
Welcome to the latest edition of The Gen Zer. This week we discuss Dry January and whether young people are still taking part, or what they might be doing instead. We also take a look at dubious statistics around how much men read, a campaign for open-source social media, and more. Read on!
There are some interesting conversations happening right now around our approach to drinking. At the heart of these debates, however, there often seems to be a kind of contradiction. On one hand, young people seem to want to party more: we’re lonely and tired of being stuck at home glued to screens; we’re crying out for the return of the house party and all the hedonistic fun related to it; we’re tired of meeting people online and are looking for new opportunities to meet people in person. You just need to look at the popularity of ‘Brat Summer’ to see that Gen Z are thirsty for some old school fun.
But on the other hand, we want to drink less. We’re less interested in going out clubbing every weekend. In general, we seem to be decoupling fun from alcohol, opting for sober raves and other sober nights out. The NoLo market has ballooned to $13 billion and growing. 70% of 18 to 24-year-olds are reportedly open to exploring a sober lifestyle. Even brat summer saw its own counter movement, with feelings that it was little more than a marketing moment aimed at watching ‘rich people have fun.’
I’m writing this in the middle of January. For many, the month means an attempt at Dry Jan, with 31 days of sobriety to detox from the Christmas period and kick off the new year with a head full of resolutions and good intentions. In the UK, apparently more than one-in-five adults are participating in Dry January this year. The question, however, is whether young people will be joining in this time around.
I think what is becoming clear is that neither extreme is really working. Many young people don’t want to spend their weekends hungover, draining their bank accounts in the process, but nor do they want to do nothing more than stay-in and wake up early for a run. Perhaps, rather than giving up alcohol completely, many young people will end up finding a happy medium.
There are two ways of finding such a medium, of course. Some are just adopting a general year-round temperance, avoiding the excessive binge drinking they perhaps used to indulge in. Others are using things like Dry Jan to take on a more seasonable approach — with a season focused on wellness and sobriety, followed by a more carefree season of letting loose a little more.
Different approaches will suit different people, of course. But for Gen Z, I do think we seem to be seeing an overall trend towards moderation. The rising popularity of NoLo drinks and the newfound social acceptance of abstaining from drinking means people can get together and each do their own thing. Perhaps one friend orders a Guinness; another orders a Guinness Zero. Nowadays, few people are going to kick up a fuss either way.
You can even see the changes playing out in real time in celebrity culture. The Noughties and early 2010s were full of raucous exploits and stars known for a more devil-may-care image. Now, the stars of the day all seem to have their own wellness brands. Our stars have grown up with us. (Or, at least, they’ve found a way of cashing in on the move towards moderation.)
The challenge, I think, lies in keeping the important parts of a more drink-heavy culture whilst allowing individuals to choose whatever works best for them. A night out is never just about getting drunk. It’s also about getting ready together beforehand, spending a chaotic few hours laughing and catching up with old friends, seeing where the night takes you. Taking risks, being spontaneous, all the kinds of things that prepare adolescents for the rollercoaster of adult life.
Now, many venues are now adapting what they offer, and many new ventures are springing up. A while ago I wrote about the books clubs and new social occasions based around literature that are helping to solve Gen Z loneliness. From board games cafés to social clubs, the Gen Z non-alcoholic economy is quietly booming, driven by a desire for a new type of third place — somewhere where drinking is optional, where the online world is left behind in favour of quality time with friends, where you can meet new people without having to swipe through any virtual drudgery, where you can, quite simply, chat to people face to face.
I shouldn’t call this a new type of third place, of course. Go back in time and you can find plenty of examples, but for the past decade or two there has been a decline in places for real-life interaction. Around one in eight Americans report having no friends. And the frequency at which we see the friends we do have has been dropping over the past few decades.
Given all of the above, I don’t think Gen Z is about to give up alcohol completely. I think that, instead, many are simply tired of the idea that you need to get drunk in order to see your friends or make new ones. And we’re tired, too, of the modern obsession with perfect wellbeing. And so maybe, once January ends and February rolls around, we’ll carry on into the new year by enjoying the delights of a middling way.
See also:
Gen Z around the Web
the latest stories in youth culture and changing trends . . .
Are men’s reading habits truly a national crisis? (Vox)
At the heart of the ‘men don’t read fiction’ discourse is a stat that you’ve probably heard quite a few times: only 20% of fiction readers are men. In this fascinating article, Constance Grady of Vox tries to trace the original statistic down, and finds that it is pretty much impossible to do so:
An 80 percent to 20 percent gender split is the kind of eye-popping statistic you can absolutely build a discourse around. Yet do any of these sources ever cite any of these alleged multiple surveys? They do not. And here is where I, your humble guide, find myself trapped in a labyrinth of old data as I attempt to hunt down a zombie statistic.
Whilst it’s definitely true that women on average read more fiction than men, the divide isn’t quite so alarming as some are making out. Read more
A $30 million campaign for independent, open-source social media (Business Insider)
Just a few days after Meta announced controversial changes to its content-moderation policies, a group of prominent technology leaders and non-profit executives have launched an ambitious $30 million campaign to build a social media ecosystem free from “billionaire control.” “For the first time, we have a clear pathway to securing the future of social media as a tool for connection, creativity, and joy,” said Nabiha Syed, the executive director of Mozilla Foundation. “But it will take community-driven resources and independent infrastructure to ensure it remains free from the pressures of venture capital and billionaire capture.” Read more
Gen Z deserve chance to try luck in Europe (The Times)
“They struggle to find decent jobs and are in a ‘relationship recession’ — let’s at least give them freedom to work abroad,” argues Alice Thomson in The Times. The debate comes in as the UK parliament debates the proposed Youth Mobility Scheme with the EU, a reciprocal agreement which would see 18 to 30 year-olds regained the right to live and work in the EU for up to 5 years. Polling for Best for Britain last year showed that 59% of Brits thought the government should prioritise negotiating this kind of deal; only 15% disagreed. Read more
Millennials now outshop Gen Z on social media (Fashion Network)
The number of purchases made by Millennials across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook rose 36% year-on-year. I think this is a really interesting trend considering all the recent discourse about Gen Zers moving away from social media. There have been a lot of articles about Zers switching off from being permanently online, though in general there’s been a lot less discourse about what the older generations are doing. Read more
Kenya’s gen Z revolutionaries (The Guardian)
Nesrine Malik spoke with the Guardian’s east Africa correspondent, Carlos Mureithi, about Kenya’s year of political protest and how a younger generation is leading the way to a more democratic future, not just for Kenya but Africa as a whole. The initial protests in question were triggered by a draft finance bill that proposed tax hikes on essential items, increasing the burden on citizens already struggling through a cost of living and inflation crisis. “People started creating videos for TikTok, X and Facebook to educate others about how the bill would affect the regular person. Some of these videos were in vernacular language so they could reach people in rural areas. Even chatbots were used to spread the word.” Read more
That’s all for this week! Make sure to subscribe for the latest on Gen Z and youth culture, and check out The Common Thred for a weekly roundup of the latest news, trends and thought pieces.
See ya soon,