you dancing? you asking?
It seems highly unlikely that many of you will have spent this New Year’s Eve dancing the night away in your local nightclub, potentially off your face on E and Sambuca shots, whilst being completely unaware of the truly unattractive picture you were painting to the opposite sex. Of course twenty, or thirty, years ago it would have been a completely different kettle-of-fish and you’d be forgiven for perhaps thinking that today’s millennials and generation z’ers are getting up to what we used to. But you’d be wrong.
Today’s twenty-somethings have no need, or desire, to crowd into seedy, sticky-floored caverns getting plastered on over-priced booze in order to show their moves, throw some shapes and, if they’re lucky, find romance. And even if they wanted to, nightclubs (along with pubs and curry-houses) are in such decline that they’d be hard-put to find one to do so.
An estimated £2200m has been wiped off the value of the UK nightclub scene in the past five years as partygoers desert the dancefloor in search of pleasures new. Less than 1,500 remain open, down from 3,144 in 2005, suggesting that clubbing is no longer any fun. An innovative breed of ‘experiential’ nightlife is taking their place, with food, games and exercise trumping the hedonism of dancing to DJ mixes. So farewell the Roxy, the Ritzy and the Arches, as the yoof of today have swapped thumping bass for alternative entertainment including night-time indoor golf, trampolining, ping-pong, darts and, yes, even bingo.
Back in the day If we wanted to seek out an amorous assignation then we had no choice but to brush-up and head to ‘the club’ and, as we were all emotionally stilted, invariably get a bit blotto in the process. Now it’s easier and less hassle to hook up on Tinder, or Grindr, and society is already so highly networked online that individuals are able to identify with a group without having to go out on the town. The younger generation are now increasingly into what they’re wearing, how they look, what they eat, what they drink and what they do and in Instagram land everyone is able to portray their own amazingly perfect life. Furthermore, Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube provides all the curated music an ear could wish for.
Having been born short, ginga and with the proverbial two-left feet I’m not overly sentimental about the passing of the once ubiquitous nightclub as the night-out would invariably end with a punch-up, vomit on your new Ben Sherman and one of the girls crying in the toilets. However, there’s no denying it was always an adventure and, from the prowlers to the preeners, the dance floor represented a sweaty, heaving mass of humanity and, deep down, underneath the smudged lipstick and streaked mascara, it’s a shame that a shimmy and a shake is being replaced by a thumb-swipe to the right.
