Feel unwarranted ‘love vibes’ at electronic music events? Here’s why!

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Feel unwarranted ‘love vibes’ at electronic music events? Here’s why!

Anecdote time!

I was at Strawberry Fields 2013 and ‘avin a good time. Caught in the middle of that dusty mosh-bowl, a few thousand people and I shook booty to doof-tastic beats. Some of us wearing novelty banana costumes, some of us were not, but many fruity good times were shared nonetheless.

Cut to this year’s Splendour in the Grass. Despite the mass amount of chavvy youngsters in attendance (you know who you are), the vibes were still strong. You probably could’ve mistaken the sounds emitting from the crowds viewing Outkast’s Friday set for those of a mass orgy – albeit a very, very funky one #sofreshsoclean.

Cut again to Ten Walls‘ Sydney gig last weekend at the HiFi. That crazy motherfucker was so bloody good – and once you got over the inordinate amount of unwarranted bucket hats bobbing in the crowd – the vibes uniting over those crazy bassoon sounds was ofF the rave-richter scale.

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Had I ingested more than one vodka Red Bulls at the time? Yes. Did I have some of my favourite ‘come hither’ raver outfits on? Potentially. Did I dabble in dingers that I found on the bathroom floor? Almost certainly…

BUT EVEN SO. There is something weird that unites us on the D-floor. Something that, even with randomly acquired substances, is a strange phenomenon that academia has neglected to explain.

Until now.

Enter Luis-Manuel Garcia – an academic who studies electronic music subcultures. From years of ethnographic research and investigation into worldwide party people – he has deconstructed the sense of unity that somehow emerges when trolleyed or otherwise and listening to electronic music.

Giving a lecture at the ‘Valuing Electronic Music’ project which was later streamed on The Open University, he explained that we can attribute these feelings to what he calls the phenomenon of ‘liquidarity’.

Allow me to elucidate…

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(jokes)

Definition; Liquidarity –

A slippery sense of togetherness that manages to hold together a crowd. When you’re in state of liquidarity you have vague recognition and resonances that reduce the strangeness of random people whilst preserving anonymity. 

In other words – liquidarity is when you feel a strange connection to the peeps around you at a gig whilst still knowing that you could soil yourself in the spot and then never have to see them again. Catching the best of both worlds – the strange sense of belonging generates intimate actions (making out with your strange raver partner, rubbing sweaty bodies against each other inadvertantly, partaking in excessive amounts of high fiving etc.).

The concept is easier to understand when ya break it down into two motivators cited by ‘scene participators’ (munters):

‘Additive’ reasons for liquidarity:

Additive reasons include the things we believe we share with other electronic music fans. So if we’re at an awesome house music gig we will know the people around us have the same taste in music which leads to a greater feeling of shared ethics (even though we could be dancing next to massive weirdos – we overlook it because choonz).

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In addition to this – we feel higher senses of liquidarity when we’re at a party that is especially hard to access. So if you’re at a gig which cost you a lot of $$$, is further away from mainstream locales or was just underground as fuck – you’re more likely to feel an instant kinship with people at that event.

‘Subtractive’ reasons for liquidarity:

Subtractive reasons refer to the vagueness of liquidarity. Bringing to the forefront our ideas of nightlife and nocturnal settings – the vagueness created by electronic music events (smoke, loudness, darkness, munting) facilitates intimate feelings with strangers. This intimate feeling allows strangers to act as if they were a solid group, with a lack of self awareness leading to a greater sense of collective unity. Party.

Both of these are massively helped along by the nightclub/festival grounds/music venue – places which have a vested interest in offering us places of escape – pleasures unburdened by guilt or sanction. We find ourselves in an environment which encourages us to disregard the social decorum that would usually keep us from spreading our filthy seed around.

SO NOW YOU KNOW, liquidarity is a thing and it legitimises your desires to be at one with the party and get finger blasted by other ravers.

THANKS ACADEMIA!

[via The Open University]

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