Why are dance clubs disappearing? Because half of Gen Z avoids dancing for fear of humiliation

There was a time when I spent hours in dance clubs. I never saw a single episode of the first run of Seinfeld, because for eight straight years, I left the house at 9 p.m. to oversee a club gig in Hamilton.

I called 1995 “the summer of clubs.” As a lowly afternoon radio announcer, I was always looking for ways to boost my income. The easiest way was to host an alt-rock night at a club. Owners were always looking for ways to get people in the door every night of the week. That summer, I hosted nights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, which involved a long trip to Buffalo, a last call at 3:50 a.m. and an arrival back home at around 7 a.m. Other announcers at the station had similar schedules.

It was exhausting, but the income helped us toward the down payment on a house. And it was gratifying, too, presiding over an evening that featured hundreds of people dancing like no one was watching.

When I was program director of 102.1/The Edge about 20 years ago, live-to-air broadcasts from local dance clubs were big, big business. At one point, we had events on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, two on Saturday and one on Sunday night. These broadcasts brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, were highly rated and attracted hundreds of people each night.

We weren’t alone. Other contemporary music stations in Toronto were doing the same thing. If you scanned across the dial on a Friday or Saturday night, you could eavesdrop on what was happening in clubs across the city. If you cared to step out, the west end of downtown, along King and Richmond streets, had every second door leading to a club. Some were tiny holes in the wall. Others, like Lucid on John Street, were massive. It stretched over four floors and 53,000 square feet. It was later taken over by Ontario-born New York City club legend Peter Gatien (The Limelight, Palladium, Tunnel) and turned into CiRCA.

Sidewalks were jammed with lines of people waiting to get into each one. Toronto cops patrolled the Entertainment District area on horseback until dawn and city council was constantly getting complaints about crowds, noise and the inevitable idiot behaviour. Meanwhile, we’d hear insane stories about club scenes in places like New York, London, Berlin and Ibiza.

This was in addition to all the raves happening in Toronto at the time, which made the city one of the two or three biggest rave capitals on the planet.

It was truly the best of times and the worst of times. You could disappear into the mysterious darkness of a dance club and lose your mind for a little bit. Many bad decisions were had, but at least most went unrecorded for posterity.

Today, though, the dance club scene everywhere is a shadow of its former self. Yes, gentrification was a factor. Shifting musical tastes can be blamed too, as can local authorities who saw clubs as the enemy and did what they could to make conducting business as difficult as possible. And when COVID-19 came along, that was the death knell for whoever was left. It also resulted in a two-year hiatus when it came to those all-important ages, 18 to 21, who were finally old enough to go out with all the adults. They never got into the habit.

But I have a theory that the biggest killer of dance clubs was the smartphone.

Before smartphones and you wanted to meet someone new, you had to leave your home, travel through time and space, endure the dignities of rude doormen, pay an extortionate cover charge, another charge for coat check and then empty the rest of your wallet on drinks. For that, you got a whole lot of social interaction (both good and bad), exposure to great music at high volumes and a chance to dance away your cares.

With smartphones, none of that is necessary. Want a hookup? Call up Tinder, Grindr or any number of other dating apps and order in. Music? You have 250 million songs at your fingertips through streaming music services. Social interaction? That’s what texting, WhatsApp and social media are for, isn’t it?

There’s one other smartphone factor to consider, something that has just been confirmed by a study conducted by LifeStance Health, a U.S. mental health-care provider. It suggests we’ve gone from FOMO that might occur when we stay home to the fear of accidentally going viral.

This survey asked 1,000 American adults about attitudes toward going out to dance. Almost half (49 per cent) said that dancing in public made them too anxious. The idea of dancing like no one is watching (there’s that saying again) fills them with such fear of being recorded on a smartphone and humiliated on social media that they’d rather just stay home. Gen Z (43 per cent) fears “acting silly” will turn them into social media jokes. About 40 per cent says that this anxiety stops them from being in the moment and just enjoying themselves. And lest you think that it’s just Gen Z, the survey reported that 30 per cent of adults in this survey felt exactly the same way.

Some are strangers shooting surreptitiously while club promoters and influencers have no problem sticking cameras in the faces of patrons, all in the name of creating “content.”

It’s not just in America, either. A British study says that Gen Z is “hyper aware” of what’s going on around them in nightclubs and constantly watch for strangers taking pictures and video. They know that one bad decision will live on the internet forever and perhaps impact important things in the future. Perhaps just sit on the sidelines. And if they do decide to dance, few people decide to really let loose. Self-consciousness rules the dance floor.

Some clubs are taking precautions. In Berlin, many clubs provide customers with a sticker that they must put over their camera lens. Hey, it’s something.

Smartphones and fear of TikTok or Instagram infamy after a few drinks is one thing. Now, though, we’re moving into the era of smart glasses with built-in cameras like Meta’s Ray-Bans. Gee, what could possibly go wrong there?

Dance like no one is looking? Expressions of pure joy in public? Not caring about what other people think? Thanks, but maybe just best stay home, yeah?