How Gen Z has brought about the death of the dance at live music events

There is nothing quite like a night of slightly epileptic lights and off-chorus harmonising to your favourite songs, but now Gen Z are refusing to dance, and the vibes are, frankly, off.

I am Gen Z, and I’m sick of watching my generation stand still and bop (often with a drink or phone in hand) and I vote we bring back the boogie.

I mean, can you really call it night-life if there’s no life to be seen?

A close friend on mine attended French electronic duo Justice’s concert last Wednesday night at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena.

Standing in a moshpit a few thousand large, he told me hardly anyone was getting down and dirty to the EDM/rock bangers.

The week before, another young Aussie, Paris, attended American pop superstar Doja Cat at Qudos (seems to be a theme here).

“If you went to the Doja Cat concert in Sydney and you weren’t dancing in the mosh,” she said in a video uploaded to TikTok.

“F*** you.”

The video’s caption read: “I’m so sorry girl you should’ve said no phones in Sydney cause (sic) when did everyone become a videographer?

“Why (are) yall (sic) standing there filming instead of dancing what’s wrong with yall (sic).”

She said it, but we’re all thinking it.

Another TikTok video from earlier this year of Haitian-Canadian DJ/rapper Kaytranada’s afterparty in Melbourne showed a sea of limp hands waving around in an otherwise still crowd.

American country singer Kelsea Ballerini’s crowd were also incredibly underwhelming, with a video shared by a concertgoer showing rows of people – you guessed it – recording and watching the show through their phones.

Although I’ve bagged out Gen Z for this habit, a video recently emerged showing a diversely aged crowd at Oasis at Sydney’s Accor Stadium in November doing the exact same thing.

Even Liam Gallagher’s gritty tone couldn’t get Aussies up.

The death of dancing has seemingly infected music festivals too, a video shared to TikTok revealed, with just one lone dancer among a mosh pit of thousands standing dead still at Spilt Milk in Ballarat on Saturday.

I hate to fan the flames of the generational divide, but maybe Millenials really do have this one down pat.

We, as the iGeneration, have officially swapped the shuffle for the screen.

Emma Ruben, a fellow young person and Student Edge spokeswoman, agreed, adding in a sea of phones dancing can be daunting.

“I mean look, I have to say, personally, I don’t understand,” she told news.com.au.

“I’m Gen Z and you’re going to have to peel me off the dance floor.”

She said cringe culture, regardless of the generation, is always going to play a part.

“When you go to a concert and everybody at in that mosh pit has got their phones out filming and they’re not dancing, you’re not really going to be that encouraged to dance, are you?” she said.

“I think generally speaking, most people don’t want to be the outlier – they don’t want to be that one person that’s having a boogie when everyone else is not.”

With many major international acts often skipping Australia on tours due to distance, and following the live music hiatus the pandemic and it’s aftermath brought, Ms Ruben believes many Gen Zers are often “starstruck” when their favourite musicians finally arrive down under.

“When they do come, we’re almost starstruck into not wanting to dance because we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, like I just can’t contain myself’,” she said.

“I just have to look at this artist.

“My colleague Steph, she’s also Gen Z, was saying that when she went to see Doja Cat last weekend, she was just so in awe that she didn’t even think about dancing.”

This often translates into the tendency to (excessively) film the show, Ms Ruben added.

“I think another element to it as well is that we do just want to capture these moments on our phones … so we can keep them forever,” she said.

“This is going to sound so cringe – I think the boogie lives inside all of us.

“We’re a generation that loves to capture our moments, but that’s a double-edged sword – at the same time, we’re so busy capturing the moments that we’re not living in them.”