Why Do People Go To Nightclubs? | Ashley Mears | Modern Wisdom Podcast 212

1. 0:00 – 0:42

   Intro

   1. AMAshley Mears0:00

      There's a lot of different types of nightclubs. The clubs that I studied are, they offer what's called bottle service, where instead of waiting at the bar to get your drink, you can pay a pretty high price, you know, starting at $500 on up to $5,000 or more to sit at a table and basically rent the table for the night, and then bottles of alcohol get brought to your table, and then people use this as an opportunity to show off how much money they can spend on champagne, because the big expensive bottles come out with sparklers or they, you know, are brought to the table by very attractive, uh, young women that are called bottle girls. So, it's a clear case of conspicuous consumption. It affords an opportunity to show off in this kind of club world. (wind blows)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:41

      I'm

2. 0:42 – 1:59

   Meet Ashley Mears

   1. CWChris Williamson0:42

      joined by Ashleigh Mayers. Ashleigh, welcome to the show.

   2. AMAshley Mears0:45

      Hi. Good to be here.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:46

      Great to have you here. Tell me your background. Tell everyone that's listening what you're- the 30,000-foot view of who you are.

   4. AMAshley Mears0:54

      (laughs) Okay. Um, so I'm a sociologist. I, I, I teach in, I teach courses in pop culture and economic sociology and gender. Um, and my research kind of broadly is in what we could call cultural economics, but, um, basically the cultural foundations of, um, value, um, and how that plays out in different markets, and I've focused on pretty atypical cases for social scientists, and that is, um, the fashion modeling industry, which was my dissertation and became a book later called Pricing Beauty, and then my most recent book is about, um, high-end nightclubs and the, uh, the effect of champagne waste. (laughs) So-

   5. CWChris Williamson1:41

      (laughs)

   6. AMAshley Mears1:42

      ... I know I describe it in fairly bland terms somewhat deliberately, because as an academic, you know, there's an impetus to kind of be serious and present your stuff in kind of theoretically and conceptually recognizable terms. Uh, but yeah, I, I study in this kind of fun worlds. (laughs)

3. 1:59 – 4:52

   Why do people go to nightclubs

   1. AMAshley Mears1:59

   2. CWChris Williamson1:59

      I listened to your episode Convers- on Conversations with Tyler-

   3. AMAshley Mears2:05

      Yeah. Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson2:05

      ... um, uh, talk- talking about this stuff, and hearing two academic ... You, you remained mostly academic, but he is pure ... Like, he was asking a question of, like, why is the music so ... Why does the music have to be-

   5. AMAshley Mears2:17

      (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson2:18

      ... so loud in nightclubs, which is just, like, just the most pure academic question, and he said, "Well, actually, that's fairly good." So, I wanna, I wanna try and take-

   7. AMAshley Mears2:27

      (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson2:27

      ... a, an academic's perspective, a sociological, anthropological perspective of n- nightclubs and nightlife. How do you-

   9. AMAshley Mears2:36

      Okay.

   10. CWChris Williamson2:36

       How would you lay it out? Imagine I'm another academic, I've never been in a nightclub, I don't know why people go.

   11. AMAshley Mears2:42

       (laughs)

   12. CWChris Williamson2:42

       I don't know what the purpose is. Give e- give us the full monte.

   13. AMAshley Mears2:45

       Yeah. Well, that, that would make you like a lot of academics, actually. (laughs) So, um, so yeah. Well, first there's, there's a lot of different types of nightclubs. There's clubs out there that cater to pretty much any kind of, you know, niche and, and attraction and, like, kink or whatever, but they, the clubs that I studied are, um, they offer what's called bottle service, where instead of waiting at the bar to get your drink, you can, um, pay a pretty high price, you know, starting at $500 on up to $5,000 or more, uh, to sit at a table and basically rent the table for the night, and then bottles of alcohol get brought to your table, and then people use this as an opportunity to show off how much money they can spend on champagne, because the big expensive bottles come out with sparklers or they, you know, are brought to the table by very attractive, uh, young women that are called bottle girls. Um, so it's a clear case of conspicuous consumption. It affords an opportunity to show off in this kind of club world. But if you're just, you know, wanting to hit the, like, I don't know, the '80s dance party, you know, that, that is (laughs) -

   14. CWChris Williamson3:48

       (laughs)

   15. AMAshley Mears3:48

       ... used to be up the street from my house, you know, what people seek out in, in all kinds of, uh, nightlife experiences is the, the opportunity to, um, kind of lose oneself in the moment, in the music. And this explains why the music is so loud, because it, you know, you, you're no longer distracted as much by the fact of other, other people, um, and that kind of co-presence and, like, mutual focus on something like, you know, loud music or if everybody knows the words to a song, right? I mean, this, this is a pretty, uh, this can be a really magical experience that clubs offer. It's, um, it's what the-

   16. CWChris Williamson4:24

       You called that c- collective effervescence. Is that right?

   17. AMAshley Mears4:27

       That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there's a, you know, old theoretical term for it by the French theorist Emile Durkheim that, um, refers to this as collective effervescence, the, the kind of losing yourself in the moment with other people. It's kind of the defining logic of nightclubs, of Burning Man. You can feel it at protests, you can feel it at the, you know, football game when people are chanting together. It's that excitement of, of being with other people.

4. 4:52 – 7:59

   Why are people spending money

   1. AMAshley Mears4:52

   2. CWChris Williamson4:52

      Okay. That's why the music's so loud.

   3. AMAshley Mears4:54

      (laughs) That's right.

   4. CWChris Williamson4:55

      That's why, that's why the music's so loud. Why are people spending money getting bottles to their table?

   5. AMAshley Mears5:01

      Yeah. So, um, there's a lot of different explanations for this. The one that, that I focused on, um, is looking at the extreme sums of money that people were paying, which really was kind of bizarre and, you know, struck this curiosity in me that, um ... So, I started this project, it was around 2011, and, um, you know, bottle service was at its peak, and I was reading reports of people that were spending, you know, thousands of dollars, um, oligarchs, you know, outbidding each other saying who could spend more on champagne that they wouldn't even drink. Maybe they would just gift the bottles to people in the room. And, you know, 2011 is a moment where there's a kind of global financial austerity because the world is still reeling from the financial meltdown of 2008. And so I just thought that, you know, the disjuncture there (laughs) was just so fascinating that I wanted to understand, um, how people could engage in, in that kind of ostentatious behavior. So, the, the explanations that I put forward are really anthropological, that, um-You know, on the, on the one hand, this is fairly ... th- this is kind of a timeless behavior, the, um, showing off of status through the, through waste. Um, and there's a, a term that anthropologists use for this th- uh, um, was documented in studies of, uh, tribal societies in the Pacific Northwest where, um, tribal nobility would gather together, you know, the tribe and, and, uh, compete with one another to see who could give away the most, you know, valuable things, who could hold the biggest feast, who could waste the most food. Um, that's called a potlatch, and that would have real consequences for somebody's claim to status and prestige, and that, you know, they can solidify rank in that way, so it was really consequential. Uh, nightclubs are not that consequential- (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson6:46

      (laughs)

   7. AMAshley Mears6:46

      ... this kind of, you know, popping bottles in a nightclub, um, but it is, it is, you know, one of many forms that we see throughout history of people asserting their status through waste, through the display of waste. Um, and so that's one explanation, uh, that I find quite fascinating, and then it, you know, there's a bunch of other, um, plausible explanations. Some people go to clubs and spend these sums of money because they want to be in the milieu of people like themselves, i- which could lead to, uh, business opportunities, so especially for people who work in finance. This might be an opportunity to meet or to, or to entertain clients, which could be written off as a business expense. Um, you know, so there's peacocking, there's the, the kind of practical, um, uh, connectivity in a business world, um, and, you know, there, I think that for some people, this, this kind of, um, participation in this world really is, um, kind of a, the, the pinnacle of, of achieving something that i- is quite meaningful in pop culture broadly, right? Because you get to be in these glamorous settings surrounded by fashion models, um, where your behavior is essentially immortalized in hip hop lyrics that are celebrated around the world-

   8. CWChris Williamson7:56

      (laughs)

   9. AMAshley Mears7:56

      ... and you get to perform that. (laughs) And so that's what clubs are offering.

5. 7:59 – 9:14

   The girls on the tables

   1. AMAshley Mears7:59

      (laughs)

   2. CWChris Williamson7:59

      I, uh, I get it. Why, why are the girls on the tables? Why are they there?

   3. AMAshley Mears8:04

      Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the, the girls that, um, that I, that I studied, uh, in this circuit, they, they tend to be young women who are, um, very beautiful in the way that the fashion modeling industry defines beauty of typically very young, very thin, predominantly but not exclusively white, uh, with a kind of rarefied beauty that people would recognize as a fashion model. Um, and so that kind of beauty communicates status, um, because it's rare, because it's been legitimated by the fashion modeling industry. Even if the men who are spending money might not be attracted to that kind of body, those are the kinds of women, um, who are, are kind of displayed in the room as a means of communicating and elevating the status of not just the room and the place, but all of the people in that space as well, so that it's a, a certain kind of entourage. So this kind of spending wouldn't be possible without that kind of entourage.

   4. CWChris Williamson8:56

      Why?

   5. AMAshley Mears8:58

      It would be considered meaningless. It would be, um, nobody, nobody would s- kind of see the, uh, the expense of the bottle as being, um, as being worth it if the crowd were not deemed high-status enough as worthy to impress, which fashion models are.

6. 9:14 – 11:18

   The guys on the tables

   1. AMAshley Mears9:14

      (laughs)

   2. CWChris Williamson9:14

      Right. Okay.

   3. AMAshley Mears9:15

      (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson9:15

      Um, and most of the guys that are on these tables, they're not planning on dating the girls really. They're not sort of long-term, uh, prospects despite the fact that they're quite beautiful. Why do you think that is?

   5. AMAshley Mears9:30

      (laughs) Um, yeah. So that's my, th- that is something that's a bit of a, a puzzle that I found, but it kind of depends what you mean by dating 'cause that has a different time horizon for different people. (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson9:41

      So, okay. Uh, long, long-term prospects should I say.

   7. AMAshley Mears9:44

      Right.

   8. CWChris Williamson9:44

      Long-term relationship, marriage-

   9. AMAshley Mears9:45

      Right. Right.

   10. CWChris Williamson9:46

       ... and family.

   11. AMAshley Mears9:46

       Uh, yeah. Well, it's definitely the case, so there are a lot of hookups that happen and probably short-term relationships that form out of nightclubs. Um-

   12. CWChris Williamson9:53

       Some of them in the nightclubs.

   13. AMAshley Mears9:55

       And ... Some of them in the nightclubs. (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson9:56

       Yeah.

   15. AMAshley Mears9:56

       That's right. Yeah. (laughs) Um, but among the, among the people that are, um, that have money, that have professional careers, that are kind of showing off in these spaces, um, that pool of upperclassmen, uh, tends to partner with a similar pool of upperclasswomen. Um, there's a, there's a certain homophily, you know, of like, um, birds of a feather flock together kind of logic-

   16. CWChris Williamson10:22

       Mm-hmm.

   17. AMAshley Mears10:22

       ... w- where if you look at, um, marriage patterns, people tend to partner with people like themselves in terms of their education credentials or their family background or their occupational prestige and earnings. Um, and the perception among the clients or the bottle buyers, um, in these spaces is that models are great company to have for the night, uh, but not for the long term, that they ... Actually it was quite surprising how, I mean, the value that models generate to the nightclub industry, it's almost like they're priceless, right? They, they communicate status. People will spend more money with models in the room. Promoters can make their careers off of models. Um, they're, they're creating so much profit, and yet as people, um, models are really seen as worthless. (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson11:04

       (laughs)

   19. AMAshley Mears11:04

       They're seen as like airheaded, not serious, right? A woman that goes out frequently in these spaces, doesn't buy her own drinks, can't afford maybe to buy her own drinks-

   20. CWChris Williamson11:13

       Mm-hmm.

   21. AMAshley Mears11:13

       ... must be some kind of failure in life, not the kind of woman you would take home to meet mom.

7. 11:18 – 12:17

   Trophy wives

   1. AMAshley Mears11:18

   2. CWChris Williamson11:18

      Okay. Um, where are the affluent young high-status women?

   3. AMAshley Mears11:26

      This is a really good question. Do you know? (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson11:29

      No.

   5. AMAshley Mears11:29

      Do you know where they are? No. (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson11:30

      No. No. No, actually but if you could get me their phone numbers, uh, in-

   7. AMAshley Mears11:35

      (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson11:35

      ... in an Excel spreadsheet and send them-

   9. AMAshley Mears11:37

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson11:37

       ... over to me, uh, as an aspiring trophy husband-

   11. AMAshley Mears11:40

       (laughs)

   12. CWChris Williamson11:40

       ... that would be wonderful.

   13. AMAshley Mears11:43

       So I want to do a project on, um, I mean y- you call it trophy husbands, you know, trophy wives. There's a, all of these are variations of economically asymmetrical relationships. I'm really fascinated where, um, we have such imbalances of power. I mean the trophy unions, um, sugar baby, sugar daddies, groupies, there's all kinds of different versions of this, and I think that those relationships could really reveal important lessons for everybody else about, um, how, how people-... how people manage power inequalities in their relationships.

   14. CWChris Williamson12:16

       Mm-hmm.

8. 12:17 – 13:45

   Power dynamic

   1. CWChris Williamson12:17

   2. AMAshley Mears12:17

      Um, but I'm not s- e-

   3. CWChris Williamson12:17

      Flipping that, flipping that power dynamic on its head is an interesting one.

   4. AMAshley Mears12:20

      Yeah. Y- y- i-

   5. CWChris Williamson12:21

      Very, very interesting. So where, where are they? Where are th- where's the, where's the 25-year-old with the, the, the c- 25-year-old female with the seven-figure net worth? Where is she?

   6. AMAshley Mears12:30

      Um, well, because of the way that, um, gender tends to operate in professional realms, um, there is, there is still a pretty big, uh, wage gap in the professions and actually across the labor market. Um, there's, you know, those kinds of fields in which you see people who are very young turning out lots of money, they tend to be male-dominated fields, you know, so like in tech for instance, um, or some sectors of finance. So yeah, 25 is a little bit young for anybody, but I think (laughs) especially for women to have a seven-figure-

   7. CWChris Williamson13:01

      Okay. O- o- the, the, uh, young, the rela-

   8. AMAshley Mears13:03

      (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson13:03

      ... the young enough to still party in PhD or LAVO brunch or whatever it might be.

   10. AMAshley Mears13:08

       Yeah, so it wouldn't be the PhD set, but maybe you, you could try your luck with, like, the influencers. (laughs) Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson13:14

       I meant, I meant PHD the nightclub in New York, not PhD the-

   12. AMAshley Mears13:18

       Oh, right. Right, right. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson13:18

       ... sorry.

   14. AMAshley Mears13:19

       So this is where my head got. Yeah. (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson13:20

       They should rebrand.

   16. AMAshley Mears13:21

       (laughs) Yeah, that's right. Um, but no, actually, the, it just thinking about where the areas are in which women do really well at young ages, I mean, I, I am thinking about, like, the Instagram influencers, those are where you see, um, kind of really powerful, like, up-and-coming business people, um, businesswomen, I think, kind of starting their companies and building brands.

9. 13:45 – 14:34

   Business women

   1. AMAshley Mears13:45

   2. CWChris Williamson13:45

      Why they're not in there, why are they not buying a bottle? Big, big table, getting guys-

   3. AMAshley Mears13:50

      (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson13:50

      ... making 'em, making 'em go and eat, like, the second-rate sushi downstairs before they come up.

   5. AMAshley Mears13:54

      (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson13:54

      Why is that not happening?

   7. AMAshley Mears13:55

      (laughs) They should. Yeah, so, um, so it's a realm in which it's kind of built on the assumption of m- men as consumers, and it's built on the assumption of heterosexual, uh, male taste and the male gaze. And so, you know, women are kind of brought in as the décor, um, and it's the a- assumption that men are the spenders. It's not that there's never any women spenders. There certainly are, but they're pretty rare, and they're talked about as like, "Did you see that? That was weird," right? (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson14:25

      What's a female whale?

   9. AMAshley Mears14:28

      Uh, there's a cou- yeah. So I met a couple-

   10. CWChris Williamson14:30

       Whaleless.

   11. AMAshley Mears14:30

       ... um, a whaleless. Yeah, I guess they would just be called whales. (laughs)

   12. CWChris Williamson14:33

       But that's

10. 14:34 – 15:54

    Whalers

    1. CWChris Williamson14:34

       how they know to be called a whale as a guy in a nightclub is a, a badge of honor.

    2. AMAshley Mears14:37

       That's right.

    3. CWChris Williamson14:37

       To be called a whale in a nightclub is there's n- there's little worse.

    4. AMAshley Mears14:41

       That's right, yeah. There's, it's not so flattering, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, so for women in the clubs, like, for women to get into the club, the most important thing that they have is not, not money, but beauty. And so there are, you know, lots of instances where women who were working in high-powered positions in finance, for instance, would wanna go out afterward after work with their team to one of these places and might get rejected at the door, or might end up in some really awkward negotiation. She can't come in because she's only 5'5", right? (laughs) And like-

    5. CWChris Williamson15:11

       (laughs)

    6. AMAshley Mears15:11

       ... I mean, how humiliating, right? And so, um, so this, y- yeah, it's, I mean, perhaps if a woman had, you know, so much money or so much celebrity, I mean, that could, that could trump, um, the body size. But, but really, um, to get in, women have to have this what we might call bodily capital, whereas men can have money to get in, they could have connections, they could have celebrity. Um, and as, in the end, as long as they're good-looking and friendly, they could still get in as filler to, like, buy their drinks at the bar. Um, but, you know, it, but some, some women could actually get denied entry and could get really insulted, like, to her face.

    7. CWChris Williamson15:49

       Mm.

    8. AMAshley Mears15:50

       I- so it's not just denied entry, it's, like, denied entry cruelly.

    9. CWChris Williamson15:53

       Yeah.

11. 15:54 – 17:45

    Men are denied entry

    1. CWChris Williamson15:54

       Well, I mean, many men will be denied entry at the door if you turn up as a group of guys, and you're not spending a huge amount of money. If you turn up without girls, you're not getting in.

    2. AMAshley Mears16:05

       That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's limits, um, for the men as well, just based on this gender.

    3. CWChris Williamson16:12

       So there's a, there's an amount of capital that you need-

    4. AMAshley Mears16:15

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson16:16

       ... and that capital appears to be selecting asymmetrically between men and women, and there are certain pathways that are completely being deselected for, and that is determined highly by the sort of environment that you're going to go in, um, someone's academic, uh, accomplishments, their, um, ability to, uh, elucidate their ideas, uh, how articulate they are, um, their ability to be a good cook, unless that's being monetized.

    6. AMAshley Mears16:51

       (laughs)

    7. CWChris Williamson16:52

       Um, because you have loud music, drunk people, very visceral, um, sort of skin deep, by, bu- by, like, by definition, um, experience going on, none of those qualities are given chance to manifest, therefore they're not valued at the door.

    8. AMAshley Mears17:07

       That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The music is loud and, you know, the lights are low, and so what, what really matters is not your sterling personality, um, u- un- unless, of course, it has been monetized in some kind of celebrity. But, you know, there's, I don't know, I, I do think that your point about selection is, is accurate that, you know, these kinds of places attract people that probably are already, um, are already on this side of, like, getting in, right? And s- and some people, um, who maybe know about these places would know that they wouldn't be welcome, and that in itself would be reason not to even try.

    9. CWChris Williamson17:44

       No one wants

12. 17:45 – 19:17

    Social nightmares

    1. CWChris Williamson17:45

       to be turned away at the door, right? Like, it's the, it's the thing of social nightmares. Um, that being said, Berghain, which you may be familiar with in Germany, the techno club-

    2. AMAshley Mears17:55

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson17:55

       ... um, is famous for having a doorman who turns people away for no reason.

    4. AMAshley Mears17:59

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson17:59

       Um, and that's got nothing to do with how much money you have.

    6. AMAshley Mears18:01

       (laughs)

    7. CWChris Williamson18:01

       That's like-

    8. AMAshley Mears18:02

       Right.

    9. CWChris Williamson18:02

       ... the, have you seen there's an app-... available-

    10. AMAshley Mears18:05

        (laughs)

    11. CWChris Williamson18:05

        ... which teaches you how to get into Berghain.

    12. AMAshley Mears18:09

        I read about it, yeah. I didn't see it because I'm one of those people that would never try. (laughs)

    13. CWChris Williamson18:13

        Oh, yeah.

    14. AMAshley Mears18:13

        Y- like, I'm too horrified at the possibility that I could wait in line for an hour and then not get in. (laughs)

    15. CWChris Williamson18:19

        No. Drive, drive into the middle of nowhere, go to somewhere that looks like something out of 28 Days Later, and then-

    16. AMAshley Mears18:25

        (laughs)

    17. CWChris Williamson18:25

        ... yeah, wait in the freezing-

    18. AMAshley Mears18:27

        Did you-

    19. CWChris Williamson18:27

        No, I've never-

    20. AMAshley Mears18:28

        So you did it?

    21. CWChris Williamson18:28

        ... I've never been. I've got a couple of buddie- I've been, I've got a few buddies that have been. If you're listening and you've been to Berghain, tell us w- whether you got in, how you got in, if you know anyone that got knocked back by that, that crazy scary guy on the door that's got, like-

    22. AMAshley Mears18:39

        (laughs)

    23. CWChris Williamson18:39

        ... 45 piercings and face tattoos and stuff like that. Um, but yeah, it's like, uh, you have to go in groups of three. Two people must be wearing black. It's advisable to have-

    24. AMAshley Mears18:47

        (laughs)

    25. CWChris Williamson18:47

        ... something on you that's leather. Like, you know, all of this-

    26. AMAshley Mears18:50

        And you should always know the, who the DJs are-

    27. CWChris Williamson18:53

        Yeah, yeah.

    28. AMAshley Mears18:53

        ... that night.

    29. CWChris Williamson18:53

        Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, just claim that Solomon's DJing. That's like the, that's the best thing to do.

    30. AMAshley Mears18:58

        (laughs)
13. 19:17 – 20:42

    The industry

    1. CWChris Williamson19:17

       okay, so you've, you've just re-dictated to me an industry I've worked in for a decade and a half. Like, I've run nightclubs for 14 years. I've watched more drunk people than I can remember stumble in and out. Um, and yet, it only, it took me until a couple of years ago to realize what the experience was selecting for, like why, at its very, very core, people were going, and that collective effervescence, it- it really seems to be one of the driving factors of that. It's a place where other people like you are.

    2. AMAshley Mears19:52

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson19:52

       So it's selecting already for a particular social group.

    4. AMAshley Mears19:56

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson19:57

       Which is, like, where you get ... Um, the UK type of promotion that we do is less bottle service and, um, tables. It's lower value, higher volume.

    6. AMAshley Mears20:10

       Mm-hmm.

    7. CWChris Williamson20:10

       So we'll do 2,000, 1,000 to 2,000 to 2,500 kids a night, four nights a week. But it'll be just buy drinks at the bar. Tables are just free basically for birthdays, um, and we try and do high volume. Um-

    8. AMAshley Mears20:23

       Mm-hmm.

    9. CWChris Williamson20:23

       But again, with that, that's even more so about that community side, right? So it's-

    10. AMAshley Mears20:27

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson20:28

        ... the same people will go. It's the same night every week, um-

    12. AMAshley Mears20:31

        Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson20:31

        ... with the same drinks deals, the same sort of DJs. Sometimes we even play the same songs at the same time. Um, s-

    14. AMAshley Mears20:37

        Ah, so they know the rhythm is predictable. Yeah, that's cool. (laughs)

    15. CWChris Williamson20:40

        Yeah, it's interesting.

14. 20:42 – 27:20

    The party girls

    1. CWChris Williamson20:42

       But, um, what else, what else did you learn? Tell us about the, tell us about the, the party girls, and about what, what your, uh, learnings were spending a bit of time with them 'cause you went, you got in the trenches for this part.

    2. AMAshley Mears20:54

       (laughs)

    3. CWChris Williamson20:55

       This wasn't an armchair philosophy job.

    4. AMAshley Mears20:58

       (laughs)

    5. CWChris Williamson20:58

       This was you, you went in the trenches, donned your high heels, and, and cracked on, right?

    6. AMAshley Mears21:01

       (laughs) That's right, yeah. And some of my, some of my colleagues in academia, uh, they would kind of joke about it, like, "Oh, Ashley, you know, such hard field work you have, you know, in Miami at these nightclubs."

    7. CWChris Williamson21:13

       (laughs)

    8. AMAshley Mears21:13

       "You know, with all this champagne." I was like, "It was awful." There were some moments, particularly in Miami, 'cause I was following this promoter who was, like, a real party animal. I mean, he would chase the after-parties until, like, 8:00, 10:00 in the morning. And, uh, I remember, yeah, at one point, I was like ... There were some, you know, beautiful space surrounded by beautiful people and all of this, you know, symbols of money coming out. And I, like, went into the bathroom and just cried for a minute. (laughs)

    9. CWChris Williamson21:39

       (laughs)

    10. AMAshley Mears21:40

        'Cause, uh, I couldn't take, you know. (laughs) I was like, "I'm in the, the dredges of humanity."

    11. CWChris Williamson21:45

        (laughs)

    12. AMAshley Mears21:46

        Wiped my tears, came back out, was like, partying again. (laughs) Uh, but I may have been really sleep-deprived at that moment, too.

    13. CWChris Williamson21:54

        Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    14. AMAshley Mears21:54

        Um, yeah, so the, the fieldwork is, um, is called immersive ethnography, this kind of, you know, sometimes we call it participant observation, but I kind of flip it. It's more like observant participation. So I really did become a girl. This was my point of access. You know, I could have done the study in any other kind of way, just by interviews or, um, you know, if, if I didn't look the way I did, I, and was a woman, I probably would have had a harder time getting access. Um, but because of the, the access that I had, um, so I'm, I'm, was an ex-model, uh, and I was doing this fieldwork when I was about 32, which is much older than most of the other young women, eh, that are called girls. But girl is not just referring to their youth. It's also a kind of social category. It marks a woman as, like, that type of woman that belongs in this space is, is a girl. Um, and so the, the way that I got in was 'cause, um, I'm, I'm a girl that would be known as a good civilian. Uh, which, so civilian is, is a, a kind of term from the military which refers to somebody who's not really part of the action, right? Um, and then a, a good civilian is somebody (laughs) who's, like, maybe not exactly a working model, but good enough, right? Like ... (laughs)

    15. CWChris Williamson23:06

        (laughs) Oh my God.

    16. AMAshley Mears23:06

        Like when the lights are low, like I could-

    17. CWChris Williamson23:07

        She's like, she's, uh, she's acceptable if she puts-

    18. AMAshley Mears23:09

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson23:10

        ... uh, if she s- uh, dance, dances with her back to us for long enough, like-

    20. AMAshley Mears23:13

        Right. (laughs) Right.

    21. CWChris Williamson23:14

        ... we can, we can say that she's okay.

    22. AMAshley Mears23:14

        If I could wear high heels, then, you know, b- she's got the height, um, and I, you know, and I had the, the same body measurements. Um, so yeah, I got in as a good civilian, and I followed the promoters. Um, and I would follow them, uh, from the start of the night, which is, you know, kind of unfeatherably late at this point in my life. But it would be dinner at 10:00, and then into a nightclub at midnight, and then staying into a nightclub until, like, 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. And sometimes I would really push it and try to stay as late as the promoters, which meant going to after-parties, um, or staying, you know, past closing. And yeah, this was, um, so it was pretty intense fieldwork e- even at that age. It, um, you know, I think for, for me, by 32, I had kind of, I was kind of over these, (laughs) this kind of soc- forms of sociality, you know. I was, I was a little bit, um ... I always think if I had met promoters when I was, like, 18, I probably would have had a much different experience with them.

    23. CWChris Williamson24:09

        Dream. What a dream life.

    24. AMAshley Mears24:10

        Yeah.... yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause I, you know, I liked clubbing and I really liked all, all forms of dance music. And then-

    25. CWChris Williamson24:16

        And free, and free things.

    26. AMAshley Mears24:17

        I like free champagne. (laughs)

    27. CWChris Williamson24:19

        I don't know, I don't know who doesn't like free things.

    28. AMAshley Mears24:22

        (laughs) That's right, although, you know, that's also one of the kind of ideas of the book, is that there's really no such thing as a free lunch, that, um, the, the gift always has a, a counter-gift, or it... Anytime you give a gift, there's this expectation of reciprocity and that's in the anthropology of Marcel Mauss, who argued that arguably, at the root of any society is the gift, it's exchange. Because if I give you something, I've put you in a relationship with me and you have to reciprocate in some way, and so I've forged a tie. And so these ties are kind of the building blocks of community. And in the nightclub world, the gifts do flow (laughs) like, for good reason. Like, there's all kinds of free drinks, free dinners. The promoters are spending so much time during the day, uh, giving favors to models, taking them to lunch, driving them to their castings, taking them bowling, you know, like, you know, hanging out with them, flirting with them, making them feel special, uh, building a relationship with them so that then the girls will reciprocate. And, and people do really talk about promoters as their friends, even though they know the promoters are making money off of them. And I don't think that the girls are fooled. It's not like a, you know, old school Marxist story of like false consciousness. It is a story about like the power of the gift that like, this is, this is a kind of relational, um, relational economy. It's like pieced together through relationships, and there's work that goes into making those relationships and making them feel good and not exploitative, which objectively it is-

    29. CWChris Williamson25:50

        (laughs)

    30. AMAshley Mears25:50

        ... I would think. (laughs)
15. 27:20 – 29:14

    Ashleys age

    1. CWChris Williamson27:20

       you're, if you're a girl who's listening, does this sound like absolute heaven or absolute hell? And if you would be so kind as to just tell me your age when you give me this back? Because-

    2. AMAshley Mears27:32

       That's right.

    3. CWChris Williamson27:32

       ... I'm fascinated at why 18-year-old you would have loved it and 32-year-old you hated it. What's... When did it stop? And try, if you can-

    4. AMAshley Mears27:42

       (laughs)

    5. CWChris Williamson27:42

       ... to detract the fact that you now have a family and other bit-

    6. AMAshley Mears27:46

       (laughs) That's right.

    7. CWChris Williamson27:46

       Like, what is it about us that, that, where you cross... Is it 30 and you just like, you can't stay up after 12 o'clock without dying the next day?

    8. AMAshley Mears27:53

       (laughs) Yeah, that's it. So, that's right, yeah, um ... I mean, I had a career by the time I was 28. I mean, I mean I was in grad school in my 20s and then I started my professor job and was really focused on trying to get tenure. And so, um, I think that once you, once you have a reason to wake up early in the morning, staying up late becomes harder and harder, right? If you're, if you're a bit more free and you don't have those kinds of constraints on your time, then you're, you're probably... You know, it just feels a lot more appropriate-

    9. CWChris Williamson28:25

       Yeah.

    10. AMAshley Mears28:25

        ... to be up until the sunrise (laughs) I think.

    11. CWChris Williamson28:28

        I agree.

    12. AMAshley Mears28:28

        So it's partly that. I mean, it's a life course story. I think, um, it, it's a, you know, it's also the fact of doing this as research meant that I was, I was going out sober, and so I would hold a drink and maybe take a couple sips of a drink over the course of the night, and maybe at the end of the night, take a drink. But while I was there, you know, everybody else would be drunk or high and kind of feeling it and-

    13. CWChris Williamson28:51

        You're in work mode.

    14. AMAshley Mears28:51

        ... it's not that much fun as a sober person. That's right, when you're in work mode. That's when you're ready to go cry in the bathroom.

    15. CWChris Williamson28:57

        (laughs)

    16. AMAshley Mears28:59

        (laughs) This is awful. Um, yeah. (laughs) So the question that you had asked was why don't the, why don't the girls monetize their value? What, what keeps them from doing that?

16. 29:14 – 32:38

    The value chain

    1. AMAshley Mears29:14

       Um-

    2. CWChris Williamson29:14

       Because you've said that they're essentially the... They are not the currency, but they've moved themselves... (laughs) They have somehow managed to move themselves f- uh, vertically integrate themselves backward up the value chain to be the thing which drives the revenue for both venue indirectly, through encouraging people to buy bottles-

    3. AMAshley Mears29:36

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson29:36

       ... to get the girls to their tables, and directly for the promoter, um, because I'm gonna guess that he must be paid based on how many girls he brings in or po- and then potentially a, a poten- percentage of tables as well.

    5. AMAshley Mears29:47

       That's right, yeah. Promoters will say that they're paid on the, uh, quantity of quality that they bring. Quality meaning how many real fashion models and then quantity of those. Um-

    6. CWChris Williamson29:57

       How...

    7. AMAshley Mears29:57

       Yeah.

    8. CWChris Williamson29:57

       Is that like... So you brought in five girls that were a six out of ten, you brought in six girls that were an eight out of ten, and one girl... Like what, what are they doing? How does that work?

    9. AMAshley Mears30:07

       Yeah, yeah. So, um, when they come in through the front door, you know, the, the bouncer will do the first screening to say, like, "Your sixes aren't good enough." (laughs) "They're, they're out," right? (laughs) Um-

    10. CWChris Williamson30:19

        "You're sixes are no good here, buddy."

    11. AMAshley Mears30:21

        Right. (laughs) Yeah, they might, might not use that term, those terms exactly, but they would, you know, they'll make the first d- distinction. Um, and then at the table, uh, the manager will cruise by and make sure that, you know, that enough good-looking girls are there at the table. And also will look at, you know, like, the vibe to see if they're fun, if they're having ... if it's good energy, if people are dancing or if people look bored, and if it's not adding the kind of energy that they're hoping, um, that it will. And so, so yeah, there's multiple, um, I don't know, gatekeepers (laughs) on that process. Um, but yeah, the, uh ... You know, I, I proposed it to a couple of my friends that I, I know that, you know, were fashion models or were still fashion modeling at the time, and was like, "Why don't we just cut out these promoters and we can go to the club directly, we just organize ourselves, you know, arbitrage the market, and get paid each, like, $100 a night, and then ... rather than the promoter getting paid $800." They were like, "No, that sounds like too much work." (laughs)

    12. CWChris Williamson31:22

        (laughs)

    13. AMAshley Mears31:23

        And they're not ... If they go out, they don't want to go out for work. They're going out really for leisure. And it's that split that people have, you know, where like, if you, if you pay somebody, then you move into a different category that redefines your experience not as fun or as leisure or something of your own volition, but as work, you know, which, which means that that collective effervescence gets felt in a really different way. Um, I also found that among the girls, uh, actually among everybody that I spoke to, there was an assumption that if you were getting paid as a woman to be in this space, you were much closer to this very stigmatized category of women, which is the prostitute or the sex worker. When we-

    14. CWChris Williamson32:00

        Oh, God.

    15. AMAshley Mears32:00

        There are lots of sex workers in these spaces, but it's assumed that, like, the bottle girl is also for sale. So people would talk about bottle girls as being close to sex workers, and people would talk about, um, fashion models who were getting paid to be at the tables as being kind of these, you know, sad paid women that, um, that had this kind of sad fate of having to-

    16. CWChris Williamson32:18

        That's a sad-

    17. AMAshley Mears32:18

        ... actually get paid.

    18. CWChris Williamson32:18

        That's a sad paid woman-

    19. AMAshley Mears32:20

        Right.

    20. CWChris Williamson32:20

        ... but the one that did it for some sashimi and-

    21. AMAshley Mears32:22

        (laughs)

    22. CWChris Williamson32:22

        ... and a couple of glasses of Moët, she's somehow fine.

    23. AMAshley Mears32:26

        So, it's not even Moët sometimes. It's just, like, Prosecco, right? (laughs) It's just sparkling wine. And, uh, it's not the sashimi, it's like the cucumbers. (laughs) It's like the cucumber roll. When you go to these dinners, you get the, kind of leftovers from

17. 32:38 – 34:09

    Champagne

    1. AMAshley Mears32:38

       the kitchen.

    2. CWChris Williamson32:38

       Stop bringing Bel Air to your table and claiming that it's champagne.

    3. AMAshley Mears32:42

       (laughs)

    4. CWChris Williamson32:43

       It's not. It's not.

    5. AMAshley Mears32:44

       (laughs)

    6. CWChris Williamson32:44

       It's, it's Prosecco with a Lighty Uppy logo.

    7. AMAshley Mears32:48

       That's right. But if you're 18, it's all good, right? (laughs)

    8. CWChris Williamson32:51

       So, we have something that we refer to as Bubbly, which is the most nondescript term that we could come up with for classing what is 5% volume Sparkling Peri.

    9. AMAshley Mears33:05

       (laughs)

    10. CWChris Williamson33:05

        And this is given away for free if it's your birthday. So, if it's your birthday, you get in for free, uh, your friends get in on guest list, you get a free table and you get a bottle of this Bubbly.

    11. AMAshley Mears33:14

        Bubbly. (laughs)

    12. CWChris Williamson33:14

        But you're right. Like, it's just-

    13. AMAshley Mears33:16

        (laughs)

    14. CWChris Williamson33:16

        Me and my business partner came up with it, like, 14 years ago. I, I swear to God, there was a point at which he had a direct contact with the vinters that made it, 'cause we were going through half a pallet a week. It's like, "It's your birthday and it's your birthday and it's your birthday," and da-da-da-da-da-da.

    15. AMAshley Mears33:29

        Yeah. I know.

    16. CWChris Williamson33:29

        Um, why, why champagne? Why that as a drink?

    17. AMAshley Mears33:33

        Yeah, yeah. So champagne is a high status good, you know, has been for a long time. Um, it, it's, it's also, like, a great party beverage and because it's like, it's light and bubbly, it has that kind of, you know, nice uplift in your mouth, it's, like, sparkly. It's also, um, uh, it lends itself well to shaking and spraying, so if you want to go nuts and make a big show of how you can waste this rare high status good, then you can shake it and spray it, yeah. And without-

    18. CWChris Williamson34:00

        More of that wasteful signaling.

    19. AMAshley Mears34:00

        That's right. And, you know, imagine you can't do it with, like, a Lambrusco, right? Like, you can't shake and spray a red because it's just gonna ruin the night. (laughs)

    20. CWChris Williamson34:07

        It's gonna wreck everyone. So, we

18. 34:09 – 39:24

    My One Experience

    1. CWChris Williamson34:09

       weren't allowed ... My one experience of proper New York partying was last year on my friend's stag do. Um, we went to LAVO Brunch-

    2. AMAshley Mears34:17

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson34:18

       ... on the Saturday, and the table bill came to $34,000 before we even got to PhD. Then we went to PhD ... Shout out to Troy Gordon, who I'm gonna send this to, who I'm absolutely certain at some point soon is going to have a coffee table book of all of the nightlife texts that he gets-

    4. AMAshley Mears34:35

       Nice. (laughs)

    5. CWChris Williamson34:35

       ... which are something else. Um, anyway, so we went to PhD and we'd got, we'd stolen someone's, literally hijacked someone's Hummer, stretch Hummer limousine, um, was firing champagne through the roof of this thing. It's like, to me, it feels an awful lot like becoming a customer when you were originally the supplier. Uh, it's like getting high on your own supply of industry. But I was like, "Ah, I'm in America. Fuck it." Um-

    6. AMAshley Mears35:03

       (laughs)

    7. CWChris Williamson35:03

       (laughs) "So I'll do what I want. New York." Um, and then arrived at PhD and we were like, just larry. I don't know whether you guys use that term in America, but kind of-

    8. AMAshley Mears35:12

       (laughs)

    9. CWChris Williamson35:13

       ... raucous and, and, and loud and just being l- ... It's a stag do, right? It's a bachelor party.

    10. AMAshley Mears35:18

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson35:18

        And, um, sure enough, PhD is packed. Um, the stag starts doing handstand walks up and down the table, like, that overlooks the whole ... So, he's upside down doing handstand walks and then starts spraying a bottle, and we've got it on video, and, um, the emcee comes on on the mic and says, "We don't do that here, boys. This is New York City. If you do that again, my friend LeBron is gonna knock you the fuck out." Points to LeBron, who is like a 6'9" huge behemoth of a doorman. And we were like, "LeBron's gonna come over again, sure enough."

    12. AMAshley Mears35:54

        (laughs)

    13. CWChris Williamson35:55

        So, yeah, it was, um ... That was my, that was my one experience, but it's ... Clubbing in Am- in America, especially that side, that, like, brunch STK sort of party vibe is, um-... something that I'm seeing increasingly moving over to places like Ibiza. So, I was in-

    14. AMAshley Mears36:12

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWChris Williamson36:12

        ... Ibiza last weekend, socially dist-

    16. AMAshley Mears36:14

        Yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson36:14

        ... socially distanced. Um, and in defense of the party industry generally, that product to me feels more wholesome than the previous incarnation, which was the Ravea, um, open from 10:00 or 11:00 o'clock until 6:00, 7:00 in the morning with a long lineup of DJs sort of events-

    18. AMAshley Mears36:40

        Mm-hmm.

    19. CWChris Williamson36:40

        ... which were dominating the European clubbing scene. And I feel like health and wellness goes UK, US, but clubbing goes Europe, US. It goes like, they, we kind of swap.

    20. AMAshley Mears36:52

        Mm-hmm.

    21. CWChris Williamson36:52

        Um, you're always ahead of us in terms of wellness, but we're always ahead of you in terms of partying.

    22. AMAshley Mears36:55

        That's right, yeah.

    23. CWChris Williamson36:56

        Um, Americans make terrible music. Like, sorry to anyone that's listening.

    24. AMAshley Mears36:59

        (laughs)

    25. CWChris Williamson36:59

        Like, you make good rap, you get, make good rap and hip hop, but like, everything else is just awful. Um, so yeah, I, I think that's the way it is. I think that increasingly, we're seeing these sorts of parties that are, um, actually very heavily focused on food, on, um, the quirkiness of the experience, the bottle shows, the guy in the light up doll outfit that comes out and dances next to your table for no reason, the quote boards that you can hold up that say something funny that you can put on your Instagram. And-

    26. AMAshley Mears37:33

        Yeah.

    27. CWChris Williamson37:33

        ... everyone from Candy Pants Events who will be listening to this as well, including Nick that runs out in Dubai, and they've got some stuff in Vegas and all the rest of it.

    28. AMAshley Mears37:40

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson37:41

        They are the, um, the gatekeepers of sort of what's happening at the moment-

    30. AMAshley Mears37:46

        Mm-hmm.
19. 39:24 – 41:04

    The Fourth Wall

    1. AMAshley Mears39:24

       in. (laughs)

    2. CWChris Williamson39:25

       (laughs) It's interesting that for the most part, nightlife, and I'll break the fourth wall for everyone that doesn't know it, nightlife is entirely constructed in the heads of the people who attend and the people who don't. Like, if you look at Lavo Brunch Club or ph.d or STK or whatever, in the cold light of day when there's no music on and the cleaning lights are up and-

    3. AMAshley Mears39:52

       (laughs) Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson39:53

       ... it, it stinks.

    5. AMAshley Mears39:54

       Right.

    6. CWChris Williamson39:54

       It's, it's an awful lot smaller than you think it is. It's about one-third the size of the venue that you think it is when you, you're 10 drinks deep and, and dancing away. Um, and the exclusivity, all of this stuff, it's entirely socially constructed. It must be fascinating-

    7. AMAshley Mears40:11

       Mm-hmm.

    8. CWChris Williamson40:11

       ... for you to look at, for you to research.

    9. AMAshley Mears40:14

       Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. It, I think that's a really good observation about like, in the daytime, you know, compared to the nighttime. And actually, 'cause like, listening to your story about the $30,000 bill and you know, this kind of wild night in which you ultimately get kicked out, uh, or the threat of getting kicked out. It becomes kind of immortalized as this story that you can tell of like, "I did this and I know that it was reckless. I know that it was silly. But in the moment, it really made sense and it probably felt really good." And I found this, um, throughout the research process. I would observe people in, you know, spending this kind of money, burning money, shooting champagne bottles. And then in interviews, they'd be like, "Oh, yeah. Uh, you know, I'm not really like that. That's very vulgar behavior. I don't spend as much as these other guys spend." And so, like, what people say versus what people do or how people think and how they construct themselves, that's a real problem in social science

20. 41:04 – 43:24

    Badge of Honor

    1. AMAshley Mears41:04

       because-

    2. CWChris Williamson41:04

       The experienced self versus-

    3. AMAshley Mears41:05

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson41:05

       ... the remembered self is just-

    5. AMAshley Mears41:07

       That's right.

    6. CWChris Williamson41:08

       So, my, my master's dissertation was on the effectiveness of anti, uh, anti-alcohol advertising on students at Newcastle University.

    7. AMAshley Mears41:14

       Uh-huh.

    8. CWChris Williamson41:15

       And in essence the, the result of the dissertation was nothing works. Like, that drinking to young people's, especially in the UK, is seen as a badge of honor. Not only is it a badge of honor, it's a rite of passage. There's very few things that you can do where the seriousness of the destruction is directly correlated to the worthiness of the story. Like-

    9. AMAshley Mears41:39

       Yeah.

    10. CWChris Williamson41:39

        ... you don't say, "Hey, man, how was your football game?" And you say, "Oh, it was amazing. I broke my leg." You're like, but if I say to you, "Hey, Ashley, how was, how was your night on Saturday?" "Oh, my God. It was so good. I got taken home in an ambulance."

    11. AMAshley Mears41:53

        (laughs)

    12. CWChris Williamson41:53

        "Like, I woke up, I had no idea where I was."

    13. AMAshley Mears41:56

        (laughs)

    14. CWChris Williamson41:56

        "Like, I was missing, I was missing my shoes. Like, I don't even know where my shoes were. Like, my eyeball was on the, uh, the bedside table next to me." You know what I mean? Like that, this is the language.

    15. AMAshley Mears42:06

        I feel like that's too much, but yeah. (laughs)

    16. CWChris Williamson42:07

        Yeah, but that's the language that people use, right?

    17. AMAshley Mears42:09

        Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Yeah, I've seen that before in, in some stuff on, like, research on alcohol and young people. The, the, ye-, the badge of honor points, um, is a ... Yeah, I mean, that's a real problem also on college campuses because you don't ca-, um, here at our university as well, it's a, a kind of, it's a, it's part of what it, what is the experience of higher education. I mean, uh, the university is also part of this experience economy, like, why else would somebody shell out, you know, 50K or 70K for a university if not to have those kinds of magical moments of, like, coming of age in this environment of, you know, of the university, in the dorm, in the city? Um, and, and yeah, that, that poses a real problem for, um, for health and wellbeing because alcohol is such a close ... you know, it's like this lubricant that, that is kind of foundational to, like, the, this college experience.

    18. CWChris Williamson43:05

        It's an all-cause mortality risk but when under the age of 25, you're made of rubber and magic, so, like-

    19. AMAshley Mears43:11

        (laughs)

    20. CWChris Williamson43:11

        ... you can survive- (laughs)

    21. AMAshley Mears43:14

        (laughs)

    22. CWChris Williamson43:15

        (laughs) ... you can survive pretty much anything.

    23. AMAshley Mears43:17

        So, (laughs) I'm super curious, can you tell me a little bit about what social distant, socially distant Ibiza parties look like?

21. 43:24 – 46:59

    Social Distance Party

    1. AMAshley Mears43:24

       (laughs)

    2. CWChris Williamson43:24

       Yeah, uh, that was interesting, so that was last weekend, I went out with my buddy, um, Owen. I, I did this season in Ibiza, I fell in love with a girl, uh, when I was, like, 22, classic holiday romance, classic. Fueled, fueled by far too much alcohol and some, and some potent drugs. And, um, uh, I, I worked for, I dropped my life and moved out there in between my bachelor's and my master's and, um, the boss that I worked for then is now Carl Cox's manager and I've kept in touch with him for years and years and years, amazing guy called Owen, Irish guy. Um, and I was, I went out and I met him and he told me everything about the island last week. So socially distanced party at the moment, none of the clubs are open, nighttime clubs, the only venues that are open are, um, uh, open air, so places like Ocean Beach. Ushuaia decided they weren't going to open at all this year, um, which was an interesting decision but I think their overheads are high, their operating costs will be high because they're used to having these big DJs. It is not cheap to open a venue where you've got open water, like, deep enough for you to fall into and all this sort of stuff. There's gonna be security costs, there's gonna be blah, blah, blah. Um, but Ocean Beach, we were there, you are sat on a table, you're not allowed to go to other tables or mingle with other tables, although they were fairly lax in the VIP, which was the section that we were in. Um, but mostly you're not supposed to intermix. Um, if we take that one step further to what I think's going to happen in the UK, a venue that's, uh, my, my friend knows the owner in Leeds where we operate, um, they were shut down last week for having, and I quote, "Too many people standing up."

    3. AMAshley Mears45:02

       (laughs)

    4. CWChris Williamson45:02

       There was too many people standing up in that venue.

    5. AMAshley Mears45:06

       Wow.

    6. CWChris Williamson45:07

       Um, so you can imagine like I'm, I'm on this table, I'm on this table, you're sat over there and I'm, I'm chatting to my friends and I think, "Oh, she's, she's quite pretty."

    7. AMAshley Mears45:16

       (laughs)

    8. CWChris Williamson45:16

       But I, I'm not allowed, I'm not allowed to talk to you. What I have to do is say, "Hey, hey, um, do you fancy going to the smoking area?" 'Cause I can't go over my line, there's a piece of paper on the floor that says, like, "Don't go past this line." And if I do, the door staff will come over and say, like, "Stop talking."

    9. AMAshley Mears45:31

       Wow.

    10. CWChris Williamson45:31

        So now there's this whole new rhythm of how people are speaking to other groups by having to go outside, which is, I guess, testament to how adaptive humans are.

    11. AMAshley Mears45:44

        Yeah. Yeah.

    12. CWChris Williamson45:45

        That you give them a rule and immediately there is, "Right, okay, where's the hole in the ... Oh, okay, I can't speak inside-"

    13. AMAshley Mears45:51

        A workaround.

    14. CWChris Williamson45:51

        Yeah.

    15. AMAshley Mears45:52

        Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm surprised they wouldn't solve that with, like, Tinder. You know (laughs) you can just, like, see who's in the room.

    16. CWChris Williamson45:58

        Well, set the radius, set the radius to three centimeters and see.

    17. AMAshley Mears46:01

        That's right, yeah. (laughs)

    18. CWChris Williamson46:05

        (laughs)

    19. AMAshley Mears46:05

        Or some other sort of mediated, uh, communication, um, yeah.

    20. CWChris Williamson46:10

        But all of these things, the whole, the entire last sort of six months has caused a lot of changes.

    21. AMAshley Mears46:17

        Mm-hmm.

    22. CWChris Williamson46:17

        But every one of those changes has offered an opportunity for someone to step in because the supply of everything no longer meets the demand because the demands have completely changed.

    23. AMAshley Mears46:27

        Yeah.

    24. CWChris Williamson46:27

        Zoom, the, the, uh, stock price of Zoom. Also, did you know that there is a Chinese company also called Zoom whose share price has gone up by, like, nearly 50%-

    25. AMAshley Mears46:38

        (laughs)

    26. CWChris Williamson46:38

        ... from people make it wr- wrongly buying the wrong company?

    27. AMAshley Mears46:43

        That's right, but in part because sports are closed, you have so many people that are now doing, you know, these little investors, like, as, as gambling, as a substitute for sports gambling. (laughs) And so they're just like, "Yeah, Zoom, I've heard of that."

    28. CWChris Williamson46:53

        Buying the wrong Zoom. (laughs)

    29. AMAshley Mears46:56

        (laughs)

22. 46:59 – 48:34

    No Reopening Date

    1. AMAshley Mears46:59

    2. CWChris Williamson46:59

       Oh, man.

    3. AMAshley Mears47:00

       Lucky that.

    4. CWChris Williamson47:00

       There's, it's, there's some poetic irony in that, that, I don't know. Um, but yeah, that's, that's, like, that's a, a big part of it. But it was, it was weird, um, scanning your, your menu on the table 'cause they weren't bringing over actual, actual menus and all this sort of stuff. Um, I don't think, I don't think we're gonna see partying be the same, certainly not in places like Spain, um, this year. Um, it may be next year. We are in-

    5. AMAshley Mears47:25

       (laughs)

    6. CWChris Williamson47:25

       ... I don't know what it's like in America, I guess it's federal, right? So it's state by state. But, um, in the UK, we are the only industry, the nightlife industry, that hasn't got a reopen date.

    7. AMAshley Mears47:33

       Yeah.

    8. CWChris Williamson47:34

       Um, which is ... What do you think that says? What do you think it says that the government hasn't bothered to give n- nightclubs, uh, a, a, a date to reopen when we, every industry has, from live music venues to sports and recreation to big stadiums?

    9. AMAshley Mears47:51

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CWChris Williamson47:51

        Wh- wh- how do you think it's viewed then?

    11. AMAshley Mears47:54

        Have, have bars opened?

    12. CWChris Williamson47:55

        So bars have opened, table service only, um, and how they categorize bar versus nightclub is kind of-

    13. AMAshley Mears48:02

        Right. It's a-

    14. CWChris Williamson48:03

        ... it's a little bit loose but no one can do anything-

    15. AMAshley Mears48:06

        Yeah.

    16. CWChris Williamson48:06

        ... that would, um, be analogous to the sort of experience that you would expect in a club.

    17. AMAshley Mears48:11

        Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I think it's the stand-up problem that you're describing (laughs) -

    18. CWChris Williamson48:16

        Sit the, sit the fuck down.

    19. AMAshley Mears48:16

        ... like in a nightclub (laughs) . Like in a, in a bar you can imagine there's some way that a managerial or security staff could necessitate that people not get shoulder to shoulder, right? And, like, embrace and, like, stand up and feel the music.

    20. CWChris Williamson48:29

        Look at each other.

    21. AMAshley Mears48:30

        ... that is the purpose of a nightclub, is to be close to strangers.

23. 48:34 – 56:44

    Whats Next

    1. AMAshley Mears48:34

    2. CWChris Williamson48:35

       It's sadly an industry that was designed to transmit a virus.

    3. AMAshley Mears48:39

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson48:39

       Like, it's hot, it's sweaty, people shout, people kiss, people, uh, m- mingle and use the same glasses, like, you know-

    5. AMAshley Mears48:48

       Right.

    6. CWChris Williamson48:48

       ... even if they've gone through the dishwasher. Like, is it... Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's, um-

    7. AMAshley Mears48:53

       Yeah.

    8. CWChris Williamson48:53

       ... it's a real challenge. So what's next? Are you... What, what are you gonna delve into for your next research project? Have you got any idea?

    9. AMAshley Mears49:00

       Yeah, I have a couple of things going on. Nothing, nothing has, um, worked out yet, uh, in terms of ethnography. Probably that's because I've got these two little kids now, and so trying to imagine doing ethnographic fieldwork in the style that I've, you know, been trained to do. Nobody told me this when (laughs) I was like, you know, 22 and like (laughs) learning my field, but it-

    10. CWChris Williamson49:24

        Better get all of your research done before-

    11. AMAshley Mears49:26

        Right.

    12. CWChris Williamson49:26

        ... (laughs) before you have kids.

    13. AMAshley Mears49:28

        Right. Yeah, unless I do something on, like, the PTA, like the Parent Teacher Association-

    14. CWChris Williamson49:31

        (laughs)

    15. AMAshley Mears49:32

        ... at school or something. Which, yeah, there's some interesting questions there too. I mean, I had a professor in grad school, Craig Calhoun, he used to say that all of, all of social life is like high school. And so there's like, you can study hierarchy and inequality and boundaries and transgressions and categories of worth in any kind of field. So the PTA is just as politicized in that sense as a nightclub. (laughs) So, you know, I could go for it. But, um, I don't know, uh, in, in the immediate short term, when working with a team of graduate students to interview, uh, people that work at bars that have been out of work. So, um, we're looking at bartenders and, uh, bottle girls and how they transition skills. Um, and yeah, like how, yeah, how they think about the future right now when their, when their industry is in such shock.

    16. CWChris Williamson50:22

        Kaput.

    17. AMAshley Mears50:23

        Yeah.

    18. CWChris Williamson50:24

        Uh, well, there will be a lot of people from the nightlife industry, promoters, DJs especially, uh-

    19. AMAshley Mears50:28

        Yeah. Yeah.

    20. CWChris Williamson50:29

        ... bar staff, table servers, managers and assistant managers, AGMs, GMs, ops managers. Anyone that's listening, like, let me know. You know where to find me @chriswillx, wherever you follow me, or put it in the YouTube comments or do whatever. Um, what's your thoughts? Like especially the t- uh, we'll have a UK audience, but like 35% of people listening will be from America as well, so we'll get a good insight from there. But like, the UK really, really hasn't helped the nightlife industry that much. And I can see the s- I can see both sides. I can... um-

    21. AMAshley Mears51:02

        Mm-hmm.

    22. CWChris Williamson51:02

        My, the house that I'm in is built because of the people that go to nightlife (laughs) , but I also appreciate that there's a big public health concern. And, and I don't know, it's, it's an interesting one, but I- I- I'd love to know what people think. I'd love to get a little bit of feedback, so throw that in the comments below.

    23. AMAshley Mears51:21

        Mm-hmm.

    24. CWChris Williamson51:21

        Ashley, I- I- I better get you, let you go. You've got, you've got two... We can't just, we can't just do this all night. This isn't-

    25. AMAshley Mears51:27

        (laughs)

    26. CWChris Williamson51:27

        This isn't like 2010.

    27. AMAshley Mears51:31

        That's right. (laughs) But this has been really fun. I feel like you're the, um, the kind of perfect audience for, for my work. (laughs) Like-

    28. CWChris Williamson51:40

        Very much so.

    29. AMAshley Mears51:41

        ... from both fashion and nightlife, yeah.

    30. CWChris Williamson51:42

        Very much so. Yeah, exactly. I, um, I'm gonna l- leave it with a part... You know, I told Ashley before we started, but I had my s- first socially distanced modeling casting today, which was hilarious, because I turned up, we were told to turn up, um, must wear facial covering, must do everything, and I got in there to find that the guy that was running the casting, he must ru- must own the company, wasn't wearing a face mask and was just like getting in, like putting the shirt, making sure that the s- the shirt fitted. Like, the, there was something up with the shoulder on one of mine, so he put a shoulder pad in to like change the shape of it.

Episode duration: 56:44