On a balmy Friday evening at Early Terrible, a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a line of partygoers waited for a polo-themed bash thrown by Kiernan Francis, a 24-year-old filmmaker. Just off to the side, a few shirtless young men with “POLO” scrawled across their lean chests in lipstick kept spirits high.
“It’s an Abercrombie & Fitch kind of situation,” Collin Grant, 23, one of several “polo boys” hired for the evening, said with a smirk. Their compensation, he added, had been a cocktail voucher. At about $20 per Moscow mule, that was a pretty good deal.
Statistically speaking, the people packed inside this dim, slightly twee bar are not known to drink very much. Adults ages 34 and under — that is, Gen Z and younger millennials — are drinking about 10 percent less now compared with two decades ago, according to a 2023 Gallup poll. Their social lives, like those of Americans of all generations, seem to have taken a hit too — in a different survey, just 4.1 percent of participants said they “attended or hosted” a party on a typical weekend or holiday in 2023.
Gen Z, though, is the only one that has been declared “generation stay-at-home.”
“Everyone talks like we don’t socialize or have sex or play, but behind the scenes, we’re having fun,” Miranda Gershoni, 25, said while mingling with guests at a packed literary reading on a recent weeknight. “We also want to touch grass. We’re trying.” She extended a printed-out poem.
At Time Again, a red-lit bar at the base of the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown known for its fashionable clientele and prosciutto mountains, Katja Golde, 24, pointed out that while technology is often to blame for her generation’s lack of social skills, the Find My Friends app had become a social conduit.
If she notices that her friends are out, she said, “I hit them up and I get invited.”
Her friends were out with her that night, gathered around a box of ube-filled pastries from a nearby bakery. They discussed plans to end the evening at the late-night karaoke bar Winnie’s.
“You must be at home if you’re not seeing Gen Z outside,” said Susana Alena, sipping a martini beside Ms. Golde. “Or you’re at the wrong spots. Or you just don’t know the right people.”
Earlier this summer, the writer Samantha Leal reported on the rise of “soft-clubbing,” which she defined in an article for the Cut as “what happens when a generation raised on overstimulation and burnout wants the fun without the fatigue.” Think lo-fi coffee shop D.J. sets at 2 p.m., with everyone behaving a little too respectfully.
Perhaps that explains the natural — or “natty,” if you’ve been here a while — wine craze that has taken over New York’s restaurant and bar scene in the last couple of years, attracting 20-somethings looking to drink a little more “intentionally.”
And perhaps that’s how you get something called a wine rave at Public Records, a vast multilevel bar in Brooklyn, hosted by the D.J. collective Beverages on a Saturday afternoon. Here, finance bros in light blue linen button-ups and weathered Stan Smiths milled about clutching wine glasses, sediment occasionally pooling at the bottom.
The allure of natty wine? Cost (when you split a bottle, at least), vibes and perceived health benefits.
“Younger people are gravitating toward lower-A.B.V. drinks instead of pounding rail drinks,” said Divya Vijay, 27, one of three in a group of girlfriends enjoying the outdoor techno and tannins. When asked if she had any theories as to why that may be, she replied succinctly: “Wellness culture.”
Having danced through the 1970s in New York, renowned “club kid” Richard Alvarez believes that partying would remain a staple of youth culture. “In good times, people want to celebrate,” he said over the phone. “In bad times, people want to go out and feel better.”
Gen Z “may not be drinking, but they’re still going out to the club,” Mr. Alvarez, 60 added. He would know: He runs the door at mega-clubs like Signal and Basement.
As it crept past midnight outside The Standard Hotel in Manhattan’s meatpacking district, people took in the Hudson River breeze while waiting in an after-hours line snaking around Tenth Avenue for admission to a pool party thrown by the nightlife photographers Matt Weinberger and Mark Hunter, who is better known as the Cobrasnake, at the rooftop bar Le Bain.
Once inside, the smell of chlorine and the stickiness of vodka Red Bulls overwhelmed the senses. Women in bikinis took turns bullying a handsy guest in Le Bain’s infamous indoor pool until he finally saw himself out. Gritty, mid-aughts throwbacks like “Boys Wanna Be Her” by Peaches pulsed through a dance floor soaked in blue light.
Shira Kedem, a 21-year-old student at Fashion Institute of Technology, sat on the floor among a throng of indie sleaze cosplayers. “I always feel like the reason I go out is if I’m in the mood to meet new people,” she said, swinging her pigtail braids and bogarting her friend’s cigarette. “I kind of yearn for that spontaneity.”
The night stretched past 4 a.m., foreclosing the possibility of early-morning exercise classes. On Sunday afternoon, either recovered from hangovers or having avoided them completely, a group of claw-clipped women gathered at Apartment 5, a WeWork-for-events space on the Lower East Side.
As they worked on bag charms over kiwi margaritas and espresso martinis, Divya Kopparapu, the founder of the social club Bala Wellness and the organizer of the event, addressed the group.
“I quit my 9-to-5 to focus on your 5-to-9,” said Ms. Kopparapu, 27, referring to the block of evening hours sometimes reserved for wellness routines and “Love Island” binges. Her catchy slogan spoke to a rise in early-onset corporate fatigue.
Elena Xian, also 27, said she had recently quit her “dream job” at a French fashion house: “I just got too jaded.”
In search of another low-key Sunday night gathering, others had found their way to a raw studio space on Canal Street, where Jordan Daniels, 26, and Gilly Chan, 29, were hosting a dinner party for their new venture, Soft Service, a supper club.
Over several seafood courses, the group became rowdy, thanks to a large silver platter of cigarettes and a seemingly endless supply of aperitifs. Guests periodically floated to a fire escape, lighters in hand.
The dinner was scheduled to end at 10 p.m., but it went on for eight hours, culminating in a 2 a.m. D.J. set by Ms. Chan.
It may be that the debate over partying is a semantic one. Is a reading a party? Maybe not, by some people’s definitions. Lately, though, readings have become synonymous with raging, as small, independent magazines like The Drift, Cake Zine and Heavy Traffic have lines down the sidewalk for their events and book launches regularly sell out.
At KGB Bar in the East Village, a crowd settled into the Soviet-themed room to hear a group of writers share their work for the reading series Late to the Party Press, hosted by Madeline Howard and Sophy Drouin.
“Even with curated online groups, there’s no replacement for face-to-face connection,” said Evie Goodman, who was wearing a crop top that read “READING IS SEXY.”
Leah Abrams, the night’s final reader, said she considered the Gen Z partying discourse a nonstarter. “Diagnosing a problem that doesn’t exist always gives fascist undertones,” she said. “Gen Z is looking for connection right now and actively out there, having fun, complex social lives.”
Later in the week, outside the popular clubstaurant Jean’s Lafayette, Kirsten Chen was smoking a cigarette near a host stand full of iridescent kitten ears, in keeping with the name of the dance party that the model Teddy Quinlivan was throwing inside: Electric Pussycat.
Ms. Chen migrated inside, lighting a second cigarette indoors. “No one has table manners anymore,” she sighed, slipping into a friend’s private corner table. Considering herself a seasoned party girl at the wise age of 28, she observed young clubbers crowd the D.J. booth through the haze of a fog machine. “It’s sweet,” she said.
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