I've been a raver for decades, not until I jumped into reddit I started reading and seeing people writing about "PLUR" (Peace Love Unity Respect) a bunch. Our little community never really interacted with the US side of things, and never used any acronyms or "sayings" like that, it was just built-in into the community, and people running around saying stuff like that would be kind of inauthentic and borderline sketchy. Just be that, no need to say it or remind others.
Kind of fun and interesting how the two electronic music scenes are very similar, but things like that remind me how different it is in say Europe than the US, even though the vibes are obviously similar and more or less the same, just way more implicit, not so "Look like this and do that".
In the US, it's been a concept for almost the entire time the scene has existed. In the early 90s, PLUR was popularized by Frankie Bones, who had essentially founded the east coast US scene a few years prior.
By the late 90s it was more of an implicit ethos -- you'd read about it and see it on flyers, but running around and saying it too often would indeed be considered inauthentic and rather cringe. Although, a bigger one around that time was use of the word "rave"; it was always "party" instead, to the extent that using the r-word in person was a huge faux pas which basically indicated you were either a poser or undercover law enforcement. And a "party" was always distinct from a weekly or monthly event at a club, and definitely not the same thing as a festival.
That's all quite a bit different in today's scene though, which has been thoroughly commercialized and mainstreamed for the past 15 years, ever since SFX started pouring major dollars into "EDM" events.
> That's all quite a bit different in today's scene though, which has been thoroughly commercialized and mainstreamed for the past 15 years
Shame to hear, Europe surely feels a ton different than 10-20 years ago, but still there is something authentic behind most events I'm still going to, tend to be the smaller ones, might be why.
But these most exists still today in the US/North America as well? I know for sure you can find those sort of events in Mexico for sure, but maybe today they've done the same with the electronic music events as they did with local broadcasting TV and it's all been centralized by now, would be sad to hear.
I'm sure they still exist here, but the economic realities make it challenging in my area (NYC)... even smaller events must be totally oversold, in order for the promoters to not go broke. So it's hard to find room to dance, and there's lots of people talking loudly everywhere, etc. And the headliners often start their sets at an absurdly late hour.
There are still some underground parties, but most of the ones I've been to in modern times have been a bit "off". In some cases the promoters are attempting to recreate a 90s/early'00s vibe, but they aren't old enough to have actually experienced one, so they're just basing it off the ridiculous exaggerated thing they saw in some movie. They'll overspend on decorations but underspend on DJs. And they'll do things like wait to send out the address of the "super secret underground venue" until the day of the event, but then it turns out to be some totally normal event space that anyone can rent.
Probably there are still some actual unlicensed/renegade parties somewhere here but I haven't found them. The only ones I have come across have been a bit of a different scene, more like experimental electronic that doesn't lend itself to dancing, no real overlap with the genres that were played at raves.
edit to add: no idea why you're getting downvoted above. fwiw your comment about PLUR totally aligns with what I've heard from others in Europe.
Not sure why you're being downvoted - I had a blast until the inevitable edgelords spamming the N word. Maybe worth someone adding a PR to filter out such words.
Yeah that's not very PLUR :(
I've been a raver for decades, not until I jumped into reddit I started reading and seeing people writing about "PLUR" (Peace Love Unity Respect) a bunch. Our little community never really interacted with the US side of things, and never used any acronyms or "sayings" like that, it was just built-in into the community, and people running around saying stuff like that would be kind of inauthentic and borderline sketchy. Just be that, no need to say it or remind others.
Kind of fun and interesting how the two electronic music scenes are very similar, but things like that remind me how different it is in say Europe than the US, even though the vibes are obviously similar and more or less the same, just way more implicit, not so "Look like this and do that".
In the US, it's been a concept for almost the entire time the scene has existed. In the early 90s, PLUR was popularized by Frankie Bones, who had essentially founded the east coast US scene a few years prior.
By the late 90s it was more of an implicit ethos -- you'd read about it and see it on flyers, but running around and saying it too often would indeed be considered inauthentic and rather cringe. Although, a bigger one around that time was use of the word "rave"; it was always "party" instead, to the extent that using the r-word in person was a huge faux pas which basically indicated you were either a poser or undercover law enforcement. And a "party" was always distinct from a weekly or monthly event at a club, and definitely not the same thing as a festival.
That's all quite a bit different in today's scene though, which has been thoroughly commercialized and mainstreamed for the past 15 years, ever since SFX started pouring major dollars into "EDM" events.
Thanks for that bits of history :)
> That's all quite a bit different in today's scene though, which has been thoroughly commercialized and mainstreamed for the past 15 years
Shame to hear, Europe surely feels a ton different than 10-20 years ago, but still there is something authentic behind most events I'm still going to, tend to be the smaller ones, might be why.
But these most exists still today in the US/North America as well? I know for sure you can find those sort of events in Mexico for sure, but maybe today they've done the same with the electronic music events as they did with local broadcasting TV and it's all been centralized by now, would be sad to hear.
I'm sure they still exist here, but the economic realities make it challenging in my area (NYC)... even smaller events must be totally oversold, in order for the promoters to not go broke. So it's hard to find room to dance, and there's lots of people talking loudly everywhere, etc. And the headliners often start their sets at an absurdly late hour.
There are still some underground parties, but most of the ones I've been to in modern times have been a bit "off". In some cases the promoters are attempting to recreate a 90s/early'00s vibe, but they aren't old enough to have actually experienced one, so they're just basing it off the ridiculous exaggerated thing they saw in some movie. They'll overspend on decorations but underspend on DJs. And they'll do things like wait to send out the address of the "super secret underground venue" until the day of the event, but then it turns out to be some totally normal event space that anyone can rent.
Probably there are still some actual unlicensed/renegade parties somewhere here but I haven't found them. The only ones I have come across have been a bit of a different scene, more like experimental electronic that doesn't lend itself to dancing, no real overlap with the genres that were played at raves.
edit to add: no idea why you're getting downvoted above. fwiw your comment about PLUR totally aligns with what I've heard from others in Europe.
Not sure why you're being downvoted - I had a blast until the inevitable edgelords spamming the N word. Maybe worth someone adding a PR to filter out such words.
Yeah, I added some but they find ways around it. Eventually I'm monitoring and blocking ips manually. Needs an admin area to make this easier.
Its inevitable in public spaces, especially when there is an ounce of anonymity.
you could use llama guard or openai's omni-moderation model to flag bad actors
You can downvote on HN?
Maybe the icon shows up when you hit a certain karma number I see it myself