An examination of the social-scene economics of a Hyper-pop Brooklyn Rave, May 2023
Preamble
I wrorte this for a final paper for SOCI UN3675 Organizing Innovation, a course at Columbia in May of 2023
Abstract
It is hard to throw a party. It is even harder in New York City. It’s even harder when the party is catering to a niche market. In this paper I examine how one party in Brooklyn, Sksksks, organises its labor force around a system of scene economics to ensure its existence. A complex system of creative networks, friendships, and professional nightlife institutions allow for the party to go on. To start and successfully run a party in New York City, a mixture of madness, charisma, and creativity is required, all of which is present at Sksksks. In this paper, I explore how networks aid in new entrepreneurial endeavours and how this case study can be mapped to more general economic cases.
Introduction
Sksksks is a rave in Brooklyn. Its name derives from an internet meme, where the subject is a teenage girl with an abundance of scrunchies and a hydro-flask water bottle who repeatedly says “sk-sk-sks”. The phase has been included in gay vernacular and describes the LGBTQ nature of the event. There is some debate about the exact origins of the word, however it is most likely the case that the term was used in BIPOC and LGBTQ circles before the advent of the meme. Then the proliferation of the term on Tik-Tok was another case of appropriation of culture from minority communities by a dominate social class (Strapagiel). Regardless, the title of the rave seeks to convey the LGBTQ nature of the event and its cultural proximity to internet culture.
At the event, a variety of music is played, however it can all be under the umbrella of internet alternative. Some genres include: night-core remixes of pop songs, techno, hardcore trance, rave classics, and hyper-pop.
The party is primarily a hyper-pop party, or at least brands itself as such. It draws in a diverse crowd of people, however all being in or adjacent to internet subculture. The party goes on until late in the night, ending between 4-6 am. The crowd changes as the night progresses, which affected my interviews and research. As the morning approaches the music gets more intense and the crowd thins out. Some sets are more challenging than others to listen to. At times the bpm gets so high and the tracks become so esoteric that even people who enjoy weird and challenging music have trouble keeping to the groove. Most importantly however, the party is light and fun. While marketed for primarily BIPOC & LGBTQ people, everyone is welcome to join.
Like other parties, the logistical work that goes into the event is scantly seen. The lights are intense and overpowering, but the lighting engineer is out of sight. The music is loud and all encompassing, but the sound engineer can not be heard. The social media presence of the party is constant and creative, but no one outside of the organisation understands the work that goes into every post. I seek to understand the organisational dynamics of this party to understand how it can survive in a saturated nightlife market.
I discovered that the party relies on the will and thoughtfulness of its creator, the creative network that surrounds him, and the geographical placement of the party that allows for a continued stream of clientele to fill the monthly event.
Background
I had several motivations in writing this paper. As an electronic musician / DJ, I spend a lot of time in nightlife professionally, while trying to understand the socio-economic conditions of the business. In addition, I really enjoy going to Sksksks, as I think its one of the best parties in NYC, so the research was straight forward. I conducted several interviews of varying lengths. I conducted a 2 hour “coffee chat” with the show runner David (aka Thelimitdoesnotexist), and then several smaller interviews with his team. In addition, at the parties I had conversations with 12 attendees specifically about their motivations and experiences. During the semester I went to 4 parties and saw the full range of the show with its creative contents. The main question that I was seeking to answer was how can a party with limited economic upside, motivate people to come out and work.
Scene Economics in Action Current economic frameworks have a trouble describing why people does seemingly uneconomical actions. Microeconomics is framed in a way that relies heavily on profit maximisation of marginal decisions. Jan-Michael Kühn proposes an economic framework that better describes the motivations of the economy of electronic music. Kühn calls this framework, scene economics, referring to the concept of an obscure music scene. The hyper-pop scene in Brooklyn is a good example of a musical scene. For a scene to operate, there needs to be a number of people doing a variety of jobs, most visibly the DJ curating the music, but equally as important, there needs to people show running, working lights, bar-backing, and running the coat check. As the scene, grows more of these jobs get outsourced to professionals that are not “in” the scene socially, but exist as an economic entity. Other vital people in the scene are the music producers, party promoters, and also general patrons who spend money for tickets and drinks that keep the scene alive.
Sksksks, is in the heart of the hyper-pop scene as one of the only true hyper-pop parties in Brooklyn (Moran). I asked David why he created the party. He replied, “I made this party because there was a hole in the market. No one was doing hyper pop. I wasn’t interested in the techno that was being played. So I started my own party”. This statement accurately describes the mix of internal motivation and external opportunity that is required to build a party from scratch. The team of Sksksks is small and informal, comprising of David’s friends. I talked to one of the show runners on why he helps David run the party. He replied, “I do it because we have been friends forever. We were partying a lot since I got to the city, this is his dream and I want to support my friend. I don’t go out anymore, so this is a time for me to go out once a month.”. “Do you make money”, I asked. “No, I do it for free for David, but the other people get paid on the team, but probably at a friend discount”. On the subject of getting paid, I asked David if his other staff give him a discount. He said, “No, but if one party loses money, we move the money around, and people get paid when we have the money”. This informal agreement is vital for a success of a party. Parties, especially in the beginning of their life cycle, are high risk ventures. The ability to have economic flexibility is an enormous advantage for David and his organisation.
Unlike other parties, David’s team is composed of his friends, one from Singapore, where David is from, one from college, and one from other parties that he met and became friends with. This mix of personal and professional networks allows David and Sksksks to take risks artistically that other parties cant’t. David is clearly the leader in the organisation or “the dictator” as he puts it. The project is his “baby” and he has creative control of the booking and the direction of it. We can draw parallels of his leadership style and Max Weber’s idea of charismatic power. (Mommsen) As Weber puts it, a leader must either have rational-legal authority, traditional authority, and charismatic authority. As the core team of Sksksks is composed of a paid volunteer type staff, traditional and rational authority doesn’t fit within the context of the party. However, it can be said that David’s charisma and ability to mobilise his friends allows him the power to creatively direct the party. Without it, it would be impossible to take the artistic risks that David takes with the party.
After attending several of the parties, it is clear that there is an aura of silliness that fills the air. Unlike other electronic music events in Brooklyn that often take themselves very seriously, Sksksks takes itself very un-seriously and self aware. At the start of the party, I asked one of the only people on the dance floor why he attends. In a fetish harness, he answered, “One, its fun, it’s a fun place to dance. Two, it’s a cultural moment, we will look back and say, wow this really happened. I want to be here for that, contribute to that and experience it, and oh yeah, three, cute boys.” I talked to someone else in the smoking area about why they came to the party. They replied, “I guess because it’s easy? It’s a fun and easy party. Unlike other parties in Brooklyn. Can I say the other party? Yeah, like Unter, fuck Unter, that party is too serious, we are all gay and weird, I’m not sure why they are so serious, but this party is fun and easy.” For context, Unter is an underground techno party that positions itself as one of the most intense techno parties in Brooklyn, with a door that is comparable to Berghain in Berlin. Rather than copying the “Berlin aesthetic” of electronic music, it is clear that Sksksks is a uniquely Brooklyn party that prides itself about its openness and weirdness.
While its is fun to describe the party as a truly fun and free place, it reality, it operates as an economic entity in a highly competitive field. As in all creative professions, there are more creatives than spots created by consumers, and often the power law dictates that creatives who win often win big, and most others can’t win at all (Barabasi). I ask David how he could complete in such a saturated field. He responded, “Well, like before I said, no one was doing this, and the pandemic wiped out a lot of parties that existed so there was a space in the market. But also, you need to be really organised, its a full time job, but doesn’t pay like it. You have to deal with managers, artists, venues. Because its nightlife, people are awful at responding. So you have to be organised and persistent.”. I spoke about David’s organisation with one of his colleagues. “He’s the most organised person I know. He does the work of 3 people, we are just here to help him with his dream. He can’t do everything at once, but he does a lot”. Going to several parties from start to finish, I can say that David and his team is tasked with a lot, all under the pretence of staying relatively sober to deal with any issues that may arise with artists and patrons. Tasks include setting up, dealing with artists, managing problematic patrons, and of course closing down, which happens early in the morning.
The economic structure of the party can be described as a hierarchal network that operates in a market economy. Referring to Joel Podolony’s paper, Networks forms of Organisation, we can not say that the party is entirely a network based organisation because David has full creative control, but we can not say that it is entirely hierarchal because the lines between jobs often fade during the party, and the source of labor is not formalised like in other industries. It is also clear that the party operates in a market system. The party still needs to bid for acts, bid for venues, and find the market price for all activities and items that outside the creative network of his friends. For example, the venue of the party needs to change depending on the expected size of the events. For example, one party where Chelsea manning was playing (yes that Chelsea Manning) they decided to host the party at Elsewhere, a very expensive venue, doing this was the right economical choice as they sold out and caused significant news coverage, including an article in the New York Times. (Goldberg)
During one of the parties, I was discussing the business of running a venue with an owner of a Brooklyn creative space, and they told me that, “There are so many parties that want to play, mental, techno, whatever, but again, this is a business, we need to sell drinks and pay rent, you know? It’s not a charity.” I asked them if they have a taste in parties. They responded, “its all noise to me now, but the older the party — the better they act, so we have less problems.”. To complicated things further, many of the roles shift. Some parties have venue door and coat staff, some do not. When someone is not part of the parties organisation, but working in an adjacent role, such as coat check, or the door, they often do not care about the “vibe”, or cultural meaning of the party. I spoke with one coat checker about his experience. “Yeah man, I do not know this party at all. My friend works the bar, got me this gig. Yeah its all noise to me. It’s an easy gig, seems like these electronic music people are older so tip a bit better. But, no I don’t know this party” This could be compared to the lightening engineer who is David’s friend from Singapore, after speaking to one of her colleagues, it was clear that she was very well known within the lighting community and has many other options within nightlife, as technical workers are in high demand in nightlife especially after Covid (Towey). However, they choose to work Sksksks because they are David’s friend and thus in his creative network. Because David is within the Brooklyn creative milieu, he has the ability to mobilise his network to his advantage, thus taking all the benefits of a network organisation such as getting highly qualified engineers to take graduated pay depending on the outcome of the party, which would not be possible without being a member of the scene.
Motivations
One of the most important aspects of mobilising people to make seemingly irrational choices is discovering their true motivations. It is clear that everyone at the party is highly motivated, but their motivations are diverse. For example, David’s motivation for throwing the party is multidimensional. He wishes to do this full time in the future, to create a space for the music he likes, and to create community within the hyper-pop scene. The other people on David’s team also have those similar goals, but they are secondary to the main goal, which is helping their friend accomplish his dream.
It maybe cliché to say that the power of friendship is the key to success, but we can point out there are many other factors at play that allow for this semiprofessional network to continue. One is that, throwing a party is a high risk and high reward activity. All of the staff that I talked where self described music nerds, who primarily party for the community and music, so being able to participate and facilitate their favourite artists is a strong pull factor. In addition, all of David’s friends who help with the party have either the social capital to help bring patrons to the party or help with the technical aspects, greatly aiding the ability for the party to survive. This is possible, because as stated before, David is well within the creative community in New York and Brooklyn. If, for example, David was in high finance and his circle of friends were also in high finance then, there would be a distinct skill mismatch and thus David would have to rely on more traditional forms of labor, preventing him form taking the artistic risks that he performs with Sksksks.
While interviewing the staff and patrons of the party, one theme often came up, “getting to be there”. While money is a strong motivating factor for all economic activity, what brings the Sksksks party together is the fact that they get to be there. This is a similar sentiment held within the Berlin techno scene as well (Kühn). People like David and his staff, do not have the assumption that they will cash out or become extremely wealthy because of the party, they understand the economic realities of their decisions but choose to continue because rather than rebelling against the current pop culture, they are creating a new one, which is worth more than just dollars and cents. But as stated before, this mentality of scene economics and intrinsic artistic motivation only extends as far as the scene goes, so as soon as non-scene actors start participating then the economic realities start to materialise.
One of the most interesting things that I witnessed was that when I arrived to one of the parties very early, a metal show was ending in the adjacent venue (owned by the same nightlife organisation). The patrons could not have been more different than that of Sksksks. Most were dressed in all black with black eye makeup to match, where most people at Sksksks were in extremely colourful erotic outfits, almost all of the metal fans where drunk, where as patrons of Sksksks often do more drugs, the most present of which was Amyl nitrite, aka “poppers”. While there were many cosmetic differences between the two parties much of same scene economics still apply and are not unique to the rave scene. We can extend this economic model to other fridge music scenes as well, most clearly to metal, which can be considered the culturally and musically inverse of techno but abides but much of the same economic realities.
Mapping to other domains
While Sksksks is a unique party and organisation, we can map some of the economic circumstances and advantages to other domains. As stated in the throughout this paper, what makes Sksksks possible is David’s network of competent creative people, which is required to throw a creative and artistically risky party, However we can extend this to other domains, most clearly technology start ups. A silicon valley start up and rave share many of the same economic issues. They both need to beat competitors, carve out market size, and organise a labor force. Often start ups founders meet in specific networks, be it at tech firms, elite universities, or finance/consulting jobs, then they have to work at below market wages for several years before they can expect to get a return on investment often using the skills of their friends and networks to achieve their technological goals. (Reid) The key difference between start ups and raves are the financial rewards. Almost all startups exist not as non-profits but as businesses with the goal of IPO-ing or being bought out, thus giving the founders an extraordinary amount of money. Rave organisers do not have this motivation, but the motivation too merely exist while pursing their activities (Kühn). However, it is clear that having the ability to pull value, expertise, and labour from a personal network is vital for starting any new venture.
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and ravers are not motivated by the same things, if you ask the average Sksksks attendant what “Total Comp” means they would shrug, and if you asked a software engineer at a new start up their thoughts a 2021 night-core remix of Carley Ray Jepson (George), you would get a similar response. However, both are motivated by unique values. Ravers are often driven by authenticity, the desire to be true to themselves, to be distinct from the cultural norms of the current mainstream. People at start ups are driven to be excellent, to make a large technical impact. While these are different, are they are many others motivations that exist in both groups. The existence of these diverse motivations show that people can be compelled by ideas besides money to do work at below market rate.
Conclusion
Raves are weird, they’re loud, expensive, complicated, and ephemeral. Unlike other economic activities, in the end all that remains is a memory. However, raves, especially Sksksks are an excellent case study in how a motivated individual can mobilise his personal network to construct an amorphous labor force to operate in an highly competitive market. Motivations are key in a seemingly irrational economic decisions. Sksksks operates with the motivation to merely exist and to continue to exist without maximising profit, but operating in a market based system at margins so they can pay non-scene actors for their labor. Time and place are key for Sksksks continued existence without the geographic proximity to a large amount of creatives and people of like mind musical taste, it would be impossible to start party and grow it to its current following. So to answer the question, how can David get his friends to make economically irrational decisions? One, he’s very determined and organised. Two, it’s a lot of fun and provides social and cultural value. Three, everyone gets paid in the in end, in their own way.
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