NEW YORK — The alcohol is flowing, the music is blaring, and partygoers are writhing against each other on the dance floor.
I reached into the back pocket of my jeans to capture the moment with my phone, but noticed that the spot was empty.
I’m at a phone-free party in Brooklyn, and it’s not at all what I expected.
The party’s flyer promised immersive art, rituals and DJ sets, as well as “a celebration of social life as it should be, free from the shackles of greedy technology platforms.”
By the time you reach the unmarked door in Brooklyn’s East Williamsburg neighborhood, you can already hear house music pulsing from the walls. Inside, I handed my phone to the host and placed it in a cubicle with dozens of others. Instead, I carry a clunky old-fashioned microphone, notepad, and pencil.
I’m 24 years old, attending a party for the first time, and about to go offline with no escape.
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“Who found out about this on Instagram?” exclaims host Nick Plante earlier in the night.
No one raises their hand.
Because to know about these somewhat underground parties, you have to be familiar with them, albeit offline.
Partygoers say they learned about tonight’s event through word of mouth and event newsletters like Nonsense NYC and Red Calendar. Another girl came by herself that afternoon after seeing the party on a flyer on the sidewalk.
These partygoers are part of a growing movement of young people tired of technology controlling them. There are people in their 20s who use flip phones, and influencers who simply post online about their love for analog bags and Danphones. In October, a group led by Gen Z took over Tompkins Square Park in New York and held a “Delete Day” dedicated to helping young people escape their smartphones.
For Plante, 25, and co-host Kyle Burns, 27, the party is a natural extension of that idea.
“You can’t just hand someone a self-help book,” says Plante. “You can’t tell someone to block some apps or chain their iPhone to a wall when what people really want is to be supported by a community of people.”
Event organizers hope the party will be a respite from the fear of filming a viral video, an unspoken concern that haunts young people on a night out. And they aren’t alone.
More than 1,600 people signed up for Andrew Yang’s phone-free party, and hundreds attended influencer Katherine Goetze’s phone-free Y2K retrospective party in Los Angeles in October. In recent years, Brooklyn and Queens nightclub hotspots Modere, Elsewhere, House of Yes, Basement, Signal, and Refuge have adopted policies that require stickers on cell phone cameras or ban the use of cell phones on the dance floor.
And after attending this party, I’m starting to understand its appeal.
At first, I’m stuck with the friend I convinced to come with me. Without a cell phone, you feel like you’ve lost your safety net. But without the option to scroll or see your friends’ locations, conversations with strangers start to feel easier. Do you have that fear you had on a long night out that some boring video or photo will be posted online or sent to a group chat? It’ll go away.
It’s as if the invisible walls of society have been lowered and everyone is on the same playing field.
“It definitely feels different,” said Paul Herson, 31, who usually parties on his smartphone. “I’m so proud of being able to just hang out and be around people I don’t know without having reflexes.”
The party then begins their turn.
As the couple made out in the corner of the room, a partygoer cut through the music with a megaphone. He introduces himself as part of a startup called “Justice AI” and tells a story about a fictional company obsessed with maximizing shareholder value and collecting user data.
He pointed to the back of the room where there was a ladder, a drill, and a pile of cardboard.
“A data center is being built in Bushwick!” someone proclaims.
Soon, volunteers are patrolling the crowd, looking for hair and bits of personal information, as if building a dataset in real time. Some people say that you can get rich by investing.
This bit is intentionally silly and is clearly meant to mock the narratives that pop up about AI companies and their founders. This nonsense has been a theme throughout the night, but the joke lands because it’s a parody of the same system and surveillance that so many here are trying to escape from.
Sonya Saidakova, a 23-year-old partygoer, helps pour drinks with names like “Shareholder Doné” white wine and “Big Brother” beer. She says she switched to using a flip phone a year ago. When she first gave up her smartphone, she felt “incredibly lonely.”
But now she knows more than 30 people in New York who have done the same thing.
“I feel like this is how I want to interact with the world and people,” Saydakova says.
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“Our zeitgeist has reached breaking point.”
Around 11pm someone directed me outside to the patio.
A girl in Dr. Martens, a white chiffon scarf and a plaid coat leads us into a somatic ritual.
We place our hands on our hearts.
“This is the first technology we ever owned,” she says. “Breathe in, breathe out.”
Things get funkier as the night progresses.
In a subsequent activity, children are asked to imagine their lives not dominated by technology and shout out their answers as they walk in a circle.
What would happen if we all laughed? (Laughter ensues.) What if we were all upside down? (I lean forward and touch my toes.) What if no one was hungry? What if we could all be free? What happens if we all stain? What would happen if we all said “Aaaaa!”? What would happen if we all howled at the moon?
we howl. The person in the middle of the circle blows bubbles, and the other person plays the harmonica. We take the soil in our hands and plant the seeds in the pot. This is a symbolic act that gives form to your wishes.
If I didn’t know, I’d think he was at a séance by now.
But by the end of the night, the big picture, strange rituals and all, started to come into view. I talked to more strangers at this party than I had in the past month combined.
The event’s grand finale returns to the dance floor just before 1 a.m., as the crowd smashes the cardboard data center into piles of debris and duct tape.
I planned to stay for an hour or two. When you ask someone what time it is, they are shocked to learn that it’s almost 2 a.m.
When you get back outside, you’ll check your texts, scroll through Instagram, and feel a rush of dopamine. But for a little while longer, I’m in a version of the world where nothing outside of social norms exists.
Hosts and partygoers know this technology-free mindset won’t catch on everywhere. But they want to incorporate some of it into their daily lives.
Telo.haus, the warehouse that hosted the party, stopped posting on Instagram in favor of publishing a newsletter about the event, and other groups posted flyers around town. Plante publishes a low-tech newsletter. Barnes sends the event list to a friend. Saydakova works on a collective for artists.
“I think our zeitgeist has reached a breaking point where we don’t want this technology anymore,” Saidakova says. “The desire is there, the tools are there, but people lack the vision to realize how they want to structure their lives.”
Most of us here, including myself, don’t plan on giving up our phones anytime soon.
But this party gave me a glimpse of what my social life would be like if we were less tied to our devices. At the very least, it made me question my relationship with technology.
As I ride the L train back to Manhattan, it feels like that’s the point.
Rachel Hale’s role covering youth mental health for USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. Contact her at rhale@usatoday.com. @rachleighhale With X.
