Ode to Mosh Pits (Published in INDEX Magazine)

It’s a Friday night in the city—deep within some neon-shrouded club or sultry house show. Live music is pulsing into life, and depressingly, a crowd of young people merely sway or nod their heads. Nervous glances are made to the left and the right, confirming that nearly two dozen people have their phones out. This is, at equal moments, unfortunate and distinctly unsurprising. So, the nodding and the swaying go on…

I’ve heard it said, “Young people don’t dance anymore.” So, scores of older people will drag out the same tired phrases: “Gen Z doesn’t even dance at concerts,” or “All they do is jump around.” This gleefully paints Generation Z as one that cannot possibly participate in culture the “right” way. It also disregards the fact that the old “right” way has become a veritable impossibility in the modern era. Can a generation truly be blamed for not living as the pre-internet generations before them? When every slightest act can expose a character we have worked hard to uphold, can this generation be blamed for keeping their cards close to the chest? Perhaps we still want to dance, but now we have merely found our generation’s blinding solution.

Observe the common enemy: ubiquitous cameras— unavoidable spotlights of the 21st century. Given that every small act, statement, or mistake has every chance of ending up in a post, what kind of a generation can we be expected to be? How can we possibly experience an ordinary upbringing when every atom of our lives remains at threat of imminent exposure? By nature, social media culture has made our lives into a strange game of outrageous contradiction. We are meant to wear the favorable aspects of ourselves as a digital outfit, personality contrived as a means to an end. But, in presenting a smoothed-out character of ourselves, we chance accidentally exposing the stark naked truth: ourselves. In such a milieu, it can hardly be a generation’s fault for feeling apprehensive to dance. To lose yourself in the music means risking total exposure. 

Enter the mosh pit– sweltering heat of bodies, limbs, and frenzied mania. In every crowded basement punk show and abandoned warehouse, the mosh pit screams a generation’s resounding answer. The mosh pit, a perfect storm– a swirling mass of kinetic energy– a violently painted response to the age of the internet. I am, by no means, claiming that the mosh pit is a modern invention, as all credit must be given to the youth of another turbulent era. American hardcore outfit, Sick of It All, comes to mind as a noteworthy pioneer of the pit. But as it stands, the modern pit belongs to a freshly unsatisfied generation. New frustration and liberation welded into one blinding eruption.

There is something distinctly organic about the mosh pit. Some internal mechanism of the pit speaks to a generation’s necessary solution. How to escape the looming eyes of the cell phone? Incite a riot? Start a war? Or, descend into the mosh pit instead. Descend where there is no more room for phones, no more room for judgment, and no more room to be exposed. It is a core irony of the mosh pit that in a tangle of hundreds of bodies, a person can be rendered solitary– invisible and utterly free.

It is said by some that pits are intrinsically violent. Or else, that they play host to the brutish aggressions of a certain genre of sweaty, beer-soaked man. Though this may have been true in times gone by, as I have seen it, Gen Z has started in on the much-needed renovation. It is the view of Gen Z that an effective mosh pit is meant to embody chaos interlaced with community. Amidst a melee of swinging legs, hands, and heads, there must be an undercurrent understanding. Wherein you are knocked off your feet, anonymous hands will reach down and sweep you back up. Wherein you are made to feel unsafe, anonymous voices will join in to defend you unconditionally. The modern pit only functions when frenzy rages hand-in-hand with camaraderie. 

In this way, the modern mosh pit speaks to a primal need for community among Gen Z as a whole. Every facet of the virtual world separates us, and as a result, we desperately crave a mode of true connection. Consider that even in our formative teenage years, we were quite literally separated, isolated by a global pandemic. Real human connection has become a missing factor amidst our digitally interlinked world. Once more, the glorious mosh pit cries out its answer. 

Every single element of the mosh pit is irresistibly human. Sweat, heat, and hands. Strobing madness, the rhythm of spasmodic energy, and the bedlam of our loudest music. Even the clothing worn within the pit speaks to a more human departure from the more contrived side of Gen Z. As we paint ourselves as unblemished, stylish little characters, the pit invites function over form. Converse and combat boots are worn not for their look but, in truth, for their utility. As the mosh pit floor becomes a slippery rink of spilled drinks and sweat, footwear must provide grip above all else.

Similarly, you will hear it said that whatever you wear to a pit, make sure it is something you don’t mind getting destroyed. There is a strange liberation in this truth. In the din of a mosh pit, you are not your clothing. You are not your careful persona. You are ineluctably you. 

At long last, stripped of every protection, we are free. In the mosh pit, surrounded by faceless friends, we can finally embrace our true selves. I had never felt anything like it until my first pit– I never understood what it meant to “lose yourself in the music.” Yet, close your eyes in the pit and find that you are moving as you truly want. Jumping, or singing, or shaking. There is no wrong way to move, so long as your heart is synced to the beating pulse of the mosh pit– so long as you have made that internal oath to be one of those invisible hands that will pick up those when they have fallen. 

So, it is said that Gen Z doesn’t dance anymore. Perhaps we do not twist and shake like the generations before us. Unavoidably, we are stuck in a new exposed era, watched by a million eyes every second of the day. So there is nowhere left to go but into the mosh pit– into the collective supernova. We retreat to the safety of chaos. We breathe the dense air of frenzy and exhale the blistering relief of freedom. Enter the mosh pit. Lose yourself in the music and find your way to a beautiful pandemonium.