Rave Culture: the briefest of overviews...

As the story goes, rave culture was introduced to North America by Frankie Bones, a New York based DJ. After "mixing" (DJ'ing) at an all-night rave party in the United Kingdom for thousands of people, Bones returned to New York and began telling everyone about his intense experience and constructing a rave movement. In the early 90s he threw a series of raves in different underground venues of Brooklyn. (Underground venues can range from non-commercial establishments to disaffected factory spaces, but essentially, they are transient and fluid). At one of these initial rave parties a fight broke out and Bones stopped mixing, jumped up on a table and yelled "Show some peace, love, and unity, or I'll break your f**king faces". The fight stopped and the event lingered in the minds of attendees, to be furthered discussed and developed on alt.rave. "P.L.U.R" was the outcome (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect), and it became the motto of North American rave culture.

Thus, even in its beginnings, rave culture can be linked to the internet, itself a neonate at the time. In fact, the anonymity of internet communication is perfectly adapted to rave culture. All night partying, drugs, and illegal/underground venues are socially stigmatized by mainstream cultural values. The internet provides a safe contexts for elaborating marginal aspects of identity. As John M. Ingham notes, "In modern/postmodern societies, individuals play various roles and encounter diverse and often unexpected situations. Thus, they may have various personas, and they may actively experiment with wearing different "masks" as they try to cope with social exigencies" (1996: 102).

Rave.ca, which was created in 1998, is specifically oriented to the Montreal rave community. It provides an effective forum for individuals involved in the rave community to give shape and substance to their rave identities. It also facilitated the dissemination of otherwise difficult to obtain information like the dates and locations of planned underground events. Because the locations of raves constantly changes and are often illegal, promoters frequently announce the location only 24 hours before the party. This protects parties from impromptu police raids and busts, as well as lending a degree of mystery and excitement to raves.

"Ravers" frequently describe their first rave experience like a rite of passage, that is, as an intense and ritualistic experience impacting identity, social position, and values, and marking the transition of the self from one stage to another. First experiences are also a common narrative between members of the rave community and establish links between members. Rave.ca provides a forum for these narratives, in actual raves the excessively loud music and dark lighting discourage story telling and narrative bonding. In my experience of meeting people at raves, encounters are almost entirely based on body language; dancing with someone, exchanging smiles, etc. A day or two after the rave, members of rave.ca go online and try to find these new "friends" in the cyber-community where they can use textual and hypertextual practices to elaborate their social connection and recount narratives.

Rave culture has its own codes, strategies, and value systems; these have been supported from the very beginning by virtual communities. Cyber-identities and rave-identities are (usually)peripheral identities, worn like masks at night and behind closed doors (or computer screens). In fact, I believe it would have been virtually impossible for rave culture to be sustained for almost 20 years now without social network sites to allow its elaboration.



Work Cited:

Ingham, John, M. 1996 Psychological Anthropology Reconsidered. Cambridge University
Press.