Gen Z Needs A Dionysian Revival of Partying

In her recent Free Press essay, diagnosed a quiet crisis in our generation: the death of spontaneous fun. She blames it partly on Partiful, the invite app that’s turned parties into something between a brand activation and a dentist appointment. Guest lists are public, RSVPs are tracked, and everyone knows exactly who’s coming before they’ve even decided what shoes to wear. The chaos is gone.

Reading her piece, I felt a jolt of recognition: she was describing a problem I’d already confronted last December — and had spent this year actively trying to fix.

Over the past few years, my career as a journalist took off. In 2020, I made a name for myself writing for the New York Post about the Black Lives Matter movement, cancel culture, and identity politics. A few of my pieces unexpectedly went viral, leading to appearances on podcasts with Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson. My career snowballed in ways I never expected.

At the same time, I began studying esoteric religious philosophy in college — diving into Orthodox Christianity, nondual Hinduism, and other traditions exploring the nature of ultimate reality. I also undertook psychedelic therapy to confront and break toxic emotional and behavioral patterns that had been perpetuating in my family. These were formative, necessary pursuits — intellectually and psychologically — but they also tilted my life heavily toward structure, rationality, analysis, and control.

Nietzsche had a term for this imbalance: the Apollonian. Apollo represents order, reason, and restraint. The Dionysian is his opposite — chaos, music, sensuality, intoxication, collective joy. The best lives hold both in tension. Mine was all Apollo. My existence had the clean, lifeless sheen of a Partiful invite: organized, respectable… and predictable.

So six months ago, I decided to bring Dionysus back.

A friend and I made a pact: every weekend, we’d go out. Clubs, bars, parties — anywhere with music loud enough to make conversation an extreme sport. Many mature adults in our life warned us about nightlife’s dark side: debauchery, moral decay, overpriced vodka sodas. All undeniable. But like any drug or substance, fun can be medicinal in the right dose. I wasn’t looking to turn into that guy in the corner of the club at 4 a.m. every night. I was looking for a corrective — a reminder that life isn’t meant to be fully optimized.

That’s meant saying yes to far more live music than I used to. This year alone, I saw Tyler, the Creator and The Weeknd in Vancouver — both shows reminders of how communal joy can crack you open in ways solitary routines can’t. And, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit, I also went to my first two raves at 24: Lost Frequencies and Jamie xx, both in Vancouver. They were dizzyingly fun and chaotic outside my usual comfort zone — which was precisely the point.

And just this week, I flew to New York just for The Free Press’ first Gen Z party. I was excited to be in a room full of politically homeless people — neither captured by the far-Left nor by reactionary right-wing ideologies, the kind who find extremists like both Andrew Tate and Zohran Mamdani equally nauseating. The party was a blast (read ’s piece on the party here). I met young people who were curious, open-minded, and exuberant. It gave me hope that my generation can party in healthy doses again and resurrect the Dionysian spirit of fun.

It hasn’t been without bruises. Nightlife means rejection, awkward small talk, and the occasional dud of an evening. I spoke to an older investor friend whose son, around my age, avoids going out entirely because of the fear of rejection. That fear is real — but it’s also the whole point. Risk is what makes the reward possible.

And some nights are a reward. Recently, at an EDM club in Vancouver, I spotted two young women at the front and asked how their night was going. We danced together for hours, ran a joke about getting married, staged a fake proposal on the dance floor, and ended up at McDonald’s at 3 a.m., talking about modern dating over salty fries and Diet Coke (I’m a MAHA zealot 6/7 days of the week, OK?). It was ridiculous and perfect — the kind of night that doesn’t make sense in hindsight but feels, in the moment, like exactly what life is for.

Sascha writes: “That’s a bit overboard, I’ll admit, but it’s because I’m chasing a mysterious pull — the undelivered promise of my roaring 20s. Most nights unfold exactly as advertised — decently fun and defined mostly by whichever dingy bar hosted us.”

I know that pull. After years of treating my 20s like a productivity boot camp, I’ve been trying to live them up while I can — to actually collect the nights, memories, and ridiculous stories that make this decade something more than a résumé line. Not every outing is spectacular, and plenty are just “decently fun” like Sascha says, but each one feels like a small act of rebellion against the idea that youth should be purely about building for the future.

Our generation is socializing less in the real world and more on screens. We’re losing our tolerance for risk and rejection, and with it, the magic of the unexpected. Partiful is just a symptom — a sign of our craving for safety over spontaneity.

The answer isn’t endless indulgence. It’s balance. Apollo’s discipline keeps life from becoming a mess; Dionysus’s abandon keeps it from becoming a spreadsheet. My six-month experiment in reviving the Dionysian hasn’t just been fun — it’s reminded me that play isn’t a luxury. It’s the antidote to a very modern kind of loneliness.

So if you feel that same pull — that low-grade sense your life has become a little too Apollonian — answer it. Say yes to the last-minute invite. Talk to the stranger at the bar. Dance to the song you secretly love but pretend to hate. Risk the awkwardness, the rejection, the dud of a night. Because somewhere between the missed connections and the unexpected laughter is the chaos that makes life worth living.