In which a group of graying eternal amateurs discuss their passions, interests and obsessions, among them: movies, art, politics, evolutionary biology, taxes, writing, computers, these kids these days, and lousy educations.

E-Mail Donald
Demographer, recovering sociologist, and arts buff

E-Mail Fenster
College administrator and arts buff

E-Mail Francis
Architectural historian and arts buff

E-Mail Friedrich
Entrepreneur and arts buff
E-Mail Michael
Media flunky and arts buff


We assume it's OK to quote emailers by name.







Try Advanced Search


  1. Period-Quote or Quote-Period?
  2. Ideological Inconsistencies
  3. "Themed" Casinos and Entropy
  4. Anyone Wanna Repeal the 19th Amendment?
  5. Anonymous Internet Rewards
  6. Driving Around as Entertainment
  7. Blogging Notes
  8. Intelligent Presidents
  9. Zdeno on Social Clubs
  10. On Becoming a Road Warrior


CultureBlogs
Sasha Castel
AC Douglas
Out of Lascaux
The Ambler
PhilosoBlog
Modern Art Notes
Cranky Professor
Mike Snider on Poetry
Silliman on Poetry
Felix Salmon
Gregdotorg
BookSlut
Polly Frost
Polly and Ray's Forum
Cronaca
Plep
Stumbling Tongue
Brian's Culture Blog
Banana Oil
Scourge of Modernism
Visible Darkness
Seablogger
Thomas Hobbs
Blog Lodge
Leibman Theory
Goliard Dream
Third Level Digression
Here Inside
My Stupid Dog
W.J. Duquette


Politics, Education, and Economics Blogs
Andrew Sullivan
The Corner at National Review
Steve Sailer
Samizdata
Junius
Joanne Jacobs
CalPundit
Natalie Solent
A Libertarian Parent in the Countryside
Rational Parenting
Public Interest.co.uk
Colby Cosh
View from the Right
Pejman Pundit
Spleenville
God of the Machine
One Good Turn
CinderellaBloggerfella
Liberty Log
Daily Pundit
InstaPundit
MindFloss
Catallaxy Files
Greatest Jeneration
Glenn Frazier
Jane Galt
Jim Miller
Limbic Nutrition
Innocents Abroad
Chicago Boyz
James Lileks
Cybrarian at Large
Hello Bloggy!
Setting the World to Rights
Travelling Shoes


Miscellaneous
Redwood Dragon
IMAO
The Invisible Hand
ScrappleFace
Daze Reader
Lynn Sislo
The Fat Guy
Jon Walz

Links


Our Last 50 Referrers







« On Becoming a Road Warrior | Main | Intelligent Presidents »

November 19, 2009

Zdeno on Social Clubs

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

I'm eons away from the singles scene, but what Zdeno writes about below seems oddly familiar.

* * * * *

I don’t spend quite as much time in clubs as I used to, but I’m no stranger to loud music, overpriced drinks, and nubile young women drinking and rationalizing their way into sexual escapades they will later claim to regret. Today, let's talk about this strange world, the club scene.

The primary function of a club is to act as a focal point for young men and women to converge and meet each other, whether for a one-night stand, phone number exchange, or some variant thereof. Yes, some people go to clubs to dance and see friends, but some people also go to the zoo to take a walk with their family, or to a movie because they like $10 popcorn. The exceptions do not disprove the general rule.

Using the cynical, reductionist perspective drilled into me by extensive economic training, I view the chaotic mating dance of humans in clubs not as a mysteriously romantic exercise in locating serendipity, but as a meat market of assortative mating. The prime activity going on in the club is the display and ascertainment of mate value. In a few words, showing off how attractive you are, and judging how attractive another person is. In one word: Signaling.

Everyone has a set of traits that make them attractive, or not, to members of the opposite sex – beauty, confidence, social acumen, wit, status, money, etc. Humans, in their L’il Wayne-soundtracked mating dance, show off the extent to which they possess these traits as best they can.

We should expect clubs, profit-seeking businesses that they are, to maximize their mate-matching efficacy.

But oddly, this is not what we see them doing. In fact, they seem consciously designed to minimize the ability of men and women to exchange information about each others' attractiveness. Darkness and flashing lights prevent accurate assessments of physical beauty. Loud music prevents anything more than the most rudimentary of conversations. All of it is masked in a haze of liquor that increases the noise-to-signal ratio all around. Why is that?

I have my theory, which I had originally planned to include in the body of this post. But I think I’ll hold off on it and let everyone else take a crack at the question: Why do clubs appear as if they are designed to be as bad as possible at accomplishing their obvious goal?

* * * * *

Actually, the only unfamiliar thing is the word "club" -- something Canadian? Or am I out of it, as usual. In my day there were dance halls and there were singles bars, but they hadn't quite merged as completely as Zdeno indicates.

Whatever they were called, I never really liked them and tended to meet women elsewhere. And you?

Later,

Donald

posted by Donald at November 19, 2009




Comments

For one claiming "extensive economic training" Zdeno seems oblivious to the basics. The "primary function of a club" is NOT "to act as a focal point for young men and women to converge". The primary function of a club is to generate profit through the sale of alcohol ... and to a lesser extent food. Their primary market is single young men and women on the prowl for potential partners. Should those clubs "maximize their mate-matching efficacy" they would be "rewarded" by lose of clients who, no longer in or on the mating market, would be less likely to go out to the clubs. Just as department stores employ mirrors, angled aisles, diffused sound sources playing Muzak, and other devices to keep people from efficiently accomplishing whatever shopping task they set out to do, in order to increase time (and therefore money) customers spend in their stores, clubs employ darkness, flashing lights, and loud music to keep their clientele drinking and hunting for somebody to love.

Posted by: Chris White on November 19, 2009 1:20 PM



The problem is that if they do what Zdeno talks about, they'll lose the plausible deniability. The people that go to clubs are far less likely to join a dating service, for instance, because nobody wants to think themselves the type of person that has to resort to a dating service.

Clubs, on the other hand, you can always say "I'm just out here to have a good time, dance, and drink." It feels like less of a wasted time if you don't succeed (whereas if you go to a speed-dating thing and come away empty handed, it's hard not to feel like a failure). The primary rule of my generation is Thall Shalt Not Reek of Effort when it comes to social things. Clubs don't reek of effort. If they got rid of the music and the ambiance (darkness), they would come closer to that.

Posted by: Trumwill on November 19, 2009 1:23 PM



CW and Trumwill pretty much have it covered. Nice work!

Posted by: JV on November 19, 2009 3:19 PM



Actually haing dark lighting, noise, and liquor would POSITIVELY increase attraction. By hiding flaws with the above mentioned issues, clubs actually help facilitate mating.

Posted by: DeepThough on November 19, 2009 4:36 PM



@ Trumwill:

Very insightful comment. Men our age (I'm guessing you're in your early-to-mid 20's) go to ridiculous lengths to avoid the stench of effort, which they seem to think makes them less attractive. On the contrary, I find girls are more often than not impressed by a bold first move.

According to this view, a club is a place where young people go to drink and dance until they just literally stumble into someone they're attracted to. I think there's a large element of truth to this, but I also have something else in mind =)

@ Chris:

According to your logic, car manufacturers should be making vehicles that break down irreparably after a month on the road. Keeps people buying cars, right? Fortunately, there is competition in both the automotive and drunken-hookup sectors - clubs are providing the environment club-goers demand, not tricking them into fruitlessly searching for love night after night.

Cheers,

Zdeno

Posted by: Zdeno on November 19, 2009 4:49 PM



Also, Zdeno seems to believe that people want to mate efficiently for the long term (get a partner who is similar in looks, intelligence, judgement, etc.). But many people want to mate inefficiently for the short term -- specifically, snag someone better looking and classier than they are for a one night stand. Darkness, noise, and alcohol help confuse your prey enough for that to happen.

Posted by: MQ on November 19, 2009 5:08 PM



"According to your logic, car manufacturers should be making vehicles that break down irreparably after a month on the road. Keeps people buying cars, right?"

Right. Every had a car break down right after the warranty ran out? If not, you're lucky.

Posted by: JV on November 19, 2009 5:54 PM



Zdeno – You really are full of yourself, aren't you? Attempting to equate the economics of durable manufactured goods with entertainment venues fails to convince on so many levels it boggles the imagination.

Furthermore, you're only dealing with a particular subset of clubs, which appeal to a specific customer demographic. Other models abound that employ somewhat different means and methods to accomplish the same goal, generating profits through the sale of food and drink. To use your misguided car analogy you're attempting to draw broad conclusions about the auto industry based on which muscle cars single men 18 to 30 prefer and then claiming they don't make them the way they should.

And, it seems, most of the other comments come to the same conclusion, that the darkness, strobe lights, and loud music are indeed features not bugs. To draw yet another analogy, going to a club, with the possibility of meeting people and perhaps even going home with someone, might be imagined as a real world version of a video game. Ask yourself whether the most popular and profitable games are those that make it easy to accomplish the ostensible goal or those that offer a wild ride through disorienting mazes with both risks and rewards popping up unexpectedly.

CHEERS – The bar where everyone knows your name.

Posted by: Chris White on November 19, 2009 7:46 PM



Here is another fact about clubs that I find utterly puzzling: they are -- as far as I can tell -- the only companies in the whole capitalist economy that don't try to please their customers with any signs of courtesy and respect. On the contrary, clubs go out of their way to actively treat their customers like crap, as if they were obnoxious panhandlers who came to bother them, not people who are about to spend money on their product.

When you go to a club, you first face a humiliating lineup akin to a Soviet bread queue, often even if it's half-empty inside, and the bouncers will frequently treat you with arrogance and bad attitude similar to that of the worst cops and government bureaucrats. Such treatment of honest and reasonably behaved customers would be unimaginable in any other industry I can think of. Even if you get treated badly by an individual employee, it's considered a failure on his part for which he should get in trouble with his boss, and the insulted customers are likely to get angry and complain -- and their complaints will usually be taken seriously by the business, fearful of losing customers to competition that treats them better. Yet for clubs, treating the customers with arrogance and scorn is apparently intentional policy, and the customers themselves accept it without complaint. Why? The club industry is, if anything, one of the more competitive ones.

When I discuss this question with people, they come up with various theories and explanations, but I've never heard any explanation that wouldn't also apply to various other businesses in which nothing similar ever happens. If there is a single example of a real-world situation that is utterly contrary to the basic predictions of standard microeconomics, this is it.

Posted by: Vladimir on November 19, 2009 9:04 PM



Zdeno:

I have my theory, which I had originally planned to include in the body of this post. But I think I’ll hold off on it and let everyone else take a crack at the question: Why do clubs appear as if they are designed to be as bad as possible at accomplishing their obvious goal?

Let me guess -- your explanation is probably along the following lines. The club intentionally creates an atmosphere in which it's extremely difficult for men not to look like a losers. Anyone male except good dancers, guys with excellent club game, and sundry types of very good-looking, stylish, and charismatic men, will look like a poor sad lost soul or an obnoxious creep inside a club. Women are good in sniffing out betas and feeble pretend-alphas in all situations, but in a club, the difficulty of maintaining any pretense of alpha traits is so immense that men who manage to do it seem ipso facto as supremely attractive alphas to the surrounding girls. So, basically, it's a human lekking arena purposely tailored for extra difficulty to make the greatest lekking talents especially obvious.

Of course, when a social institution is established and becomes popular, and its true nature isn't obvious (plus people also prefer not to think of it in realistic terms), it will gather a momentum of its own and become a venue for socializing and status displays even outside of its main purpose.

This explanation might also imply the answer to the question from my above comment, although I don't yet see how exactly.

Posted by: Vladimir on November 19, 2009 9:26 PM



Trumwill:

The primary rule of my generation is Thall Shalt Not Reek of Effort when it comes to social things. Clubs don't reek of effort.

That's not a good explanation at all. In reality, it is blatantly obvious that clubs demand immense cost and effort. You need to cash out ridiculous amounts of money for the cover charge and drinks, not to mention suffering the humiliation of waiting in the lineup and suffering the attitude of arrogant bouncers. People also dress up for clubs, rather than showing up as if they just came casually and effortlessly. (Personally, I enjoy dressing up for classy occasions, and to some extent even for everyday business, but not for places where I have to elbow my way through a vulgar and drunken crowd.)

I am presently in a situation where I don't give a damn about meeting random women, and whenever someone wants to drag me to a club, I feel like it's such a pain in the ass that I'd rather spend my time shoveling gravel. If I want some fun that doesn't involve unnecessary effort, there are many places where one can drink for far cheaper, listen to much better music, and suffer none of the indignities.

Now, if you said that the idea is to provide a suitable environment for status display to those men who are capable of going to a club and nevertheless looking like they blend into the highly unnatural environment effortlessly, thus making a particular display of alphatude that is especially pleasing to horny girls, you might have a point.

Posted by: Vladimir on November 19, 2009 9:56 PM



Zdeno,

I've got about a decade on you, but it's not my impression that this aspect of youth culture has particularly changed.

I wouldn't necessarily say that they're going for the music and dance first and the coupling second. Rather, that the mixed objectives makes it less of an all-or-nothing proposition. Makes it seem like you have less on the line and act less desirous than you are (and on some level feel it).

As far as "bold moves" to, I think that varies a great deal on how desirable you are in the first place and how good your moves are. My bold moves ended pretty disastrously.

Posted by: Trumwill on November 20, 2009 12:08 AM



I disagree that the club environment prevents accurate assessment of beauty. The way you've set up the problem, it's an issue of assortative mating. Or at least picking from among a pool. So it's rank that matters, not absolute level.

You can very easily spot who the good-looking people are in a club, darkness etc. notwithstanding.

It does make even the judgment of ranking a bit noisier, but hardly, and this cost is more than outweighed by the benefit of loosening up in the dark -- hence the phrase "put in the spotlight" to convey paralyzing anxiety.

In broad daylight, you wouldn't mix up the 8.4 and the 8.7, while you might confuse them in the dark -- but big deal. You aren't going to confuse the ranking of the 6 vs the 8.

Posted by: agnostic on November 20, 2009 6:39 AM



That's not a good explanation at all. In reality, it is blatantly obvious that clubs demand immense cost and effort.

Yeah, but you're doing all of these things to have a good time. If you were caught doing all of these things solely for the sake of meeting women, you'd be deemed a loser. You've got to be able to play it off. Clubs yet you do that. Speed-dating thingies don't.

Posted by: Trumwill on November 20, 2009 9:41 AM



To elaborate one step further, it's like appearance. It's been a fad since the 90's (though I'm not young and hip enough to know if it still is) to make it look like you put little or no thought or effort into your appearance.

At the same time this was happening, though, the tattoo and pierced whatnot industry was booming. You can make your hair look like it just inexplicably fell into a certain place, but nobody carelessly wakes up with a tattoo. So how does this get sidestepped? Simple, you make the effort you do obviously put into your appearance and chalk it up to "self-expression" or "individuality". You have to make it look like you're doing it for *yourself*.

The contradictions in this are inherent (and well-discussed), but it's still how a lot of people operate. Likewise, people that go out to clubs can lay claim to doing so to have a good time rather than expressly to meet people. That only works if you have plausible deniability that you are wanting to meet people or that you have to actually expend effort and make sacrifices to do so. Only losers have to do that.

Posted by: Trumwill on November 20, 2009 11:08 AM



@Trumwill:

That's the second time I've been very tempted to follow a link to your site! Sadly my work server blocks it, for some reason.

I'm not sure where I stand on you and Vlad's effort disagreement. How odd that so many people spend $100/night, wait in line for an hour, dress to the nines - all so they can go stand around trying to act like they don't really care.


@Vladimir:

I like your analogy of the club scene to a lekking arena. I've had the image of gazelles, peacocks etc jump into my mind more than a few times while gazing out onto a crowded dance floor. I have a question: Do any other animals display a pattern of both sexes signaling their fitness? My impression is that most leks consist of males demonstrating their fitness and females choosing, with perhaps a few species going the other way around. But does any species other than humans engage in fitness displays in both directions?

My theory of clubs is similar to your guess, but with one twist. The club environment also functions to amplify some signals of fitness, and diminish others. Good looks, poise and body language are all important signals of mate value in a loud club. Wit, intelligence and conversational ability, not so much. Clubs are thus attractive to men and women who would rather judge (and be judged) superficially.

Of course, any theory which implies that club-goers are vapid and superficial is not going to have trouble appealing to non-clubbers, so I'm cautious. But it still rings true to me.

@ Agnostic:

I agree that the club environment doesn't introduce much noise in physical beauty assessments. Our ability to pick out attractive people has been pretty well-refined over the millenia, to the point that I once saw a woman in a full Muslim almost-Burqa and thought to myself, "dammmmnnn!" A little darkness and booze ain't nuthin.

Ascertaining intelligence and social acumen on the other hand, are made much more difficult by the club environment.

@Chris:

You seem pretty angry for some reason. Maybe you should hit the club and find yourself a nice girl? =)

Nightlife venues and car manufacturers both succeed by giving consumers what they want. If people didn't want to be misled by the noise and booze of clubs, they would frequent establishments that didn't have these features. I believe such venues are called "Church Socials."

In your first comment, you claim that a clubs goal is to keep people single and unfulfilled, to keep them coming back. The analogy to a manufacturer of an unreliable car is sound.

Cheers,

Zdeno


Posted by: Zdeno on November 20, 2009 11:32 AM



Zdeno:

My theory of clubs is similar to your guess, but with one twist. The club environment also functions to amplify some signals of fitness, and diminish others. Good looks, poise and body language are all important signals of mate value in a loud club. Wit, intelligence and conversational ability, not so much.

That's more or less equivalent to what I had in mind when I wrote that the club environment is engineered to make most men look like pathetic losers who seem out of place like a fish out of water. In order to look like you fit into this environment comfortably, you need to display a very high level of (at least some of) the former traits you mention, while the latter ones won't help you at all (except for a very peculiar sort of conversational ability, to be precise). But if you can pull it off, in women's eyes you'll shine like a magnificent alpha among a herd of losers, far more so than it would be possible in a less unnatural setting.

As for women, the club environment doesn't make any particular demands from them. An attractive girl can just stand around and still not look like a loser; in fact, she'll attract constant boot-licking admiration by betas and intriguing indications of interest from alphas. Even the ugly ones won't be scorned much more harshly than in everyday life (in fact, they can count on more male attention than usual because less successful men will have to settle for them or nothing, and there are lots of those prowling around). Women in a club are just the audience surrounding the lek -- even though human leks tend to involve more mingling and a less orderly protocol than most animal ones.


I have a question: Do any other animals display a pattern of both sexes signaling their fitness? My impression is that most leks consist of males demonstrating their fitness and females choosing, with perhaps a few species going the other way around. But does any species other than humans engage in fitness displays in both directions?

That's a very interesting question. I can't think of an example, though someone more knowledgeable in biology perhaps could.

Posted by: Vladimir on November 20, 2009 1:33 PM



Also, regarding this comment by Zdeno:

Clubs are thus attractive to men and women who would rather judge (and be judged) superficially.

Well, I'd say that the ability to maintain composure and project charisma in such an unnatural environment is not really a superficial trait, certainly not in the sense in which (say) a fashionable haircut is. If the lekking theory of nightclubs is correct, then the point of the club environment is exactly to weed out men whose abilities of this sort are thin and superficial, or dependent on intelligent improvisation rather than true deep instinct. This, of course, despite the fact that these abilities aren't very indicative of skills and character traits that are needed for productive, decent, and harmonious life, or for intellectual pursuits.

But in any case, we all judge and like to be judged superficially -- the latter only as long as the judgment is positive, of course. When it comes to sexual attraction, even in environments that aren't engineered to artificially restrict status and fitness displays to these "superficial" traits, both men and women are still turned on by, if not superficial, then at least utterly frivolous and practically worthless qualities. You don't get a hard-on for chicks based on a rational estimate of how good mothers and housekeepers they would be. That's just the way natural human sexuality works, and it requires very strong cultural and social norms to force it in any orderly and productive direction.

What I find most pathetic about clubs, besides the ways they mistreat their customers, are the hordes of losers that lose in the lekking game without any hope of success, but nevertheless pretend that they're having a great time, even though you can see in their faces that they'd rather be somewhere else. Few things irritate me more than false ersatz-fun, desperate unsuccessful attempts at status display, and pretenses at spontaneous and fun environment that are in fact far more regimented, uncomfortable, and chaperoned than anything our great-grandparents were subjected to.

Posted by: Vladimir on November 20, 2009 1:50 PM



"Ascertaining intelligence and social acumen on the other hand, are made much more difficult by the club environment."

But your assumption is wrong that people go to clubs to compete along that margin as producers, or to choose along that margin as consumers. They go to other places for that. People drawn to clubs want competition based mostly on physical looks, clothing (related to income), and maybe dancing ability.

For example, people who want more conversation and less meat-market go to bars rather than dance clubs. And sure enough, bars are lighter and less noisy than dance clubs. Some establishments have both a bar and a dance floor in adjacent rooms, and the bar is lighter and has no music in it.

Posted by: agnostic on November 20, 2009 2:05 PM



I'm wondering, Vlad and Zdeno, if you aspire to succeed in the club scene. Or rather, if the women you desire are the same women who enjoy clubbing. Is seems so, and I've noticed this desire with lots of young guys who seem embittered by dating. I don't understand it, because why aspire to something you're not built for?

I knew immediately clubbing wasn't for me, and since I quickly grew out of wanting women who didn't like what I had to offer, it worked itself out. The girls I liked while dating seemed to also like me. Many of them were really attractive on purely physical level. All of them did not like the club scene. Hence, I was almost never rejected. It was kind of awesome. Lots of hot, nerdy girls who liked to talk about movies, books, music, comedy, etc.

So that's my question. A lot of writing I see from guys in their 20s about this issue, much of it from the Game perspective, is full of bitterness and not getting girls who gravitate towards things like clubbing. These girls were probably cheerleader types in high school. The guys doing the writing would have been the computer nerds. It'll never match up. Lots of self-loathing, it seems.

Just my perspective, I could be totally wrong.

Posted by: JV on November 20, 2009 2:10 PM



@ Zdeno – Annoyed by the fatuous is closer to the mark than angry. As a geezer, I've been married longer than you've been alive, so hitting the clubs to find a nice girl would be far more trouble than it is worth. Although it must be noted that with a wife and many friends who are musicians, including some who are around your age, I do go to a subset of clubs with some regularity.

Your post offered a view of "social clubs" that is, to begin with, narrow and relatively specific, filtered it through the lens of your age, gender, and own intentions, then extrapolated overly broad generalities. Portland Maine, hardly a giant megalopolis, has dozens of clubs, a cluster of which your description suits to a tee, and they indeed attract a young, heavy drinking, eager to hook up, clientele. There are also venues more focused on live original music, or on understated elegance, or on the food offerings.

In your most recent riposte you are either demonstrating a reading comprehension problem or are willfully attempting to mischaracterize what I actually wrote. I said the goal of clubs was to profit on the sale of food and booze. You are the one attempting to state the case that their goal is enabling singles to pair up. That, my friend, is what we call a beneficial side effect, but it is not at all the intention of the club itself. If you continue to be hung up on the auto analogy it is as if you decided to criticize a car company's product not for "breaking down irreparably after a month on the road" (which would hardly "keep people buying cars" anyway), but for failing to provide back seats that allow comfortable copulating. Now, there may in fact be a market segment that gives that feature high priority, and there may even be models of cars where the designers take back seat boffing into consideration, however, it is not as though they fear losing customers when back seats that fail to perform that function well.

Posted by: Chris White on November 20, 2009 3:24 PM



@ JV:

You are correct that I don't particularly enjoy the club scene, but I wouldn't chalk it up to bitterness at all. In my slightly younger years, loud bars were my bread and butter - my "game" consisted of getting really drunk and letting my height, fairly good looks, and reckless, alcohol-fueled self-confidence do the heavy lifting. Only more recently have I started meeting girls in quieter settings, although I do still get out to the club/bar scene more often than most.


@ Chris:

For some reason I had thought, over several years of reading this blog, that you were my age! Crazy thing, this internet.

I was writing in response to this line from your first comment:

Should those clubs "maximize their mate-matching efficacy" they would be "rewarded" by lose of clients who, no longer in or on the mating market, would be less likely to go out to the clubs

My point is that clubs will maximize their sale of food, booze and cover charge by providing the type of environment club goers want. If clients' goal is to hook up, a place to hook up is what they'll get. If they would prefer to spend their cash in an establishment without strobe lights, they'll go there. So if clubs are designed to discourage match-making, it must be because the club-goers themselves want to handicap their chances.

Cheers,

Zdeno

Posted by: Zdeno on November 20, 2009 4:01 PM



JV:

I'm wondering, Vlad and Zdeno, if you aspire to succeed in the club scene. Or rather, if the women you desire are the same women who enjoy clubbing. Is seems so, and I've noticed this desire with lots of young guys who seem embittered by dating. I don't understand it, because why aspire to something you're not built for?

No, I don't go to clubs, except very rarely when the occasion calls for it (usually someone's birthday). The closest thing to clubs that I normally go to are smaller rock'n'roll-oriented establishments, preferably with live music, though there aren't many worthwhile ones left these days. I could never stand the atmosphere of large clubs with outrageous prices, humiliating lineups, thuggish bouncers, blaring techno or (God forbid) hip-hop, all just for a chance of meeting women that isn't any greater than in many other cheaper and more pleasant places unless you're a master of club game, which I never was.

In any case, even regardless of my tastes in nightlife, I find the subject of clubs extremely interesting. They are a focal point of the social life of modern youth and also a large and competitive industry, so that a full understanding of their functioning would give many interesting insights about modern society and economy, as well as human behavior in general. Regardless of any personal dislike or bitterness, I think that the following questions that have been asked at various places in this thread should be of great interest to anyone trying to understand modern society:

- Why are clubs the only competitive capitalist industry that treats its loyal customers with such arrogance and contempt?

- What exactly is the purpose of various aspects of the club environment and how do they relate to the human mating signaling displays?

- How to reconcile the "you must not reek of effort" ethos with the blatantly large cost of clubbing in money, effort, and subjection to indignities?

- Why do so many guys without club game still go to clubs, even though they have virtually zero chance of getting laid, and just hang around, often visibly uncomfortably, wasting money and looking like losers?

- Why do people fall for the transparent delusion of clubs supposedly being places of wild and spontaneous fun, when in fact they are rigidly regimented and chaperoned places where burdensome social codes must be observed?

Posted by: Vladimir on November 20, 2009 4:13 PM



I'm not sure that clubs are the only places where customers are treated with contempt, Vladimir. There are places that cultivate exclusivity and enforce that reputation with brutal maitre d's, surly waiters (restaurants), demands on participants to engage in humiliating behaviours (game shows) or undergo overt, public, intense humiliations (reality television). And others. And yet, people line up to get in!

I don't really have an answer to your question about the economics of it all, but it must have something to do with social proof and positional goods. And perhaps the blurring of the distinction between customer and performer in places like clubs...where the torture of auditioning is what the customers have to undergo because they're the real performers there, not the DJ or band.

So, dunno. But I'm convinced positional goods have something to do with it.

Posted by: PatrickH on November 20, 2009 7:32 PM



Maybe it's Groucho's,"I wouldn't belong to a club that would have someone like me as a member", or something like that.

Posted by: Bradamante on November 21, 2009 11:24 AM



Vlad, I'll give it a shot.

- Why are clubs the only competitive capitalist industry that treats its loyal customers with such arrogance and contempt?

In my experience, this has mostly been a two-way street. I've experienced the occasional contretemps with power-tripping club staff, but those people have been an extremely small minority.
For every 1 asshole security guy, there have probably been 4-5 guys who have bent or broken rules for me (waived covers, let me in despite ostensible dress-code violations, let me have in/outs for my asthma puffer despite clear No Re-Entry signs, etc).
I suspect that the discrepancy is partly due to my profile, wardrobe, and comportment, but I still think your comments are overblown. They do, however, contain a kernel of truth.

Your perspective on the matter is, for whatever reason, clearly negative. You even described waiting in line as "humiliating", a description that borders on ridiculous (especially in contrast to the normally exceptional quality of your observations). Sure, waiting in line can be annoying, especially if the weather is extreme, but it's far short of "humiliating". In truth it's not that much worse than waiting in a taxi line outside a popular hotel on a Saturday night.

Re: arrogance - Which staff are you talking about?
The guys manning the line outside are usually dicks, sure. But you'll see the same thing in any trendy spot whose whole raison d'être is to create a faux atmosphere of exclusivity for the petit bourgeois. (Three French phrases in one sentence!)

- What exactly is the purpose of various aspects of the club environment and how do they relate to the human mating signaling displays?

Like which aspects?

- How to reconcile the "you must not reek of effort" ethos with the blatantly large cost of clubbing in money, effort, and subjection to indignities?

Interesting question, Vlad.

I thought about this for a while, and I realized that your question is deeply ironic, in that there is an absolutely direct correlation betwen the "you must not reek of effort" ethos and the actual effort/expense demanded of the typical participant in whatever activity.

Put another way:
The harder MOST people have to try at some social activity, the more important the "you must not reek of effort" ethos.
I'm thinking "handicap principle" in some vague way, but it's 6am and those dots are currently too far away to connect.

So, you seem to be asking under the assumption that you're observing an exception to the rule, when you are in fact observing the rule itself.

Oh, and clubbing doesn't have to be terribly expensive. Or a lot of effort. If you're going to clubs in your own country (so that you speak the language) and you know where you're going more than a few hours ahead of time, sometimes it just takes a few phone calls.

- Why do so many guys without club game still go to clubs, even though they have virtually zero chance of getting laid, and just hang around, often visibly uncomfortably, wasting money and looking like losers?

(1)
Occam's razor answer: A surprising number of them are fans of the music. If your favorite artist is Armin Van Buuren or Deadmau5, then you HAVE to see him in a club.
Add this to the fact that the vast, VAST majority of electro-house-heads are complete nerds, and that explains away a lot of your question.

(2)
People don't go to clubs alone, and lots of guys are there in big groups. If the group is big enough, the probability of its containing some of these non-club-type guys approaches 1.

(3)
A lot of these guys just seem uncomfortable in their own skin, full stop, EVERYWHERE. Like, they'd seem just as uncomfortable walking through a mall.

(4)
It's not as though their chances of getting laid are much higher elsewhere.

(5)
There's less potential for amogging, humiliation, etc. from more alpha guys. You don't really see guys clowning on each other in clubs the way they do in bars (where the verbal jousting would actually be heard by someone other than the speaker).

- Why do people fall for the transparent delusion of clubs supposedly being places of wild and spontaneous fun, when in fact they are rigidly regimented and chaperoned places where burdensome social codes must be observed?

Dude, I've had lots of fun at clubs.

Why don't you try to get several thousand young, often inebriated, sometimes thuggish, sometimes coked/E'd up, people into a space the size of a high school gymnasium WITHOUT regimentation, chaperoning, and burdensome social codes.
And keep the place clean while you're at it. Let me know how that goes.

I've never had a bad experience with a bouncer, any more than I had bad experiences with refs when I was a football player (another place of considerable fulfillment despite burdensome rules and codes - and only ten hot bitches in miniskirts, on the sideline, instead of hundreds right in front of my face). About the worst I've gotten was from overly bitchy female bartenders, but even that bitchiness is perfectly justifiable to an extent.

Posted by: Epoxytocin No. 87 on November 23, 2009 9:26 AM




It's a combination of handicap principle, exceptionalism, and aspirational thinking. Everyone thinks 1)HE will be the one to prevail in the status competition, this time or 2)even if this is not the case, the club is the only place to gain access to the prettiest of pretty young women in a context where one can meet them socially. (I suppose this is what "positional goods" means.) NYC has a particular problem with rape/murder predators of low SES picking off women from clubs precisely BECAUSE of the importance of status display, aspirational thinking, and "who breeds, wins."

I don't really have an answer to all of this, yet, except to say that it's an enactment of the rule "To those who have, shall more be given." Either you can bear the inconvenience and cost, or you rationalize it as the cost of access to a chance to try with women you'd never get access to a chance to try with in another context, i.e. you will not really see models on the street in daytime without Paul Janka-style legwork. It's really Charlie Brown and the football, made bearable because women are in fact on a bell curve and generally something can be made to work sometime with someone. So the nerdy guy goes home with a fat chick and thinks, "Hey, I pulled from a club!", the aspirational social meaning of that event altering its reality.

Posted by: Eurosabra on November 23, 2009 9:11 PM



I'll take my shot at these.

Vladimir:

Why are clubs the only competitive capitalist industry that treats its loyal customers with such arrogance and contempt?

But the real customers of clubs, those that make the place live and die are women, specifically hot women. Hot women have an instinct to want to see men lowered in status. If 100 men come into a club and 99 of them are humiliated, better for the women because they can all identify the 1 top guy.

Why do men put up with it? Because going to a club that doesn't have hot women would be like burning money in a hot dark noisy place.

What exactly is the purpose of various aspects of the club environment and how do they relate to the human mating signaling displays?

Strobe lights simulate a flickering fire. Heavy bass music is like an amped up super version of tribal drum heavy music. Hard to get into means that everyone inside is part of the tribe and the people outside aren't.

How to reconcile the "you must not reek of effort" ethos with the blatantly large cost of clubbing in money, effort, and subjection to indignities?

Think a rock star is subject to indignities when clubbing?

The best way most guys have to look like a rock star is to be nonchalant in a club. For an average guy a club costs tons of money, requires lots of effort and requires enduring indignities. A rock star in a club doesn't pay a thing (the club wants him there to draw in women who want him), takes no effort and doesn't require him to endure indignities (no lines, private areas with space, waitress service instead of begging for attention from a bartender, etc.).

Average guy figures if he looks like he's not being put through the average guy club maltreatment women might think he's not average. All of this is subconscious of course: better to shrug off status lowering bad treatment than to lose emotional control and not even get better treatment.

Why do so many guys without club game still go to clubs, even though they have virtually zero chance of getting laid, and just hang around, often visibly uncomfortably, wasting money and looking like losers?

Three reasons I can think of that are plausible.

Game is relative. These guys might clean up in house parties but the competition is fiercer in a club. They haven't adjusted expectations yet.

As bad as they are at club game, this might be these guys best venue. If some guy is 3 out of 10 in club game skill but 1 out of 10 in day game skill, he'll be in the club. Won't do too well but will do better than he would otherwise.

Sort of related to the last point: club game is much much easier to get some results. Some guys have no idea how to approach outside of a bar or club. These guys also need the help of alcohol (both them drinking and for approaching drunk women).

Why do people fall for the transparent delusion of clubs supposedly being places of wild and spontaneous fun, when in fact they are rigidly regimented and chaperoned places where burdensome social codes must be observed?

Most people aren't of the mentality to pick up and notice unspoken rules, they just instinctively follow them. Very few people can both articulate and follow unspoken rules.

Posted by: Steve Johnson on November 28, 2009 2:46 PM






Post a comment
Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:



Remember your info?