Bloc Weekend Ruined By ‘Hipsters’

George Hull, founder of the annual Bloc Weekend at Butlins Resort in England, announced in a critical essay for the UK’s Spectator that the recently wrapped event, featuring Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, was its last. 

Apparently, the EDM scene isn’t what it used to be and Hull told the magazine he is shutting Bloc down after 10 years rather than suffer another year of safe spaces and hipsters.

“Young people these days just don’t know how to rave,” Hull wrote for the Spectator. “They are too safe and boring.”

Hull expounded upon rave history; recalling as “Thatcherite” the “quick-witted entrepreneurs” that worked occasionally around the law to create and promote near-spontaneous events that drew thousands of partygoers who “aimed to start a revolution by dancing all night under the influence of their drug of choice: ecstasy.”

“Instead, we have hipsters – a subculture so spineless that it had to borrow its name from its parents. Hipsters are an uptight bunch. They like dance music, but they lack the sense of abandon that made raving so much fun,” Hull wrote.

Complaining about 10 p.m. curfews, ticketing processes including “early bird discounts,” and shuttle services, Hull excoriated not only the punters but the event’s own volunteers.

“In previous years, the difficulty was keeping the kids sober long enough that they could still climb a stepladder. This year, I received an email from their co-ordinator asking if we could supply any vegan meals…”

Hull accused the new generation of ravers of failing to drink enough and forcing the institution of “safe space” policies, “in a step borrowed from the earnest world of the university student union…it’s the opposite of fun,” he wrote.

“Once, the rave was supposed to feel like a distinctly unsafe space, even if the danger was illusory … Staying up all night in a disorienting and vaguely threatening environment, surrounded by questionable people, loud music and a battery of strobe and laser lighting.

“Staggering around in the dark being sick all over your new trainers. That was the point,” Hull continued. Saying dance music has become “tedious and diluted,” played by a “monstrous cabal of overpaid DJs” to an “unimaginative bunch of wimpy pseudo-hedonists at a carefully designed ‘safe space.’ In broad daylight,” Hull closed, saying “I’m out.”