And yet, following the video hitting social media, madness ensued. From misogynistic expectations of women’s self-presentation post-motherhood to discussions of the ins and outs of live performance etiquette, the clip unleashed a Pandora’s Box of discourse.
Millions of people inevitably shared their opinions, but an especially fervent disapproval of the interaction arose amongst straight men, particularly young straight men. What was once a key element of the American cultural fabric and a commonplace, uncontroversial practice had become the center of a firestorm of discomfort, disapproval, and outright rejection. What happened to the slow dance? How did this simple rite of passage and communal experience for young people come to mean and represent something completely different than what it did just one generation ago?
Most DJs agree that the dominant sound of slow dance songs has long been R&B, particularly soulful downtempo numbers that center romance and love as the chief emotions of the moment. But just as streaming has hyper-individualized music consumption and discovery, so has technology when it comes to the slow dance — at least according to DJ Stylus, a 30-year career DJ.
“I came into DJing because it was this magical thing that happened where you put music together in this interesting way that makes for a unique shared experience that is unique to that specific moment,” he says. “But what I’ve found is that technology … fragments the communal experience. So, it’s almost like people are having these performative moments through their devices, for people that aren’t even really sharing in what’s happening. We’re all together, but we’re alone.”
Much handwringing has been done regarding Gen Z and its relationship to the ever-quickening pace of technological advancement. There is also the fact that a significant portion of Gen Z has spent some of its formative social years — the end of high school and the beginning of college — isolated and alone due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdowns. Those years, which normally house key rites of passage like prom and many people’s first adult parties, were snatched from millions of young people. Slow dancing has proven to be such a culturally rich experience largely because of how the practice funnels heightened levels of intimacy and vulnerability into core memories — a phenomenon that is harder for Gen Z to cultivate because of the unprecedented omnipresence of technology in their lives. (...)
Like every generation before them, Gen Z operates in a sea of juxtapositions and contradictions. While this is far from their fault, as much as social media has connected the world, it has also exposed the uglier side of society with more immediacy and a wider reach than ever before. Meme culture and reaction pictures and videos epitomize this; so many of those images are taken and circulated without the consent or knowledge of the subject, and no one wants to become the next meme on an Internet that remembers everything. Given that it has mostly grown up in the presence of phones, Gen Z is acutely aware of the dynamics at play when it comes to the convergence of social media and public spaces, and that hypervigilance undercuts the tenderness of the slow dance.
As with most things in life, the slow dance didn’t just disappear on a random Tuesday. “It wasn’t like it was an overnight drop off, but it’s been a combination of things that have kind of led to it,” says DJ R-Tistic, one of the DJs that helped jumpstart the recent wave of slow dance discourse on Twitter. Classic slow dance songs still get played at the functions young people frequent, and young people are still getting on the dance floor, so all the necessary elements are present. Nonetheless, the dominance of the traditional slow dance has steadily waned. “I actually did an event for Pretty Little Thing the other day, and that’s one of the younger crowds I’ve had in a minute,” says DJ R-Tistic. “There were a lot of 23–25-year-olds, and all they want to do is twerk.” [ed. Eh. No. See also: The Death of the Slow Dance (and Other Emerging Trends) (Honest Broker):]
"Not long ago, these songs—played at slow tempos in dimly-lit dance halls—were how couples explored intimacy in a risk-free environment. This was so popular that guys paid to dance with total strangers. (...)
There’s a paradox here. The younger generation is sexually liberated but, according to another DJ, slow dancing is “too intimate and scary.” (...)
Journalist Kyle Denis tries to explain this situation:
Ironically, the once-chaste act of slow dancing may now be more taboo among young people, because of the intensity of its intimacy. When you are slow dancing, you are face to face with another person, staring into their eyes for an extended period of time. That is a stark difference from most approaches to twerking, where a woman’s back is to another person’s front, as a song that emphasizes the casualness of sexual interactions blasts in the background.This phenomenon deserves more investigation, and maybe even statistical research. I’d be curious, for example, to see what actual dancers have to say about front-to-front versus front-to-back musical courtship."
