The People Are Still There

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+---
+title: The People Are Still There
+date: 2026-08-25
+slug: the-people-are-still-there
+---
+
+# The People Are Still There
+
+Some things feel more authentic than others.
+
+My favorite singer appears, she jumps onto a table in front of an ecstatic crowd that has completely forgotten how to behave. We're collectively losing our minds, and the DJ and singer is happy to oblige. We see them, and they see us. We distract them enough that they fuck up, but they rescue it, and somehow we all go even more insane.
+
+Going to the bathroom means moving through a corridor made out of dancing people, all of them waiting to get back to the dance floor while refusing to stop dancing in the meantime.
+
+Outside, while having a smoke, we bump into a French couple who ask if they can buy pills. I obviously say no, because I can't risk selling drugs in a club I want to return to, and I also don't want the paperwork. But she looks kind, even if she's French, and we all fucking love the music, so instead I give her one for free to share with her friend. Both she and her friend are surprised, thankful, and happy, and it warms my heart.
+
+We have the time of our fucking lives. I forget to take pictures and videos because there is no time, and also because I don't want to. I want these moments encoded into my body and biology, not in the flash memory of whatever device happens to store them. The moments become one with me instead. I'll draw from them in the future, and I'll long for the next time.
+
+We see the French couple again later in a dark corridor. Her face is exploding with sunshine and warmth, something only a human can communicate and only with a human face. Other people are making out against the wall behind her. Who can fault them?
+
+---
+
+When I'm standing in a club surrounded by other humans, all of us losing our minds together, I don't need my phone to tell me whether any of it is real. It gets a lot harder when all I have is a thing on a screen and I have to guess whether another human made it in the first place.
+
+If you read enough comments online, across Reddit, Hacker News, Instagram, TikTok, and forums in English, Swedish, and Spanish, you get the impression that a lot of people are worried AI is replacing our humanity. They look at a message and don't know whether a person wrote it, so they stop trusting the message and sometimes the person too.
+
+Online spaces are more artificial than they have ever been, although there was never anything particularly natural about talking through screens in the first place. I think part of the panic comes from believing online communities could replace the human connection of actually being next to other humans. I believed that myself at one point, so I don't fault anyone for it. I'm not saying the people you meet online aren't real; of course they are. But being surrounded by their messages is not the same thing as being next to them.
+
+The people are still there, they've always been.
+
+Away from screens, people are still the same strangers you encounter in the wild. They're out there looking for human connection, the same thing you long for.
+
+---
+
+I find my own position here highly self-contradictory. I use AI all day, then buy a ticket to a commercial club night hosted by a international commercial music label, and lose myself in music founded on taking existing sounds, cutting them up, and reusing them. The music is repetitive, almost entirely digital, and artificial in all the obvious ways. Of course, this is a medium I like, so is that a conflict I need to resolve at all?
+
+Is authenticity about what the things are, or how they are appreciated? I think, for me, it matters more what is happening while we're all there than where the individual sounds came from or which tools the DJ used.
+
+Say they use the infamous Sync button that DJs either laud or despise. Does that make the performance more artificial? I don't think a DJ is authentic because they manually create every sound and effect in the moment using physical objects. I think they're authentic because they're deciding the mood, atmosphere, energy, and timing of the music they've chosen to play for us.
+
+Could AI do that? Perhaps. But when I ask the question, I notice that I'm once again treating the music as the whole event, and it isn't. We're there too. We see them, and they see us.
+
+---
+
+Electronic music is still here, the live events are still here, and in my experience the more niche the community gets, liquid drum and bass in my case, the more accepting it gets too.
+
+I'm naturally introverted, except when I force myself otherwise, and these events make me talk to people I would probably never meet anywhere else.
+
+I think we all want authentic connection, but it isn't something an app can deliver as a service. An app might be how you hear about an event in the first place, but at some point you have to put the phone in your pocket and stand in a room full of strangers.
+
+You go because you love the music. Then you go again and recognize someone from last time, perhaps one of the people dancing in the corridor or the couple smoking outside. Eventually, someone recognizes you too.
+
+Humans are all around, but you have to find something you enjoy with others and make the commitment to spend time with them. It will most likely get messy; the longer you spend together, the higher the chance of it. But if losing human connection is what you're worried about, spending time with actual humans is quite literally the solution.
+
+You need to risk making a fool of yourself, say the wrong thing, dance like no one is watching, and then show up again anyway. Otherwise, you won't find the other humans.
+
+Don't follow people, follow passion. Find your passion, and you'll find your people.