Photo: South_agency/Getty Images
Please note the story youre reading was published more than a day ago. COVID-19 news and recommendations change fast: Read the latest here to stay up-to-date. Weve lifted our paywall on all stories about the coronavirus.
On any given weeknight at the Bushwick tiki bar Happyfun Hideaway, there are dozens of Tecateslurping, margarita-sipping young Brooklynites. When the weather takes a warm turn, that number doubles as droves of drinkers show up in the backyard, Telfar bags in hand. On Wednesday night, however, despite the onset of spring weather, the crowd had thinned, as people across New York began to grapple with the question of how to navigate life in the middle of a pandemic.
At 9 p.m., six young people sat inside: one man, blasted and teetering upon his stool, two men eating each others faces, and three more chatting in a grimy corner.
In the last hour, Trump had mandated a travel ban, the NBA season was canceled, and Tom Hanks announced he had tested positive for the virus, but the mood among the Gen-Zers at the bar remained light. The kissing couple was soon replaced by another heavy-petting duo. I went to the grocery store today, purred one of them. The bartender said, I think people are scared, but its overblown. Theres an arc to everything.
On the patio, conversation between college students returned to coronavirus every few sentences. The thing is, young people shouldnt travel. As a young person you should stay away from traveling and large crowds, a young woman studying at Pratt argued. Her Kurt Cobainlooking companion retorted, But Ive never had the money to go to L.A., talking about cheap airline tickets. The conversation lulled, briefly, before he added,Each cigarette you roll is a work of art.
They drifted from conversations about moving apartments back to the viruss impact on their graduations, from breakup drama to information theyve gathered about the virus (I dont think my sister made that up. She works in politics).
The boy joked about video-chatting into his class at NYU, telling the professor he tested positive in order to get out of class, and made snarky comments about a neighborhood DJ: Im glad the coronavirus has derailed his career.
A couple of young women on the patio displayed similar nonchalance. One shook my hand, then immediately lit a cigarette, putting her fingers to her lips without pausing to apply hand sanitizer. Asked whether or not they felt any hesitation going out for drinks, they chimed together, Oh! No! No! Not at all! Have they done any prepping? God no. Last I checked theres plenty of toilet paper on the shelves. When I asked if they would consider canceling their weekend plans, they said no. Im still on Resident Advisor [an online electronic music community]like, Whats up?!
Its chilling. Its something you cant really avoid, even if it was as deadly as some people think it is, said another Pratt student to her friend, a blonde-bobbed NYU grad. I use the subway every day, so Im fucked either way Now that I need to take care of today, Im just like Why would I think about the future?
For members of my generation, the COVID-19 pandemic is our first major crisis, and its hard to see my peers corona-nihilism outside of the major political and historical events that have happened during our lifetimes. We are an age group (18 to 23) that, for the most part, doesnt remember 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis. We dont know the existential dread of impending war or impending bankruptcy. The 2016 election was a crisis, but it was also one we were able to tangibly react to, through student activism and renewed interest in policy.
Texting with nearly a dozen friends my age, living in places from Alabama to Los Angeles to New York, I asked if they were worried about the virus. For the most part, they are worried, but mostly about marginalized communities and health-care workers and the possibility of becoming walking death traps for the elderly. As for themselves, one friend in New Haven said, Self-isolation for a month is a lot in a college students life. Also, on a less serious level, Ive had to cancel a bunch of dates.
Knowing they arent the primary target of the virus, they tweet things along the lines of The way boomers are feeling about coronavirus is the way millennials and gen z folks feel about climate change all the time, and make coronavirus memes. One is a drinking guide to online lectures; another reads, Well Id rather be dead in [insert name of a shitty college town], then alive in my hometown. They make TikToks, one to the tune of Thats Amore: When the class moves online, and the boomers all die, thats corona!
As tasteless as these conversations might seem to older folks, its also difficult to imagine my generation not reacting this way. Born into a dying world, ultraconscious of the overheating planet, our nihilism makes sense. But then, this prideful sense of invincibility may well just be characteristic of anyone that age. Per Didion, [O]ne of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened before. In this case, its true for Gen-Z, corona is a coming-of-age crisis, the likes of which we havent seen before, and its hard to know whether or not to have a Wednesday night tiki drink.
This morning, a college sophomore texted me, If I havent died yet from my Juul or the nasty ass bar I work in, I think Ill survive the coronavirus.
Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily
Read the original:
Drinking Beer in Bushwick Amid a Pandemic - The Cut
- Nihilism Wikipedia [Last Updated On: December 8th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 8th, 2016]
- Nihilism | Meaningness [Last Updated On: December 10th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 10th, 2016]
- Nihilist movement - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: December 22nd, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 22nd, 2016]
- Therapeutic nihilism - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: December 22nd, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 22nd, 2016]
- Nietzsches Analysis of Nihilism | The World Is On Fire [Last Updated On: December 26th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 26th, 2016]
- Moral nihilism - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: December 26th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 26th, 2016]
- Nihilism @ American Nihilist Underground Society (ANUS) [Last Updated On: January 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: January 14th, 2017]
- Nihilism Nihilism [Last Updated On: January 25th, 2017] [Originally Added On: January 25th, 2017]
- The boredom of nihilism - The Tablet [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- The Chinese Ford Raptor Website Is Profound And Crazy At The Same Time - Jalopnik [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- 'Fatal,' by John Lescroart - San Francisco Chronicle [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- Troy Reimink: 'This Land Is Your Land' doesn't mean what most people think - Traverse City Record Eagle [Last Updated On: February 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 10th, 2017]
- Brendan Kelly on politics, nihilism, and the benefit of intimate shows - BeatRoute Magazine [Last Updated On: February 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 11th, 2017]
- Sampha's Process Review: Drifting Through Space - The Picket [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- Nihilist KMOX Reporter Discusses Existential Horror of February in St. Louis - Riverfront Times (blog) [Last Updated On: February 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 13th, 2017]
- Why the White House's nihilism is so troubling - Los Angeles Times [Last Updated On: February 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 13th, 2017]
- Teen Nihilism Erupts in LA Premiere of Fierce, Funny PUNK ROCK by Simon Stephens - Broadway World [Last Updated On: February 15th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 15th, 2017]
- Faking It: The Rise of Political Nihilism - Study Breaks Magazine - Study Breaks [Last Updated On: February 15th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 15th, 2017]
- Descartes, Nihilist - First Things (blog) [Last Updated On: February 16th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 16th, 2017]
- Still Waking Up - First Things (blog) [Last Updated On: February 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 18th, 2017]
- [ American Nihilist Underground Society (ANUS) :: Nihilism ... [Last Updated On: February 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 20th, 2017]
- Pissed Jeans Why Love Now review: 'nihilism and cynicism' - Evening Standard [Last Updated On: February 24th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 24th, 2017]
- Editorial | By any means necessary including dancehall - Jamaica Gleaner [Last Updated On: February 28th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 28th, 2017]
- Reader E-Mailbag: Pussy Hats vs Asshats, How to Save Obamacare, Nihilism in the White House - TheStranger.com [Last Updated On: February 28th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 28th, 2017]
- The fight between Nigel Farage and Douglas Carswell is the definition of political nihilism - The Independent [Last Updated On: March 1st, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 1st, 2017]
- Eye in the Sky: Where Nihilism and Hegemony Coincide - Antiwar.com (blog) [Last Updated On: March 1st, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 1st, 2017]
- NieR: Automata Starts With Nihilism and Futility at the Installation Screen - Geek [Last Updated On: March 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 8th, 2017]
- I used to love the working-class nihilism of Sleaford Mods no longer - Spectator.co.uk [Last Updated On: March 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 9th, 2017]
- Mereological nihilism - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: March 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 11th, 2017]
- Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Four Big Critiques - China Digital Times [Last Updated On: April 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 8th, 2017]
- What Colony Gets Right About Living in an Apocalypse - Gizmodo [Last Updated On: April 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 8th, 2017]
- We're all political nihilists now - Washington Post [Last Updated On: April 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 8th, 2017]
- Love, Western Nihilism and Revolutionary Optimism | Global ... - Center for Research on Globalization [Last Updated On: April 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 8th, 2017]
- Occupy Wall Street: Nihilism And Communism - The Liberty Conservative [Last Updated On: April 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 8th, 2017]
- What Is Nihilism? History, Profile, Philosophy and ... [Last Updated On: April 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 8th, 2017]
- Changing This Bumbling Narcissist Impossible, So We Must Depose Him - Common Dreams [Last Updated On: June 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 6th, 2017]
- A Defense for Moral Absence - Daily Utah Chronicle [Last Updated On: June 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 6th, 2017]
- Withdrawing from the Paris Accord: Trump is behaving like a nihilist, not a nationalist - Los Angeles Times [Last Updated On: June 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 6th, 2017]
- China bans 'Soft Burial', a novel about deadly consequences of land reform - Business Standard [Last Updated On: June 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 8th, 2017]
- Former Grateful Dead Tour Manager Chimes in on Long Strange Trip Documentary - Relix (blog) [Last Updated On: June 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 8th, 2017]
- 'It Comes at Night' Review - Washington Free Beacon [Last Updated On: June 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 9th, 2017]
- China's Latest Book Ban: An Award-Winning Novel About the Deadly Consequences of Land Reform - The News Lens International (press release) [Last Updated On: June 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 10th, 2017]
- How Carmen Ejogo Helped Build a Personal Apocalypse in It Comes at Night - Den of Geek US [Last Updated On: June 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 10th, 2017]
- SMOKERS' CORNER: DEATH CULTS - DAWN.com [Last Updated On: June 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 11th, 2017]
- Jim Dey: Another fatal shooting raises the same question why? - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette [Last Updated On: June 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 11th, 2017]
- Why Millennials Love 'Rick and Morty' - Study Breaks Magazine - Study Breaks [Last Updated On: June 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 13th, 2017]
- Searching for the Last Sincere Festival Experience at Download 2017 - Noisey [Last Updated On: June 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 14th, 2017]
- The book Christians should read instead of 'The Benedict Option' - America Magazine [Last Updated On: June 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 14th, 2017]
- Film Review: 'All Eyez on Me' - Variety [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2017]
- The Pendulum is Swinging Back Toward Liberal Forward Momentum - HuffPost [Last Updated On: June 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 17th, 2017]
- Death cults - The Statesman [Last Updated On: June 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 17th, 2017]
- 5 reasons why 'Wonder Woman' is the superhero movie America needs right now - LGBTQ Nation [Last Updated On: June 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 17th, 2017]
- Review: Prodigy HNIC - SPIN [Last Updated On: June 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 20th, 2017]
- The Nihilism of Julian Assange - The New York Review of Books [Last Updated On: June 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 20th, 2017]
- Atlanta's Videodrome is the Last and Greatest Video Rental Store - Geek [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2017]
- Why Prodigy Was A Once-In-A-Generation Rapper - Complex [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2017]
- Prufrock: How Brainwashing Works, Julian Assange's Nihilism, and Emily Dickinson's Hope - The Weekly Standard [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2017]
- Samantha Bee Mourns the Death of Language - New York Times [Last Updated On: June 22nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 22nd, 2017]
- Trump's bluff on White House tapes wasn't just dishonest it was also a failure - Washington Post [Last Updated On: June 22nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 22nd, 2017]
- In the Almost-Great Baby Driver, Hollywood Goes Asperger's - National Review [Last Updated On: June 23rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 23rd, 2017]
- Against Nihilism - MTV.com [Last Updated On: June 23rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 23rd, 2017]
- Can Robert Mueller be trusted? - Fox News [Last Updated On: June 24th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 24th, 2017]
- Opinion: Gingrich admitted Trump was being dishonest - Holmes County Times Advertiser [Last Updated On: June 26th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 26th, 2017]
- A Reply to Rod Dreher on Worldview - Patheos (blog) [Last Updated On: June 27th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 27th, 2017]
- Vince Staples burns through nihilism and house beats on 'Big Fish ... - Mic [Last Updated On: June 29th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 29th, 2017]
- Islamic Terrorists Aren't Nihilists, They're Firm Believers In Evil - The Federalist [Last Updated On: June 29th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 29th, 2017]
- On Religion: Wrestling again with the gospel according to Bob Dylan - Herald and News [Last Updated On: June 30th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 30th, 2017]
- Wrestling again with the Gospel according to Bob Dylan | Features ... - Bristol Herald Courier (press release) (blog) [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 1st, 2017]
- Praying for Hemingway | America Magazine - America Magazine [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 1st, 2017]
- Human Exceptionalism: We Understand Significance - National Review [Last Updated On: July 2nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 2nd, 2017]
- Politics podcast: Anna Krien on the climate wars - The Conversation AU [Last Updated On: July 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 3rd, 2017]
- Omnipotence at the price of nihilism - Patheos (blog) [Last Updated On: July 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 6th, 2017]
- The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers - Film School Rejects - Film School Rejects [Last Updated On: July 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 7th, 2017]
- Alternative rock comes to Grass Valley - Auburn Journal [Last Updated On: July 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 7th, 2017]
- Data SheetSaturday, July 8, 2017 - Fortune [Last Updated On: July 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 8th, 2017]
- Altstadt Echo - Reposed In Nihilism - Resident Advisor [Last Updated On: July 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 11th, 2017]
- I'd Be A Nihilist If I Weren't A Hedonist - Patheos (blog) [Last Updated On: July 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 14th, 2017]
- Review: 21 Savage Hits the Limits of Nihilism on Issa Album | SPIN - SPIN [Last Updated On: July 15th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 15th, 2017]
- 'Rick and Morty' Creators Explain Why The Show is Horrifying - Inverse [Last Updated On: July 22nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 22nd, 2017]
- Ill Behaviour, review: the chuckles are broad but the grisly nihilism is rather unpalatable - Telegraph.co.uk [Last Updated On: July 22nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 22nd, 2017]