No products in the cart.
It’s become a familiar scene on social media. Perfectly styled influencers behind the decks, headphones around their necks, smiling at the crowd, with just enough confidence to look like they belong. The captions are filled with fire emojis and congratulatory comments: “She killed it”, “So proud”, “Iconic first set.” What looks like harmless fun hides a deeper truth about where the scene is heading.
The Currency of Visibility
Over the past year, the rise of influencer-DJs has become impossible to ignore. Many have only been mixing for a few months, yet find themselves booked at iconic clubs or major festivals. They don’t draw crowds for their sound, but for their follower count. What used to be earned through years of practice, local gigs and community building can now be replaced with a viral moment. Visibility has become the new currency.
It says everything about the crisis facing club culture. Venues are struggling, audiences are fragmented, and social media has turned attention into a commodity. In that economy, a familiar face often sells better than a skilled one. The influencer-DJ doesn’t need to prove themselves technically; their job is to attract phones, not dancers.
From Subculture to Showcase
This is not entirely new. Long before influencers, managers, agents, and media founders were already finding ways to book themselves — leveraging their proximity to artists or the power of their networks. But social media has supercharged that dynamic. The club has turned into a stage for self-promotion, not collective experience. The booth is no longer a place to lose yourself, but to be seen.
The result is a culture of shortcuts. Learning curves are skipped, mistakes are edited out, and sets become photo ops. Where DJing once demanded humility, understanding sound systems, reading the crowd, building a mood, it’s now treated like another skill to “pick up” for content. The music becomes background noise for an image that’s already complete.
The Clubs’ Dilemma
It would be easy to blame influencers alone, but clubs carry their share of responsibility. With rising costs and shrinking audiences, booking someone with a large following can feel like a lifeline. A viral post is worth more than a review in the press. The trade-off, however, is brutal: a short-term boost in visibility at the expense of credibility.
Clubs were once spaces of discovery, places that took risks, shaped sound, and pushed new artists forward. Today, many act like brands fighting for survival, clinging to whatever trend promises engagement. The problem is not just aesthetic, it’s structural. By chasing clout, the industry erodes the very foundation of what made nightlife meaningful: experimentation, risk, and trust between artists and their audiences.
A Misunderstood Audience
The crowd plays its part too. When people buy tickets to see their favourite influencer rather than to experience the unknown, they reinforce a system that values celebrity over skill. In this new economy, the dance floor becomes a feedback loop of validation. Sets are shaky, transitions hesitant, but the content looks great. The result is a hollow spectacle the music is performed but rarely felt.
Beyond the Glamour
What’s more concerning is how normal this has become. Music media, often dependent on the same sponsorships and partnerships that sustain clubs, rarely question the phenomenon. They amplify it. They need the clicks as much as the influencers need the bookings. It’s a feedback system where critical distance has all but vanished.
Meanwhile, DJs who dedicate years to perfecting their craft are left in the shadows, edged out by algorithms and marketing budgets. The quiet labor of building a sound, curating a mood, learning the crowd, none of it trends. And yet, that’s the heart of the culture that built everything we now risk losing.
Back to the Roots
The point isn’t to gatekeep or to deny newcomers a chance. The point is to remember that being a DJ isn’t about posing, it’s about listening. It’s about shaping emotion, translating energy, making people feel connected — not watched. Real DJing is invisible until it’s unforgettable.
Electronic music has always thrived on accessibility, but not on shortcuts. It grew from basements, free parties, queer collectives, from people who built a culture long before anyone cared about brand partnerships or “DJ journeys.” The future won’t come from viral clips; it will come from the margins again — from those who play because they need to, not because it looks good on camera.
Because in the end, the dance floor was never meant to be a backdrop for someone else’s content. It was meant to be a place where we stopped performing and started feeling alive again.