No products in the cart.
Kindness in nightlife only exists when it suits you
The word “kindness” has taken over nightlife vocabulary. You hear it everywhere. You read it in event descriptions. It shows up in the discourse of DJs, influencers, collectives, clubs, media. A word turned into a refuge, a shield, a marketing tool, a universal mantra.
Kindness only became popular once new audiences arrived after Covid, in a scene already fragile, already shaped by long-standing violence, but where testimonies were finally beginning to surface thanks to harm reduction groups, activists, queer collectives, volunteers who documented, educated, and put words where others preferred silence.
The industry, meanwhile, started brandishing “kindness” like a universal signpost. Except that this signpost is rarely held by the right hands.
Here’s why.
Kindness as a PR tool
Look closely at the contexts where this word appears.
There are clubs and organisers who use it in their descriptions, their charters, their posts, even though no one on the team has received training on sexual and gender-based violence. No harm reduction training. No protocol. Nothing. But “kindness” on a visual is enough to hide the total absence of competence.
There are those trying to rebuild a moral virginity after serious incidents, internal scandals, covered-up assaults.
Rather than acknowledge, repair, transform, everything gets washed in soft beige. “Kindness” is convenient: it avoids responsibility.
And then there is the most insidious version:
the one used by content creators, certain media, and a chunk of DJs, not to protect vulnerable audiences but to shut down criticism.
Remember PEW.
When someone asked a clear, legitimate question about the presence of far-right symbols in hard techno, the responses were the same:
“everyone is welcome,”
“we need to be kind,”
“stop the hate.”
Kindness used to avoid the conversation.
To avoid naming the danger and to avoid damaging the business model.
One-way kindness
Let’s be honest:
When we talk about racism, the response is silence.
When we talk about sexual violence, the response is silence.
When we talk about aggressors still being booked, the response is silence.
When we talk about the far right in clubs, the response is silence.
Have you ever seen a wave of French DJs take a public stance against the rise of fascist ideologies in nightlife?
No.
On sexual violence within their own scene?
No.
On bookers or club owners accused of protecting aggressors?
No.
Yet the moment someone critiques mediocre practices, the capitalist drift of the scene, cultural appropriation or sonic gentrification, the same people immediately wrap themselves in “kindness.”
Every time a real issue comes up, “kindness” is brandished like a shield to avoid facing reality.
When sexual violence was exposed in the scene, some organisers and DJs hid behind the “kindness” of “presumption of innocence,” suddenly turned into a flexible argument. Not for justice, but to keep booking the same artists, protect deals, avoid conflict, preserve their interests.
When we talked about the rise of the far right in nightlife, its codes, its networks, its openly homophobic, transphobic, sexist and racist ideology, they hid behind a “kindness” of “everyone is welcome.” As if welcoming everyone meant accepting those who directly threaten others’ safety.
When we critiqued an ultracapitalist system crushing the scene – the one boosting influencer-DJs, Nepo babies, privileged people skipping every step – some actors waved a fake kindness: “don’t criticise them, it leads to harassment.”
A perfect argument to avoid questioning power dynamics, structural injustice, or the real impact of these practices.
In all these cases, “kindness” mostly serves to lock the conversation.
It protects the same people, avoids difficult discussions, avoids drawing political, moral, or safety boundaries.
And above all:
it neutralises criticism – the only tool the community has left to defend its own culture.
As if asking for basic standards was an act of violence. As if holding a scene accountable meant “creating hate.”
As if the only hate we should worry about wasn’t the one suffered daily by women, queer people, racialised people, for whom nightlife is rarely a neutral space.
Kindness, as it is used today, is not a protection tool. It is a shield for the dominant.
Kindness is not a cushion to preserve the existing order… “Everyone is welcome.”
No. Not when “everyone” includes neo-Nazis, aggressors, harassers, profiles that drive minorities out.
“Be kind.”
No. Not when kindness is used to silence those who warn, document, protect.
“Stop the hate.”
The only dangerous hate is not the one that critiques the system. It is the one that thrives inside the system, silently, night after night.
Real kindness does not protect structures, it protects dancers. Real kindness – the one that deserves the name – requires:
– training,
– protocols,
– clear positioning,
– courage,
– refusal,
– real care.
And strangely, that is almost never what people mean when they say “kindness.”
So yes, kindness exists. But not the one you’re being sold.
Not the one that demands silence, asks you to swallow your trauma, or accept dangerous people “to avoid drama.”
The kindness we’re being fed is an injunction. The kindness we need is protection.