PLUR: Peace, Love, Unity, Respect. This is the mantra that is followed by the millions of individuals who attend the giant music festivals hosted by the world’s greatest house DJs – also classified by some as raves. Raving has been an extremely popular underground sub-culture in the U.S. and Europe for decades – but it has recently emerged as the premiere choice of partying for young people in this day and age. It has become so popular with the mainstream that Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) was named the #1 dance party in North America in 2010. Todd VanDuzer reports in his article from the Huffington Post, “last [June], over 400,000 passionate music fans [from across the world] made their way to Las Vegas Motor Speedway to celebrate together “under the electric sky” for three nights of festivities at Electric Daisy Carnival” (VanDuzer 1). Music festivals and house music have become a newer form of what Woodstock and Rock N’ Roll were in 1969. Except now, it blends all different types of music together, which brings together people of every race, color, and gender like never before. It is truly a cultural phenomenon, and something that will always have a special place in many hearts.

What is it like inside one of these events? Imagine being a part of a world with no boundaries, no racism, no prejudice, no sexism, no rules, no guns, and no hatred- simply a world filled with PLUR. A world where one can express oneself in any way he/she feels comfortable; a place where fear is not felt, only love and joy from the atmosphere and surroundings. THUMP, an electronic music and culture channel from VICE, posted a documentary in 2013 highlighting the sub-culture across the world, through an unbiased lens. The documentary follows the dramatic highs and lows of ravers all over the world. It differs from a traditional documentary because it speaks through image and live scenes rather than formal interviews with a narrator. The point of the video was to visually prove that EDM brings people together, despite what city or country they reside in. The documentary shows how this sub-culture is the same regardless where a person is in the world by showing footage from major cities starting in New York and travelling to Berlin, Detroit, Paris, and more. However, many news media sources, politicians, officers of the law, and outsiders tend to be biased and have recently shed a negative light over this entire sub-culture, with hopes of putting an end to these events. Unfortunately, raving is one of those topics that people who are not involved in the sub-culture will not understand. People get their opinions made and will not change them no matter what anyone says. The picture they paint of these events is extremely biased, misguided, and based on ignorance and a lack of an attempt to truly understand what it is really about.

For example, Google Electric Daisy Carnival news, and see how negative every article makes the music festival sound. The first article to pop up was written by Rong-Gong Lin III, for the LA Times, called “UC Irvine Grad Fatally Overdosed on Ecstasy at Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas”. The article reports, “this is at least the fifth death involving attendees of Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas related to drugs or alcohol since the festival moved from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2011” (Linn 1). After reading an article such as Linn’s entry to the LA Times, one would think music festivals like EDC were the equivalent of a holding cell for prisoners of war in Guantanamo Bay. if he/she had never gone to an event. But there are far worse situations than going to a concert. The principal objectives of this study is to explain the other side of the coin to those who have not experienced such a beautiful and unique sub-culture, to show why this sub-culture is beneficial to our society and the world as a whole and to prove it is the music, the people and the atmosphere’s vibes which keeps this sub-culture united, not the use of synthetic drugs. But in order to do that, people must first develop insight to the major flaws of our modern society that have caused this public uproar against people who simply want to have the time of their lives, people who do not cause harm to anyone – ravers.

In the world we wake up to every day, we are bombarded with images of war, racism, hatred, starvation, and overall negativity. Even in the United States, the wealthiest country on earth, many people are generally unhappy and unsatisfied with life as a whole. Large corporations have taken over our capitalist economy, and the vast majority of our citizens are forced to spend the majority of their waking hours working at jobs they do not have any true passion for – just to survive.

Advertising has us believing that our self-worth is tied directly to our salary and external matters. We are brainwashed to believe that we are not rich enough, not famous enough, not beautiful enough, and not good enough. We actually believe that we must keep working at jobs we hate to consume more products, get more plastic surgeries, and only then can we possibly be loved and be happy. We have become so obsessed with this consumer lifestyle that it now consumes us. It consumes who we really are to the point where we do not know how to be free anymore. We are whoever our boss and those around us tell us to be. We walk around inhibited all the time, afraid to say or do the wrong thing that will in some way lead to us insulting someone who is crucial to our path to earning more money. The United States is a country full of people who have sacrificed real human connections and relationships for external wealth and materialism, and wonder why their lives feel lonely and empty inside. We are encouraged by society to sell out anyone and anything, even our deepest virtues, for the possibility of earning more profits. Our society seems wealthy on the surface. But when it comes to the things that really matter – the things you cannot see with your eyes, or measure with numbers – we are in extreme poverty. Our society is lacking Peace, Love, Unite, and Respect. Why do we pay such close attention to new ways to make money, but minimal attention to how to be better people to each other? Although we do not realize it, the people we hurt most by not developing the capacity for true Peace, Love Unity and Respect amongst one another are ourselves. Owning a giant yacht means absolutely nothing if the people on it are only there to freeload off of financial success.

In this world of ours, a rave is the one place where people can go to have the opportunity to experience what true freedom really feels like. It is unlike anywhere else one can go on this planet. Everyone inside the event stands together as one unit. People respect one another, look out for one another, and have fun together. People wear the most outrageous outfits, and do the most outrageous dances, but there is never any judgment. Everyone actually encourages others to lose their inhibitions. Complete strangers may give each other a high five, a massage, a light show, or a bracelet, with no expectations of receiving anything in return. If someone is lying down by himself/herself, people will come over, make sure he/she is okay, and make sure that he/she is enjoying himself/herself. They will offer to buy him/her a drink if he/she is thirsty. In Lauren Duca’s article “The Truth About EDM Culture Beyond All Those Drug Use Statistics”, Duca summarizes a documentary, directed by Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, called “Under The Electric Sky”. The documentary’s purpose is to visually capture the unity and “escape from the real world” aspects of EDM, covering six stories from EDC Las Vegas: “there is a Texas college student who suffers from chronic anxiety; a group of guys carrying on the memory of their friend, a year after his death; and…a young man named Jose, who is wheelchair-bound on account of a spinal condition” (Duca 1). EDM is Jose’s form of therapy, he believes if people all over the world could treat each other like people treat each other at EDC, the world would be a much better place.

When the greatest DJs in the world are playing the greatest songs they have ever created, and drop an amazing beat onto a crowd of thousands upon thousands of people, there is no feeling like it in the world. It is a place to break free of all the negative programming we have been dealing with for so long that holds us back from having the confidence to be who we really are. We all want to experience true freedom in life, and we want to unleash the person who is suppressed deep below the social persona we show to the rest of the world on a daily basis. A rave is a place where you can develop the strength to become more of who you really want to be. In her TEDTalk called “Women, STEM and EDM”, DJ Dani Deahl, reflects on her childhood and how electronic music influenced both her and her brother’s lives. As her and her brother got older “[her] brother and [she] had interests that diverged, which happens with siblings. But there was one thing that still held [them] together. [They] both discovered electronic music…And it was through this mutual love that led [them] to buy records together…to go to raves together” (Deahl). This personal experience not only supports the idea that music has the power to bring people together and create a sense of unity, but has the power to inspire. Her brother and her common connection of electronic music helped Deahl make the decision to become a DJ because she wanted to influence people the way she was by this music. 

This entire sub-culture has become a preview of what world peace would look like once we all learn how to settle our trivial differences. It is the beginning of a dream come true. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi gave their lives to create the world we are just now finally starting to see – a place where Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, Indians, and people of every other race join together and celebrate life as true equals. People create lasting relationships and friendships through raving because it attracts the most genuine, down-to-earth people who share at least two common interests, music and self-expression. It is a beautiful thing in so many ways, and at the end of every event, ravers develop a greater capacity to give love to others unconditionally and heal the pain of the world. It is truly an exotic and unique experience people who are fascinated by and apart of this sub-culture crave more and more of after every EDM event. Many who attend these events acquired the ability to use non-violent means to prevent fights and get people to shake hands with one another instead because although the drug usage being woven into rave sub-culture, there is absolutely no dependence on them so the peace, vibes and zero tolerance for violence are not disturbed.

Many people who want to shut these events down are ignorant of these things I have previously mentioned. They do not see the whole picture. Their main focus is only to harp on the negative aspects of rave culture. Anyone who has taken a class on statistics knows that in a massive sample of 400,000 people, there will inevitably be some bad news to report. Unfortunately, at EDC in 2011, a young woman of 15 passed away due to a suspected drug overdose. Several dozen others were also hospitalized for excessive drug/alcohol use, and a specific group of individuals were injured while trying to hop a fence into the main stage area. However, anyone who thinks these occurrences are reason to shut down these events altogether are not viewing this entire situation objectively. 

Take a second to think about this. The invention of motor vehicles was an excellent breakthrough for humanity, and society agrees that they make life better for us as a whole. Yet in the United States, someone is killed in a car accident more often than once every 15 minutes. The majority of people have personally known someone (or more than one person), who has passed away in a motor vehicle accident, and wish there was some something they could have done to prevent it. However, we do not say we should get rid of cars all together because people have opportunity to injury or kill themselves/others. So why are concerts any different? As afraid as we might be to say it, death is a part of life. All of us, no matter who we are, or what we do, will have to eventually die at some point. We all have the responsibility of making sure that we live life the way we want to live it, and understand a risk before we take it – whether it be getting behind the wheel of a car, deciding to climb a mountain, or using drugs. Risk is a part of life. If we were to try and ban or eliminate anything that had some sort of risk involved, we would have to eliminate life altogether. Helen Keller once said: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing,” which sums up this claim perfectly.

Freedom means that you have the ability to live as you wish, as long as your actions do not impede upon anyone else’s equal rights to freedom. If thousands of people wish to dance to house music until the sun comes up, it is unconstitutional to take that right away from them. The very First Amendment in the Bill of Rights – the foundation of what American life is built upon – is the Freedom to Assemble. The freedom to peacefully assemble and listen to any type of music is a liberty and inalienable right that every citizen of this country has, and no government official, police officer, or standing army are allowed to take that away.

Another big argument that some have against raves is that they encourage the use of ecstasy and marijuana, which are claimed to be extremely dangerous and bad for society. This is a widely spread rumor that does not have any significant factual evidence behind it. In the abstract of his article about the influence of raves on Indian culture, Kaustav Chakraborty believes these “club drugs”, which include “ecstasy, gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), ketamine, and Rohypnol (flunitrazepam), have become popular with participants in ‘raves’, because they are perceived to enhance energy, endurance, sociability and sexual arousal” (Chakraborty 1). These drugs, along with Speed and LSD, have uplifting and sensatory effects which makes the music come to life for users. Users of E (ecstasy) describe the feeling like a journey to another world, a world of happiness, love and euphoria, which leads to many reasons why ravers take it, it gives them the energy they need to dance all night.

Upon research on the DEA’s website, it was statistically proven that “one of the more exaggerated aspects of Ecstasy (MDMA) use is the perceived rate of death and injury. The graph below shows the number of Emergency Room visits associated with various drugs in 2001” (“MDMA Use and Death Rate Statistics” 1). According to the graph, there were 5,542 ER visits in relation to MDMA, which was ranked 14th; cocaine, which was ranked first, had 193,043 ER visits in 2001. In the graph labelled “Drug Combinations in Deaths Involving MDMA”:

Out of a total of 76 deaths involving MDMA reported in 2001, only 9 involved only MDMA… In a recent study in the UK, of 81 deaths where MDMA was present, only 6 died from simple MDMA toxicity. The leading causes of actual MDMA-related death are complications of “malignant hyperthermia/hyperpyrexia”…what most people would call Heatstroke. Perhaps the second most common cause of death (significantly less common than heatstroke-related) is Hyponatremia, sometimes called “water intoxication.” Even rarer causes of death are due to underlying health problems (heart disease, etc.) being aggravated by MDMA’s stimulant effects and a few ‘misadventure’ deaths (falls, etc.) Fatal cardiac arythmias have been claimed, but seem to be unreported in the case studies. (“MDMA Use and Death Rate Statistics” 1)

After looking at these numbers, it is obvious that there is more going on behind the scenes than the news and our politicians care to tell us about. If our government were really concerned with the greater good of society, rather than with the profitability of large corporations, ecstasy and marijuana would be legal, while tobacco and many so called “legal” prescription drugs would be illegal.

Drugs and alcohol are actually just stepping stones that people use to help them shed their inhibitions when they are too afraid to. Whereas some are convinced that it is not possible to attend raves without being on drugs, others profess that sobriety at these events make it a better experience. The important thing is – if people choose to use alcohol or drugs – to do it responsibly, in moderation, around people they trust who can make sure they are alright – and as a springboard to help them become more of who they really are; and not to rely on it as their only method of happiness or entertainment. Eventually, people will realize that all of the things they feel or do while using some sort of substance are possible to do sober as well – they just never had the confidence to do it before. 

The problem is that while ecstasy remains illegal for illogical reasons, people will continue to be in the dark about what type of pill they are taking, how much is appropriate to take, and who to talk to about how to handle it maturely, which are all more dangerous than the drug itself. Steve Knopper confirms in his article “when it's pure, [MDMA] is significantly safer than, say, cocaine…But most fans have no way of knowing if what they are getting is real” (Knopper 1). Some believe banning raves and music festivals will solve this issue, but shutting down these events will do absolutely nothing to better society. Raves will just move back into the underground scene, in places further away, in smaller groups, where it will be much harder for people to seek medical attention. And all of the people who cannot go to them anymore will just find other outlets to expend their energy – some of which may be harmful to society, like fighting with other frustrated and angry individuals who do not know what to do with themselves because their freedoms were taken away unjustifiably. So if people are looking to better society, do not attack the raves, attack the unjust laws that make marijuana and ecstasy illegal while making lots of dangerous but profitable drugs available at the doctor’s office.

Currently, there are many organizations that set up booths at raves to ensure the people who do choose to do drugs, do them safely. There is an organization called DanceSafe that sets up booths with pamphlets and test kits to test ecstasy pills to make sure they are safe to take. Many parents would argue that promoters for the event are encouraging people to take the drugs, when that is far from the fact; they are there to make sure that if people are taking drugs, they are not taking something that will send them to the hospital. Electric Zoo in 2013 had “70 emergency medical technicians, 15 paramedics, five ER nurses, two physicians and numerous other medical personnel on hand at Randall's Island” (Knopper 1). 

We cannot be generation biased. People are essentially criticizing the youth as they get older just as they were criticized themselves when young. Look at every musical or artistic movement, they are all the same underneath. In an interview with one of the most well-known DJs in the world, Diplo, he shares his opinion of the media firestorm the rave scene is in. He begins by saying how the following generations will continue to rebel against the generation that came before them. He does not blame the EDM culture for the reputation it has, instead he blames the conservative culture we are as a society. He really exposes the reality we live in when he talked about how kids go to football games and drink too much or drive cars when they should not be and we do not see that nearly as much in the news as we do with EDM shows. Diplo also talks about how growing up in Philadelphia there was a heroin problem, kids overdosing left and right and how “no one wrote about those kids. When 6,000 kids party for three days and two kids die, it’s a story” (Diplo as cited in Hughes 1). We live in such a conservative society that we would rather turn our shoulder and ignore the things kids and teenagers want to do, even though everyone is aware they are going to do them regardless. Diplo wraps up the interview with the strong statement, “[The use of drugs] is going to happen; you can't control it. Persecuting a festival is not going to help it because kids are going to do them regardless. Hell, they'll do them in their houses” (Diplo as cited in Hughes 1). All counterculture is really doing is escaping conformity and supporting expression. Drugs and music have always gone together; it is not just EDM that promotes that. Why is it that EDM is the only music genre that is constantly brought up in the media in correlation to drug abuse? Yes, drug use is common within the rave scene, however, the use of MDMA has spread beyond the rave. Rock music has the same elements, as does pop, hip-hop, and rap. In a short article called “Ecstasy Rising”, author Jesse Hyde reports “top rappers including Rick Ross, Gucci Mane and Nicki Minaj have all penned club-ready odes to ‘poppin' a pill’ and ‘double stacks,’” (Hyde 1) but there are not nearly as many articles/stories about the use of ecstasy within the hip-hop/rap culture as there are in relation to the EDM culture. 

From the outside of the rave sub-culture, it’s hard to process its effect as anything but a giant party, and the reality is that there are fatal elements at play. We, as a society, need to open our minds, stop allowing everyone else to form our opinions for us, have the courage to speak out when it is needed and think for ourselves. Everyone needs to be made aware of the reality of this subculture and the idea of PLUR for what it truly is, not what the media portrays it as, so we can dispute our differences and finally reach world peace.
