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‘Meit’s time to go crazy! “…DJ Compulsive Leia is yelling at us from the stage. Around me, clubbers in cat ears are waving LED glow sticks and crying in anticipation. Suddenly, a very familiar sound: The worst version of Axel F’s Crazy Frog, albeit edited faster and faster. “Name, Yes!”
Tonight, London’s Vauxhall Arches is the hot dream of Pixelate, a rave currently running in the UK celebrating the 00s era of “internet cringe”. This edition is all about cats, with a character wearing a giant Hello Kitty costume dancing wildly on stage, accompanied by 00s memes, video games, cartoons and dance music.
The big screens backstage and around the venue are lit up with ephemera of internet culture that is instantly recognizable to the crowd of millennials and gen Z who grew up online: Penguin Club. Happy Tree Friends. Salad fingers. Almost everyone is dressed in cosplay or the emo-emo scene, with piles of candy zingle bracelets on their hands.
Themed nights have been around for years. Trips to clubs in embarrassing clothes are a university tradition. But today’s raves go beyond school uniforms or foam parties and instead channel popular memes and pop culture. Take the Shrek Rave, a party based on a cartoon musical that originated in the US but has since become a global hit. In February last year, the Lord of the Rings rave took over Camden’s Electric Ballroom. Traveling rave video game Dubtendo has over 100,000 followers on Instagram. A Pokémon-themed EDM music festival is set to take over the O2 Arena in November.
Nostalgia, sometimes of the recent past, is what unites these experiences, and the lack of sadness. “I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of the Internet, I never stopped,” says Leia, the 22-year-old founder of Pixelate and DJ circuit of Crazy Frog. “Everybody moved on to whatever was going on and I was like, ‘Hey guys, does anyone want to watch (2009 viral comedy web series) Disappointing Orange with me?'”
Londoner Leia began her career in early 2024, but a visit to a Sonic the Hedgehog-themed rave caused her to fall into disrepair. The night was full of high BPM types: happy hardcore, nightcore and donkey. “It completely changed my life. I knew one day I wanted to do it myself – it was just a matter of time.”
In December 2024, Leia put all her savings into her first Pixelate party at the Yard, a small venue in Hackney Wick in east London, with a one-shot mindset. He was “surprised” that 100 people showed up, and wanted more. “When I go to a rave, strangers stop me and be like: ‘When’s the next Pixelate?'” It’s been growing, with sell-out events in Manchester and Glasgow this year, and tonight, under the Vauxhall railway, there are a dozen DJs lined up and more than a thousand people preparing to party.
A new song starts and everyone is screaming. “It’s Nyan Cat!” shouts the twenty-something next to me, and the 2011 meme, a live cat with a Pop-Tart body, appears above the stage. Everyone jumps into action, singing in time to the song at the top of their lungs. It’s undeniably fun. At the same time, the combination of screens, LED lights and sensory overload feels like a living form of the brain of the Internet.
Patrick Hinton, editor and digital director of dance music magazine Mixmag, says that the reach of internet culture means that dance music has become “less ethnic. In some ways Pixelate to hear racism, posting rainbow memes as a way to stay out of the gray – yet for many people, this and big.
Hinton says the culture of clubs is also changing due to the “decrease in viewing culture through critical lenses”. In the past you may have been entertained for your love of shows, or anime, but within today’s popular “people enjoy things”, you can continue to develop your interests.
The UK’s economic crisis and the collapse of the night-time economy have, in turn, changed what is considered a good night out. “It’s hard to make complex, cutting-edge art when it doesn’t pay off,” Hinton says, and Pixelate’s excitement feels like part of the lucrative passion for theaters, nightclubs and other nightlife venues. In this way, Hinton feels that musicals like Pixelate happen in a different way to what he understands to be “dance music venues. I think people go to it for different reasons than someone who goes to a club on a night that’s really about the music. That said, there’s a lot of dance music out there, and, inside of it, you’ve got comedy and whatnot.”
Cherry Archivea 21-year-old student and rave designer, attended her first Pixelate in September and, after “falling in love with the whole experience”, is back. Tonight she’s wearing one of her classics: a classic look from The Very Hungry Caterpillar including a bralette, mini skirt and fur leg warmers, with acid green hair and a red and green face. “I’m an idiot,” Cherry said. “And when I went to these raves for the first time, I was like, ‘What the hell, I’m surrounded by idiots!’ You can go to a smoking area and talk to anyone, and everyone has a wonderful and wonderful and wonderful interest. “
Since then he has become close friends with the people he shared at Pixelate and other nightclubs. The scene also contrasts with the “horror, filmed” he began doing when he turned 18. “I was not happy, to say the least, with how I found the community.” In comparison, this cringe-fest is “a safe place to just be yourself, and let your heart out,” he says. “I feel really good, because these are things that a lot of us struggle with when we’re young.
It is true that, from what I can see, everyone is living in the moment, immersed in the unique, terrifying power of the night. “We all grew up with the same internet,” says Leia. “No matter what your life is like right now, we can all go back. We can all relate to just being young and going on YouTube and finding the most cursed videos of your friends at school.” And while looking back may not be the most effective way to stop, it can be very encouraging if it’s a form of communication.
On Pixelate’s online feed, videos of the night’s challenges feel targeted by the algorithm, some of which have garnered hundreds of thousands of views. But at the event, under the rainbow lasers, no one is on their phone. Everyone is too busy dancing to Barbie Girl, or laughing amongst themselves as familiar sources appear. Leia says it’s because “we all just have one thing in common. We want to step back, for one night, and be like, ‘Hey guys, do you remember when we used to have fun watching Salad Fingers?’
