No time for fun: the politics of partying during a pandemic

ABSTRACT

In 2020, in the face of the unparalleled epidemiological threat posed by Covid-19, multiple governments around the world sought to contain the spread of the virus by imposing strict lockdown measures that dramatically limited the movement and gathering of citizens. Not only did these restrictions severely curtail the regular patterns of economic, political and cultural life, they also made it very hard to have fun. While this last point may appear flippant, this article proposes that a proper accounting for fun is absolutely necessary if we are to understand not just the challenges passed by lockdown measures, but also the legal and biomedical risks people were willing to take to engage in activities like hosting parties, surfing and attending raves, during a pandemic. Arguing against the idea of fun as a form of displaced political practice, I instead suggest that fun is best understood as an example of contingent, non-transcendent aesthetic value that is absolutely central to everyday desire and the appeal of popular culture. Often easy to overlook, the experience of lockdown brought the appeal and importance of fun into sharp relief in ways that point towards the powerful role fun plays in shaping our lives both during a pandemic and (hopefully) after.

KEYWORDS:

• Fun
• lockdown
• covid-19
• pandemic
• aesthetics
• politics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Further information

This Special Issue article has been comprehensively reviewed by the Special Issue editors, Associate Professor Ted Striphas and Professor John Nguyet Erni.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicholas Holm

Nicholas Holm is a senior lecturer in Media Studies at Massey University, New Zealand. He writes on political aesthetics and popular culture. His most recent publications include articles on bureaucratic boredom in New formations (2020) and popular critique in Cultural studies (2020). His most recent monograph is Humour as politics (Palgrave 2017).