Is charging covers for house parties morally wrong?

Weekend lineup 10/25/24 - 10/27/24

I’ve been keeping my ear out for anything intriguing happening in San Francisco this weekend, but since it’s Halloween weekend, most of the events that have come my way are house parties. I guess I can’t forward any private invites to you all publicly, but there is one soirée that’s on my radar that’s got me thinking about the ethics of hosting.

Last year, I got an invite from a friend of a friend to a Halloween party that had a ton of hype around it. The word on the street was that it’d be a real Big Tech Big Money kind of gathering. The rumors: It’s in a mansion in Pacific Heights, the list is extremely exclusive and I just barely squeaked my way on, one of the guys who’s hosting is Sam Altman’s right hand man, another host runs of those anonymous dark power troll accounts on twitter, Grimes is gonna be there, etc.

I’ve spent enough time in tech to know that the bullshit river runs swiftly, that the measure of success in the startup world is not good quality but good optics. Optics is all valuation is. It’s (mostly) marketing and group dynamics all the way down. However, I find the manufacture of exclusivity so interesting, and I had nothing better to do that year, so I did indeed pay $15 to the hired door guy to attend this party and see if the hype was real.

My costume was Shiva Baby. I even brought a bagel

The hype was not real! lol! To be fair, the decor was kind of vibey and the old Victorian house on Octavia and Broadway where it was hosted was spooky and beautiful. But with a $15 cover, I was expecting, at the least, a table full of bottles of wine and, like, real glasses. Instead, there was a big orange sports cooler full of jungle juice, and someone trolling on aux. (It was like, Pitbull’s deepest cuts that weren’t even fun in a nostalgic way.) What you forget is that this isn’t some eccentric billionaire’s mansion he’s letting his young protégés use for the evening. It’s what’s known as a “founder house,” a sort of frat house for startup people who skew young (23, 24, maybe) and want to network. And even the networking isn’t romantic—it’s still conspiratorial, but unsexy and contrived. Like, there’s a platform called DirectorySF where one can apply via an Airtable form to get access to a chatroom (I think) and “find housemates, sublets, and coliving communities in the SF tech scene.” Sometimes, the room where it happens is literally just a Slack channel.

On charging covers for house parties, I think this is just SF/tech behavior at this point, but I’m curious if it will spread elsewhere. I do think it’s indicative of a larger trend away from social reciprocity, which is a conversation I’ve been hearing for years surrounding Venmo culture, or how the ability to nickel-and-dime each other after every outing is making all relationships more transactional.

Currently, there’s a widespread capitalistic compulsion to turn life into business. This is especially true for young outsiders looking for a way into deinstitutionalized industries. For example, in the media world, witty thoughts become tweets or Substack notes, and conversations become podcasts. In the tech world, friend groups become companies, and house parties become ticketed events. This kind of culture posits generosity as a loss, which is simply flawed logic. A reputation for magnanimity and cool is currency just as much as ticket fees.

My thing is: There are costs and rewards to partying, which both get higher if you host. If you can’t afford to host a party without charging for entry, don’t host one. Or, be more resourceful. Make it BYOB, or pay extra attention to the music to distract from a lack of decorations. On the other hand, if you can afford to host a party and you just want to turn a profit, I feel calling it a party is a basic misuse of the word. And yet, call something like this a “party” enough, and that’s what people start to expect and accept of parties. Culture’s arrow marches forward.

I must be on some running list now because I was invited to this year’s party, even though I have truly no idea who the guy who invited me is, which is extra funny because when I went to RSVP (you know, just in case), the Partiful asked “Who invited you?” Like, you’re already inviting strangers?? I don’t think that extra security measure is going to keep this in-crowd only, but okay.

If I didn’t already have something to do on Saturday, I would honestly consider going, just to observe it again, having been before, with an extra degree of remove. But ultimately paying another $15 to learn something I already know is not economical.

Now, onto the lineup:

Friday 10/25/24: Taboo Autofiction / Mushroom Festival

Tonight at Telegraph Hill Books, as part of Litquake Festival’s series of events, French author Christine Angot will discuss her influential novels Incest and The Impossible Love with Stanford professor of French literature Cécile Alduy. Free to attend, suggested donation of $10-15. RSVP here.

The Mushroom Festival is also happening in the Ferry Building this weekend. Tonight there will be a mushroom masquerade! Adorable. Tickets are $30 plus tax.

Saturday 10/26/24: Drawing Room SF reading / Fake & Gay QUEERBAIT party

LitCrawl is also happening on Saturday, the final day of the Litquake Festival, so there will be a ton of events happening along Valencia Street in the Mission. If you’re a writer, the Page Street writers’ club is doing a The Moth-like reading at The Drawing Room SF: In the afternoon, go to the Page Street clubhouse, where you’ll get 40 minutes to write 250 words on a to-be-revealed theme. Then, the organizers will choose 20 people at random to read their work that evening at The Drawing Room. It’s free. If I was available on Saturday I’d do this.

The party series Fake and Gay, which threw the iconic Anh Phoong party in May at The Stud, is doing a Latincore rave at Monument in SOMA on Saturday. F&G organizer Adam Kraft always throws a rager. Of course, there’s also other club stuff at The Foundry, Audio, 1015 Folsom, The Stud, etc. if you’re trying to do that.

Sunday 10/27/24: Hugging and Kissing

I am very intrigued by this. Performance artist Alexandra Pink is putting on a show called Hugging and Kissing on Sunday. I have very little information on it, other than the invitation:

Physical and experiential, and N-line centric. I’m all about it.

That’s it!

I think I’m gonna watch Over the Garden Wall tonight <3