home diaries profiles reviews contact
I can’t really tell you what I was doing before 10 p.m. the night of Bitch. I wasn’t at EXPO, that was the next day, and I wasn’t napping at the Hyperclub open field. Hold, on let me go for a smoke and figure it out. Give me like 10 minutes.
***break, it's hot as balls outside jesus fuck***
Okay, so I ran out of smokes and tried to go buy a pack only to learn they don’t take tap. I couldn’t be fucked to get my wallet -- which is just a pack of Marlboro Reds that S brought back from Detroit for J and I to share. I lost my wallet one horrifyingly drunk night at Sounds Good, or somewhere near the Landsdowne and Dundas intersection. RIP to my Mui Mui pink plush wallet, $85 and the Airmiles card I got in 2018.
Okay, fuck what happened before the event, here’s what happened from 10 p.m. onwards.
The last Bitch was sticky, drenched in a layer of sweat that was coated in what could only be described as melted latex. This is, of course, in a metaphorical sense, the latex, not the sweat. Bitch had an air of filth we have been deprived of for a while, with Milch, Venus In Foil and HVN behind the decks. It was filthy.
Let me preface by saying, filth is good. We have words like strange, degenerate and filth that hold so many negative connotations to them because some higher being says we have to all be good. But, those words feel so brilliant to be and see, especially at night. Filth is good, filth is what I've noticed this city's underground has been bringing back and cultivating for a while now, and Bitch is one of the few parties where filth is grown, stored and spread like wildfire. Filth is sexy, sweat is sexy, so, in turn, Bitch is sexy. It's all so sexy, and why wouldn't you want sexy?
"Don't be boring, be cool," says Luanne in that one episode of RHONY.
This time, five months later, I was sitting, doing the door, with two empty chairs next to me, a bottle of beer and my nail filer. Marnigurl was alongside the trio that night, in black Jimmy Choo’s.
**An important note for later, these two seats would be a pivotal part of the night.
By 12:30 a.m., I’d be so drunk I’d lose my sense of being for maybe 15 minutes before I sobered up. Don’t get me wrong, I may have been plastered, but you could slap a gram of Circle K across my face and dip my tongue in a vat of Salvia and I’d still be able to run that door like the fucking navy. Actually, fuck Salvia, that shit is insane I don’t want that near me, even I have limits.
It was Bitch night, I had been waiting for it since the first one.
“Are you sure you want to do door?” J said to me. “Wouldn’t you want to party?”
Listen, maybe five months ago I would’ve hated sitting behind the little wooden desk, but I was thrilled in all honesty. There’s something so exciting about watching people come in as the hours go by. People get increasingly drunker, higher and messier, slipping in their platforms and trying to push the door open.
But it’s more so the conversations, my friends and new friends coming back in forth with new drinks in their hands. One moment it's a gin and tonic, the next it’s a daiquiri and tequila shot. One for me, one for you. I’m done with gin and tonics, I want a daiquiri Edward Fortyhands to me for the rest of my life.
It’s like drinking a raindrop full of lemon juice. It’s like drinking every song written by September. It’s what you want acid to taste like. It’s what the Spring Breakers movie tastes like, but if Sofia Coppola directed it and not fucking H******ie K***ne. That bitch. I often dream about smacking him over the head with Sofia's pink book that everyone between the ages of 18-29 has. I often fear he'll make some EDM LSD-infused version of Secretary that is just fucking weird, in a really bad Coachella Valley lets go to Ojai way.
Doing door was really for two reasons: 1. I needed the cash and 2. To prevent me from going out an insane amount. Like the other times I’ve done door, it's microdosing on social interactions that last maybe ten minutes at most. People file in and out, stay for a chat and move on. I remain, just on my phone or rolling a cig in between my fingers waiting for someone who works there to spot me for a moment. And I like it. You couldn’t make me hate even if performed electroshock therapy to me via the speakers.
Photo via Marnigurl
As the night went on, the door would swing open more, pushing out the music while I sat. Sitting would soon turn into spinning with S, S and K as we heard the Shoes remix…and also when Hello played. S sat with me throughout the night, keeping me company and occasionally manning the door when I had to pee or…well, I can’t remember.
It all sounds like a mess, but I promise you it wasn’t. I was alert, I was sharp, and it was probably the most fun I had in a long time. As long as I had the bottle of Jungle Juice beside me, I was pretty much good to go.
My tip jar that night, made with a plastic clear cup and “TIPS” written in mascara was filled with cigarettes most of the night. I had one from Vietnam, one from the USA, two rolled from somewhere in Europe and one Camel from somewhere I can’t remember.
I missed the Blue Jeans remix having the Vietnamese cig.
Everyone was out. It felt like we hadn’t had a night like that in a while.
J wore Carrie’s nude dress, C had the chest shirt and I wore my BCBGs that pinched my toes and made me stumble every time I got up
It was filled with party girls, all convened into one space, listening and moving to these snappy, bitchy, femme electroclash sounds that bore a hole into your brain and filled it with epinephrine and cigarette ash.
The bitch lobotomy. A fucking bitch lobotomy.
The party girl is in now, apparently. It's growing in popularity amongst Gen Z, as a whole, perhaps because of Brat. But Brat literally just came out, three-ish weeks ago. So it has to be something else. When A and I spoke, it felt more like the idea of partying and being out was more accepted.
One thing I know for sure, however, is that the “party girl” isn’t confined to one gender or identity and it never has been. Google is free, I don’t have time to give you a history lesson.
I can’t pinpoint a moment but I think it was somewhere at the start of 2024, the air slightly shifted and we started to accept that the party girl was now a “cool” thing to be. Historically, we've always seen past party girls as these "cool" entities that we adore, but while the party girl lives many find ways to belittle and judge. And, of course, we do know how the story ended for many of these party girls.
Maybe this rise in popularity could be linked to this surge in nightlife being an essential part of people's lives, following the growing scenes and sounds. Because, of course, “Being in the know” is so fucking important, right? It could also be post-COVID lockdowns, post-Obama-hope-liberalism-Trudeau-is-just-a-pretty-face era, past the fear of the impending future of total annihilation.
Or maybe it’s because nightlife has become a career for so many young people; everyone is either playing at a party or throwing one. Social capital has become a currency once again, like a cyclical pattern that feels like a parody disaster film. So we’re back to the start.
Charli did make it bigger, of course, but I don’t have a clear answer.
What I do know is how it felt before all this. “Party girl” felt derogatory, it felt like it was looked down upon. The way people would call me that felt harsh. There was this sense that it was only entertainment and nothing beyond that. The “party girl” was used for five to seven hours, three times a week and then she was left alone. Now, the aesthetic is on everyone's IG with the song "Mean Girls" or "365" blaring while a photo of them wearing sunglasses indoors, most likely at Bambi's. Fucking shocker.
I'm sorry if it seems as though I'm upset or angry or bitchy or whatever, but I am so allowed to be. I think every human should experience every emotion possible and that we should all be emotional beings. Otherwise, what's the point? It’s good to see this acceptance, and maybe it’s not that serious, but resentment does grow so thick and sharp when you watch those who looked down on you for so long pick up a bag of blow and shove it up their nose because Charli said so.
I mean I’d do it too, but you get what I mean right?
Cis men perpetuated it like they always have for everything, but so did Cis women too. Watching them look down on you for overdrinking, oversharing and possibly even dancing too much. The party girl might’ve been judged the most by women but used the most by men. Just like being gay is now the coolest it's ever been, so is being a party girl.
It felt like the label of party girl stripped you of everything you were beyond the dancefloor. You were just “a party girl”. You know what, it’s boring to sit back and watch when you can just dance. So, I think I’m good with where I’m at.
There was this joy watching the party girls convene that night, no judgment just dancing and smoking and talking and laughing. At one point, the chair to my right turned into what I like to call “Ketamine Corner”.
If someone was K’d out, they’d most likely be found here, resting their head on my shoulder as I swapped bills and used the machine.
I remember hearing something about someone trading two cigarettes for a bike that night, and another thing about someone fucking in the bathrooms. I also remember K and I found an uncrushed bag of k that night that we’d end up using the next weekend.
I was escorted home by S and knocked out by 4:30 a.m. Sometimes, k is the devil.