Is this classic rock, now?

The scene was as sad as it was sincere. Thousands packed into the first outdoor concert since the pandemic. Middle-aged, middle class middle Americans swayed to the rhythm, their bodies accessing a muscle memory long dormant. On the ground below, zoomers gossiped the latest drama in their lives, aware of but not engaged with the overpowering bassline. Both parents and kids sported appropriately optimistic tattoos: intricate butterflies, inspirational words, and ironic cartoon characters circling personally meaningful dates. Some were more faded than the others.

“I smell that marijuana!" came from the stage to middling applause.

In any other year, that’d be a celebration of audience rebellion by the man with the guitar. But as of the first of the month weed became legal, and with legality the drug’s stigma was destroyed.

While the parents smoked the only way they knew how, puffing on tightly rolled joints, the zoomers hit their individual vape pens with a nonchalance only historical privilege can understand.

The concert-stoner subculture had changed overnight from a defiant, and even endearing, celebration of freedom to an outdated, cliché, and boring self-commodification for those misguided teens mistaking “Made in China" tie-dyed weed-leaf t-shirts with an actual personality.