From clubcultures to screencultures

In the 1990s, the popularisation of house music and ecstasy led to a shift in the
focus of research into club cultures. Characteristic of club culture is the willingness to share on the social (network), cultural (taste and knowledge), and physical (location) levels. Drug researchers ascertain that, since the 1990s, there has been a normalisation of drug use in the entertainment areas of youth and young adults. In an ongoing panel study among Amsterdam’s trendsetters, club cultures prove eminently receptive to new trends in nightlife. This chapter focuses on the transformation of club cultures into screen cultures within the electronic dance music (EDM) domain and the influence of vernacular media. This development runs parallel to the flight from overregulated entertainment venues. A second development is that the growing influence of the vernacular media has stimulated and also democratised knowledge, opinions and discussions about drugs, and the role in the prevention and risk discourse has changed from of a top-down to a linear model. In the vernacular discourse, the dominating view is that it is normal to experiment with drugs as long as it is done responsibly.