“Everything will be fine” column about trends like Dry January
dry youth
Generation Z hardly drinks anymore. This is another advance of the self-optimization society, which demands to have a firm grip on oneself – and to appear really relaxed at the same time, writes our columnist.
Generation Z’s singing role model, Billie Eilish, already follows the dry lifestyle year-round.
Ursula von ArxJournalist and book author
Dry January advertised by television, newspapers, doctors and health insurance companies is to be followed by Sober October and so on and on.
But while many boomers may only take a temporary break from the everyday frenzy, Billie Eilish, Gen Z’s singing role model, is already following the dry lifestyle year-round. And also on Instagram, an alcohol-free happiness is propagated, the 20-year-old twins Lena and Lisa, for example, influencers with 20 million followers, announce freshly blow-dried and sparkling clean smiling: We don’t drink, but we like to celebrate!
The growing global trend towards youthful sobriety – alcohol consumption among young people in Switzerland has been steadily declining since 2002; in the United States, 28 percent of college students now state that they are abstinent – some representatives of the older generation may understand this as an auction of the remainders of a glamorous, excessive life, as a farewell to a philanthropic looseness. As a further, merciless advance of the self-optimization society, which demands to have a firm grip on oneself and to look fit, free and happy at the same time. Not least because social media never forget tipsy exposure.
But sobriety also serves as sad evidence of the isolation of many. In the past, our Boomer thinks, you got through your youth drunk in the disco, you sat in the park and let the bottle spin. And the boys today? Squatting on the cell phone, alone at home. Of course, a full glass makes no sense when chatting, streaming, or gaming. Who should you toast to?
Of course the boys have a point: alcohol can make you sick, aggressive and addictive. It weakens self-control, discipline, efficiency. It is a drug of self-awareness and self-loss. He can bring out memories, but he can also fill them up or shower you with memories.
But the boomer is happy that he only has to wait two weeks before he can veil his cruelly clear gaze from time to time. Because sometimes the chatter of the world is hard to bear, ridiculous enough to roar, idiotic to the point of dismissing. It helps if you don’t even notice that your neighbor is saying the same thing for the tenth time. Everything will be fine.
Ursula von Arx likes to drink. And is always shocked at how many excuses she comes up with after she has decided to stay sober for a few days. Von Arx writes in Blick every other Monday.