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I Tapped the Glass and It Took Me to a Dance Party

by aishamanne


Gen-Z is by far the most (inaccurately) discussed generation. It’s the generation that is dubbed “by far the most” everything, usually nothing good—the most sexless, the most selfish, the most sensitive, the most sober (which is somehow a bad thing?), the list goes on. We’ve taken up the torch from millennials, who are now subjecting their juniors to the same kinds of simplistic generalizations that had them blamed for the fall of the economy and the birth rate just ten years in the past.

The problem with generalizations around Gen-Z isn’t just that they make everything our fault. They’re ignorant to the most important superlative about this generation: “most diverse,” not just in race and ethnicity but also in habits and mindsets. There’s hardly any statement that could be made about Gen-Z that applies to all or even most of us, which is true for any generation but especially ours. Part of the reason for this, beyond remarkable diversity, is that this generation is bifurcated by defining transitions in technology. Most of the time, when older generations speak about things that Gen-Z didn’t witness or doesn’t understand, half of us are left scratching our heads. Part of Gen-Z (a generation that ranges roughly from birth years 1997-2012) grew up in a world before the iPhone and social media existed. The ‘Zillennial’ portion of that generation, to which I belong, shares some cultural memories with ‘90s babies. 


 
All of Gen-Z are undoubtedly impacted by the developments of the digital world in ways no prior generation has been. But the obsessive discussion around Gen-Z, and the obvious irony in looking around at the state of the world and blaming it on the youngest people in it, largely flattens the nuance around how (and why) this generation functions the way it does. 

That’s what loses me about the rollout of Tyler, the Creator’s newest surprise album. DON’T TAP THE GLASS is understood as a reference to phone screens and a plea for us to divorce from our addictions to them, an imperative message for all generations in 2025. The album, apparently made while Tyler was touring CHROMAKOPIA, is 28 minutes of pure fun (rather, it better be—eat your vegetables). The project feels less like a fusion between dance music and hip-hop but rather a return to hip-hop’s dance origins, back when fun was requisite for the genre. At times DTTG is reminiscent of Cherry Bomb’s electronic chaos, and at others feels like a continuation of IGOR’s melodic experimentations. All in all, Tyler knows how to make an album and has been proving that consistently for nearly 15 years. It may not always be the album you expect, but every 1-2 years without fail he will deliver a project that is thoughtful, intentionally curated, and adventurous. His fans are never bored.

What is getting boring, at least to me, is the preachiness of it all. It seems like over the last few years, Tyler has spent a lot of time telling us what we should be doing. It’s not that he’s usually wrong, it just personally doesn’t always resonate. The rhetoric surrounding Call Me If You Get Lost was about how important it was for people to get a passport and go out to see as much of the world as possible. Harmless advice. As someone who was following him on Twitter back when the logo was still a bird, I remember this being a topic he talked about often—and it always rang with the same tinge of pretentiousness as it did in the CMIYGL era. Tyler was deeply impacted by the way his life changed once he was able to get out of California for the first time, but it caused him to project a mindset onto “less traveled” people that at times made it seem like they had a deliberately limited worldview. And even if that isn’t how he meant it, something about a millionaire rolling his eyes at people for not seeing the world more prompts me to roll my eyes at him. 

For this era, the premise is that we aren’t dancing enough. Tyler released a statement explaining his intentions behind the album; he asked some friends why they don’t dance at parties and they said because of the fear of being filmed. “It made me wonder how much of our human spirit got killed because of the fear of being a meme.” 

It’s true that the fear of being made fun of on the internet is a very real thing, and it’s also true that Gen-Z is partly to blame for that (I cannot concede that we are the sole reason). But I’ve been to several parties around New York that were exactly as Tyler described his listening party: no phones allowed, just sweaty bodies dancing. It’s not exactly revolutionary, not that he said it was. It’s certainly something we should have more of and it’s refreshing to see a mainstream artist with so much cultural influence bringing more light to it. But if you asked Twitter, someone my age should be shocked and excited by this brand new shiny thing, and that just…isn’t the case. Most of those kinds of parties that I’ve been to were hosted and attended by Gen-Z people, so it shows that the generalization doesn’t apply across the board. 

It just feels like people are treating this album like “Dance Culture 101” for the kids. And I’m seeing some Gen-Z people play into the need for that, so for some people it clearly does apply. But not only have plenty of us experienced partying without our devices before, a lot more of us dance at parties than you’d think, even with our phones. For one, the “no one dances at parties anymore” conversation always makes me giggle; as someone living in the Caribbean parts of New York, as long as the right music is playing there will absolutely always be dancing at the parties I attend. But even beyond that, I enjoy dance/electronic/house music and simply seek out parties where I know those genres are prioritized. Again, usually mostly Gen-Z. 

If you are the kind of person who makes a consistent effort to seek out anything beyond the mainstream, from nightlife to music, a lot of generalizations seem silly and a lot of new shit doesn’t feel that new. The tale of the hipster, but true nonetheless. Tyler said of the album and its listening party, “It felt like that pent up energy finally got released and we craved the idea of letting more of it out.” The album certainly feels like a beautiful opportunity for releasing energy, for a touring artist who’s been locked into their own multiverse for months and for an audience midway through summer who’s in need of a good time. 

I just wish we could all let it be that. It doesn’t have to be an Important, Necessary album just because they are dance songs. Gen-Z isn’t the only generation that needs some encouragement to have more fun (have you seen millennials at the club sections for the past few years?). Gen-Z is also not responsible for the dissolution of MTV/VH1 as sites for music discovery and celebration of dance/party culture. We’re not responsible for the wave of dark trap and spooky 808s that dominated hip-hop for so much of the 2010s. In fact, a slew of Gen-Z artists across genres and subgenres have been developing their own styles of music to dance to for a while now, which is often dismissed by older listeners (especially in hip-hop). So it’s not lost on me that this version of a dance album feels necessary and important partly due its nostalgic quality, invoking West Coast G-funk with nods to DJ Quik. Those inspirations, along with ‘80s bling rap through visual references to the likes of LL Cool J and Run DMC, feel like the more interesting elements of the album to discuss. 

Between its influences in hip-hop’s rich history of movement and Tyler’s contemporary multi-genre experimentation, DON’T TAP THE GLASS is undeniably good and achieves the fun it was aiming for. Hopefully that is something people can be normal about. It makes me want to move my body the same way that Maxo’s MARS IS ELECTRIC or Duckwrth’s All American F*ckboy, both albums released by rappers earlier this year, did. I think Tyler wants everyone to be normal about this album too; it just feels like a moment where two annoying phenomena converge, to no fault of his own—the flattened thinking around Gen-Z, and that thing that happens when mainstream artists and their fans celebrate the novelty of something that has been flourishing in the underground for a while. 

Just let the music and your body be, the same way a lot of young people have been doing this whole time, and you’ll enjoy it.