Coachella: a social experiment

Coachella? More like what-the-heck-a

Every year when Coachella rolls around, I tell myself I’m just going to look at a few pictures casually. I like to think that I’ll check who performed then move on with my life. And every year, without fail, I end up three hours deep in outfits, influencer posts, and videos that make me feel like I am watching a completely different universe unfold in real time. At some point, it stops feeling like a music festival and starts feeling a little more like I’m sitting in one of the districts in The Hunger Games, watching the Capitol dress like clowns because it’s the so-called "fashion."

The comparison might sound dramatic, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. You have a group of people dressed in the most over-the-top, carefully curated outfits imaginable, walking around in the desert like it’s New York Fashion Week, but for, like, New Jersey instead of New York. Meanwhile, the rest of us are watching from our beds, wearing the sweatpants we’ve had since high school, trying to figure out how anyone is functioning in that heat in knee-high boots and metallic body glitter. It feels less like “festival fashion” and more like a competition to see who can look the least connected to reality.

The strangest part is how normal it all starts to seem after a while. You scroll long enough and suddenly wearing a full sequined outfit at 2 p.m. in the desert feels reasonable. It’s only when you stop and think about it that you realize how detached it is from what most people are actually doing. The majority of us are just trying to get through classes, maybe get enough sleep, and not make eye contact with anyone before noon. Watching Coachella content feels like observing a completely different species that lives on cold brew and brand deals.

None of this is to say that it’s necessarily bad. It’s entertaining, it’s interesting, and clearly people enjoy it. But there is something oddly surreal about watching it all unfold from the outside. It creates this weird disconnect where you’re both aware that it’s not your reality while also slightly questioning if you should also own five pairs of cowboy boots for no reason at all.

In the end, I think Coachella is less about the music and more about the spectacle of it all. And maybe that’s why it feels so familiar. Not because we’re actually part of it, but because we’re watching it the same way the districts watched the Capitol: slightly confused, mostly concerned, and fully aware that if we participated, we wouldn’t last ten minutes. At least I wouldn’t.

By Lily Morris