Written by Sarah Rose
Field Notes From Where We Feel Alive
Knees perched up on my dad’s old longboard – the ocean waves lifting me up & down, holding
my mind,body & spirit in a grounding trance until electrifying my adrenaline with each
approaching wave calling me to join its fervorous motion. I always admired that beautiful
dichotomy embedded in the core of surfing. Action vs. Surrender, Vulnerability vs. Dominance,
Nature vs. Technology.
After getting my daily dose of being roughed up – I loaded back in my truck, ocean salt drying on
my skin, wet hair dripping onto my legs. An oversized old boyfriend’s tee thrown over the same
lil red bikini that’s become part of my identity. Wu-Tang beating through my speakers in a way
that felt almost like it was necessary energy to keep my heart beating.
I heard a ping. Anxiety took over. Habitually reached for my phone. Stopped.
Not because I was trying to be mindful. Not because I was doing some digital detox.
I just genuinely didn’t want it.
For a second I just wanted the feeling to stay exactly where it was.
Uninterrupted. Untranslated. Unposted.
And it’s got me thinking about something I’ve been noticing everywhere.
Not online… but in real life.
The places that still have a pulse.
The old mom & pop’s skate shop that’s somehow still open.
The locals bonafide to be at the surf lineup at sunrise.
The park’s basketball court with the bent rim & weathered backboard.
The guy painting a wall because he has something to say.
The packed listening room.
The late night domino table with a melting pot of personalities
The bodega corner store in the Lower East Side where they know your name.
The places where people still gather without being told to.
The places where culture is lived instead of consumed.
Because something feels different right now.
For years it felt like everything was moving toward convenience….
Faster. Cleaner. Smarter. Optimized.
The algorithm knows what you want before you do. Your feed knows your habits. Your phone
knows where you’ve been. AI becoming the thing you talk to more than your own parents.
And yet.. everywhere I look people seem desperate for things that can’t be replicated through a
screen. You can see it if you’re paying attention.
A few weeks ago I was sitting at LikeMinded in Venice after a sauna session – watching people
linger long after they had any reason to stay.
Nobody seemed in a rush.
A guy who’d come alone was deep in conversation with two people he’d met twenty minutes
earlier. Someone was barefoot. Someone else was talking about a surf trip. Coffee cups sat
forgotten on tables.
Nothing remarkable was happening…And somehow it felt remarkable.
Because people weren’t networking. They weren’t performing. They weren’t optimizing. They
were just there.
Present. Human.
The same thing hit me at Public Records in Brooklyn. Hundreds of people gathered around
sound itself. No second screen. No scrolling. No constant interruption.
Just music moving through a room full of bodies.
Attention has become one of the rarest commodities on earth.
And here were people giving it away freely. To each other. To the moment.To the experience.
It almost feels rebellious now.
Then there are places like Frank’s Chop Shop. The kind of place where dominoes slam against
tables. Stories bounce around the room. Graffiti lives on the walls. Ideas are exchanged before Instagram handles. The kind of place where culture isn’t being documented for an audience. It’s being lived.
The kind of place where something unexpected might happen.
A collaboration. A friendship. An argument. A story you’ll tell years later. A memory.
And that’s what fascinates me.
Because on the surface these places seem completely unrelated.
Nike Run Clubs. Public Records. Like-minded. Frank’s Chop Shop. A surf break. A basketball
court. A graffiti wall.
Different worlds. Same hunger.
People keep talking about loneliness. AI. Algorithms. The future.
But I think we’re asking the wrong question:
The question isn’t what technology is doing to us. The question is what we’re doing to stay human.
Maybe loneliness isn’t a mental health crisis. Maybe it’s a cultural design problem.
Maybe people aren’t searching for wellness. Maybe they’re searching for belonging.
We’ve mistaken being perceived for being connected.
Maybe that’s why all of these spaces are exploding right now…
Not because they’re trendy. Because they’re necessary.
Humans have always needed rituals. Places. Scenes. Subcultures. Reasons to gather.
Reasons to feel part of something bigger than themselves.
The 90s weren’t special because of the clothes. Or the music. Or the sports. They were special
because culture felt physical.
You found music from people – Not platforms.
You discovered skate spots because somebody told you about them.
You knew who painted a wall because you saw it.
Not because it showed up in your feed.
You found your tribe because you kept showing up.
The Knicks weren’t content: They were identity.
Wu-Tang wasn’t content: It was identity.
Graffiti wasn’t content: It was identity.
Culture wasn’t something you consumed: It was something you belonged to.
Maybe that’s what people are nostalgic for…
Not a decade… But a feeling. The feeling of being known. The feeling of finding yourself
through other people. The feeling of belonging somewhere.
And lately it feels like culture is searching for that feeling again.
Not online. But in rooms, in cities, in scenes, in conversations, in communities, in moments that
can’t be screenshotted.
The irony is that the more artificial life becomes, the more seductive real life feels.
Not because technology is bad. But because friction is where feeling lives.
Saltwater in your eyes. Paint on your hands. Clothes muddy from a slide across the soccer field.
Music vibrating so hard through the wood floors that’ll make your knees weak but soul alive.
The uncertainty of not knowing what’s going to happen next. The possibility that something might actually change you.
Most of the internet is designed to remove friction. But friction is where stories come from. And stories are how humans find each other.
Maybe that’s why the most interesting things happening in culture right now aren’t happening on
our screens. They’re happening in the places where people forget to check them.
The underground doesn’t look the way it used to. It’s not hidden because nobody knows about
it. It’s hidden because most people aren’t paying attention.
It’s hiding in plain sight: In surf lineups. In listening bars. On basketball courts. In late-night
conversations. In graffiti-covered back rooms. In communities quietly choosing participation over
observation.
Because I have a feeling humanity isn’t disappearing. It’s just leaking through the cracks.
Somewhere along the way we stopped living culture and started consuming it.
And I can’t help but wonder where it’s hiding next.
STRIPPED
Field Notes from a Female Anthropologist of Modern Culture
Exploring the pulse beneath the noise