Gonzo journalism is risky, immersive, unapologetically subjective, and mines the ecstatic and horrifying extremes of experience for larger truths about human nature. It’s currently in short supply, but at least one long-haul libertine is doing it right.

As media budgets have declined, many writers with unique styles and expertise have migrated to the regrettable platform Substack, where they can get paid directly by their most devoted readers. This seldom affords the budget for the sort of adventure journalism that Rolling Stone and Vice once covered, but a few intrepid reporters are doing it anyway. One of the most interesting is Michelle Lhooq, a historian, evangelist, and empresario for the international rave circuit, whose newsletter Rave New World represents some of the most raucous and relevant participatory journalism on the internet.

Lhooq made her name as an LA weed rave promoter and music writer. She was always particularly nuanced on the subject of drugs, coining the phrase “California sober” which became fodder for some sincere marketing campaigns and plenty of satire (ahem) because it called out an emerging trend, the ongoing merger of party and wellness cultures, way ahead of schedule. But it wasn’t until 2020 that she found her undeniable mission.

Hunter Thompson was tortured by Hell’s Angels and lived the rest of his life with a sense of borrowed time. Matt Taibbi learned to despise capitalists from the carpetbaggers who ravaged Russia during the Yeltsin years. Lhooq’s conversion to the full-tilt gonzo-journalist life came in the early days of COVID-19, as cities clamped down on gatherings, shut-ins took solace in shrooms and ketamine, frivolity became taboo, the party scene bled into the George Floyd protests, and all bets seemed to be off.

“Strange new subcultures are fermenting in the radical protest spaces popping up across America, and leaving my house for the first time after months of lockdown, it felt like I’d emerged into a totally different world – a surreal dimension where everything still kind of looks the same, but is fought with violence, death, and political conflict,” she writes. Rave New World is her chronicle of the clandestine ragers, outsized characters, and screwball adventures she finds in that space.

For Lhooq, raves are her practice, her dharma. During the first waves of COVID, partying became serious business. Losing the freedom to dance, get high, and make out with strangers in public represented a profound discontinuity and an entry point into a more frightening and complicated world. New York got scary again. Hollywood #BLM protests absorbed the best and worst of Coachella. The January 6th capital insurrection was “white supremacist Burning Man.” Festivals, conviviality, hedonism, and ecstatic experiences provided a unique framework for analyzing what seemed like the edge of societal breakdown.

Drugs are integral to the rave scene, for better and worse, and Lhooq remains one of the more complex and cogent reporters on the subject. While she’s joined the post-Drug War conversation transformed by “Columbia heroin professor” Dr. Carl Hart and his explosive manifesto Drug Use for Grown-Ups, she’s seen too many mishaps to be entirely pro-all-drugs all the time. She chronicles the comical excesses of the legal cannabis industry, highlights harm reduction efforts, and encourages mindful and conscientious excess in moderation.

As America stumbles, traumatized and grieving, into its post-COVID era (never mind that it’s not really over), Lhooq has expanded her research, including a visit to her native Singapore to see how libertines get down in “Disneyland with the death penalty.” Through it all, she maintains her playful and prickly writing persona, scrawling loopy and colorful postcards from the edge with humor, heart, and a bundle of raw nerves.

Maybe you’re getting back in the mix. Maybe you’re leading a quiet life and want to experience the world’s weirdest party scenes vicariously from a seat in your reporter’s emotional rollercoaster. Either way, Rave New World proves that true gonzo journalism is still possible, so long as wanderlust burns and the smart money is on chaos.

Recommend If You Like is not owned or funded by a billionaire or even a millionaire. We do have a Patreon. If you can’t afford to become a patron, please sign up to our mailing list. It’s free and we’re asking here instead of a pop-up. Pop-ups are annoying.