The First Looksmaxxer Was a Raver

Zyzz, the “world’s first looksmaxxer,” was shaped by Sydney’s 2000s trance scene—and its raver politics gave him a strangely utopian legacy.

Sep 8 • Patrick Kho

16

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August 2026

A Sperm Race-cum-Party for the World’s Least Fertile Economy

In which a city spending billions to increase its birth rate takes fertility advice from a man named “Dick Gay.”

Aug 18 • Patrick Kho

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The New Hong Kong Underground

First-person reporting from inside the city's next generation of culture

Published on Welcome Magazine • Aug 12

July 2026

Seven Ways Electronic Music is *Still* Imagining a New Future

From “Why the Future Was Never Lost”: Global music culture is evolving in ways we’re only beginning to realize. And it’s starting to reflect our…

Jul 30 • Patrick Kho

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4

47:19

Mapping the International Internet Gothic

Reporting from a Nu China club night: “Goth” is shedding old definitions, reshaping across borders into an emerging “alt” internet aesthetic. We can’t…

Jul 21 • Patrick Kho

25

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June 2026

Inside Shanghai’s Gamer Nightclub

A gonzo-style review of INS Land, Shanghai’s famous six-story nightclub. (And the rise of gamer nightlife?)

Jun 30 • Patrick Kho

21

2

4

Dreamcore: A New Aesthetic for the Turbulent Twenties

In Kane Parsons’ “Backrooms” and GOLD's “dreamedcore,” the dream-like and the uncanny navigate a world in transition.

Jun 16 • Patrick Kho

34

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“Chinese Manufacturing” is the New “Zero Interest Rates”

Reporting from a nightclub in Shenzhen: Travel to China is recreating habits and fantasies of the Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) era.

Jun 2 • Patrick Kho

50

11

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May 2026

The Shanghai Cabaret Theory of Globalization

How an unlikely alliance of African Americans, Russians, and Filipinos in 1930s Shanghai created a new, bottom-up model for a connected world.

May 12 • Patrick Kho

31

2

7

April 2026

A Crypto Scam at the Dim Sum “Rave”

A weekend of crypto bros hijacking local rave scenes, reported from a historic tea house in Hong Kong.

Apr 30 • Patrick Kho

43

11

9

How to Resist a Stagnating Club Culture

For Hong Kong’s hardcore/deconstructed music scene, our everyday actions can imagine a better future.

Apr 21 • Patrick Kho

39

4

10

The End of Soho House Globalism

The members’ club exported “cool” across the globe. But by 2026, it’s clear that good culture needs its roots.

Apr 7 • Patrick Kho

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