Perhaps it is no coincidence that, in the early 1990s, two very popular songs presented radically different views of connection and identity, speaking to different generations. In Freedom! ’90, the central assertion is non-belonging: identity is based on autonomy, separation and the possibility of existing without being possessed. In T’Appartengo, by contrast, the bond is constructed as a mutual promise, as a declared sense of belonging, as a pact that reassures and binds.

This is not a stylistic or moral difference, but a symbolic caesura. Two contemporary forms of expression present two generations with two different ways of being in the world: on the one hand, experience as openness, risk and distance; on the other, relationship as guarantee, continuity and confirmation. In this deliberately theatrical opposition, we can perhaps discern in advance the shift from experience to its management, from the world to the market, from freedom as exposure to relationship as a form of loyalty-building.

We are witnessing the pop translation of a cultural paradigm shift. We have danced to the rhythm of the transition from experience to customer experience, and we have not yet internalised it. The only problem is that there is a risk of speaking a language that doesn’t belong to this world, but to another one.

Describing a form of social interaction characterised by scarred wooden tables, slightly boisterous laughter and evenings when no one looks at the time because the only unit of measurement is the next round, acting as a platform that facilitates relationships which, however, have the codes of a conviviality that takes continuity for granted – because this is still almost always what beer does – means inhabiting a time that is not the contemporary one. The idea conveyed by beer, which invites us to let ourselves go with the flow for an indefinite period, which says let’s stay as long as we feel like it, let’s see how things go, let’s talk about everything and nothing, does not speak to Gen Z, who experience time in a different way.

The point is not the rejection of the bond, but the way in which this bond is made liveable by transforming itself into convivial sociability. This is a time that manifests itself in an environment where social time is no longer unitary, but layered. While you are with someone, you are also immersed in parallel streams: active chats, notifications, groups, and content scrolling by. It is not chronic distraction; it is a structural condition. Physical presence is never the only relational channel open at that moment. Beer is struggling on this tightrope because it seems unable to accept the idea that this is not a lack of magic, but an orientation strategy. Spontaneity still exists, but it is rarely “blind”; it is informed spontaneity.

In this scenario, however, certain “out-of-time” convivial rituals are not simply relics of the past, but can become free zones from the regime of performance and curation. Not alternatives to the system, but pressure relief valves within it.

Conviviality is a folkway and, as such, changes with the social construct of which it is a part. Therefore, the gulf is not between beer and Gen Z, but between two ideas of conviviality. The nature of being together changes, and the ways of describing and explaining it change; not understanding this means being constantly out of context, out of time, out of place.

We are still in the settling-in phase, and we will probably remain there for a long time.