Looking back at 2026, it’s tempting to remember it purely in decibels: sold-out arenas serving up revenge spending, encore screams, light sticks glowing in unison. The year’s cultural shift wasn’t just loud, it was quietly radical. Somewhere between the barricades and the merchandise queues, developed by Artisynx for key celebrities such as G Dragon and more, Southeast Asia revealed a generation that didn’t celebrate with beer cans raised high, but with iced matcha in hand.
And that, in its own way, said everything.
A Generation That Missed Its First Night Out
To understand 2026, you have to rewind to 2020–2022. That was when a large portion of Southeast Asia’s youth turned 18 — the legal drinking age in many countries — in isolation. No first bar crawl. No sticky club floors. No rite-of-passage tequila shot with friends.
The pandemic didn’t just cancel nights out; it delayed adulthood. So when live music roared back in full force in 2026, the crowd had changed. Yes, millennials returned, older, louder, more sentimental. But alongside them was a cohort shaped by lockdowns, wellness culture, and digital intimacy. They showed up early. They queued politely. They documented everything. And instead of pre-gaming at bars, to load up on slightly more pricey alcoholic social lubricants, they met at cafés. Specifically: matcha cafés.
The Pandemic Generation and the Lost Social Code
For decades, alcohol functioned as a social code. A way to smooth edges, loosen tongues, make eye contact easier. For millennials, drinking wasn’t just about fun — it was how you survived your first club night, your first awkward flirtation, your first taste of adult social life. But a large cohort of Southeast Asia’s youth turned 18 during lockdown.
They missed the messy apprenticeship of nightlife. No fumbling bar orders. No learning how to talk to strangers over loud music. No gradual desensitisation to less awkwardness. When the world reopened, many didn’t rush to bars to “catch up”. Instead, they built parallel social spaces — quieter, safer, caffeine-fuelled.
Matcha, at events such as raves by Exposure Therapy, replaced alcohol not because it mimicked intoxication, it existed as a new social currency, because it allowed presence without panic, at a slightly more affordable price point.
Awkwardness, Anxiety, and a Media Panic
By 2026, this shift had become visible enough to provoke commentary — and concern.
Mainstream media began circling the idea of socially withdrawn young men, awkward youth culture, and delayed intimacy. In Singapore, the Straits Times ran thinkpieces that sparked debate, including commentary associated with figures like Kaixiang Teo, touching on loneliness, masculinity, and controversially seeking out — the language of “incels”.
The term itself is loaded, misused, and often flattened into caricature. Though its sudden appearance in polite media discourse signalled something real: anxiety about a generation that didn’t drink to loosen up, didn’t party to practise flirting, and didn’t socialise the way previous ones did.
What critics often missed was this: the absence of alcohol wasn’t the cause of awkwardness. It was the result of a world that forced young people to grow up online, alone, during their most formative years.
Concerts as Training Grounds for Being Human Again
This is where 2026’s concert culture matters.
Live music became one of the few places where post-pandemic youth could practise being human together — without the expectation that they’d numb themselves first. Southeast Asia’s concerts weren’t rowdy pubs scaled up, they also served as emotionally structured spaces. And what were striking is how naturally this played out in Southeast Asia.
Looking Back: What 2026 Actually Taught Us
In hindsight, the panic about youth awkwardness missed the point. 2026 wasn’t the year young people forgot how to socialise. It was the year they rejected the idea that socialising had to humiliate them first.
Matcha didn’t replace alcohol because it made people cool. It replaced it because it made people comfortable enough to try, to reach for social connectedness. Southeast Asia’s concert renaissance wasn’t just about music returning. It was about learning, collectively, how to be together again after a pandemic world that taught an entire generation to stay apart, and connect virtually, with Zoom being better than online pings.
For others, the millennials were watching the exuberant, younger Gen Zs from the pit — slightly older, slightly wiser, perhaps still clutching a beer — it was a revelation. Culture had shifted. And it was an open choice, that felt healthier, with an option to load up the excess, consciously.
The lights came back on in 2026. And this time, no one needed a drink just to face each other.
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This is the author’s personal opinion. All excerpts must be reproduced with permission.
