Why Gen Z Loves Lines
A Q&A with New York Magazine's Brock Colyar
You all know I’m obsessed with Gen Z’s willingness to wait in line. Maybe it’s because I’m a fro-yo addict who can’t stop going to Mimi’s — but line culture is something I started tuning into last summer, when Labubu’s were all the rage. As I wrote in June, I do believe that lines — or at least the establishments that have them — have become somewhat of a “third space” where young people are hanging out. (And crowds at fro-yo shops, coffee shops, even wine bars certainly previewed the IRL summer energy we’re now experiencing.)
But I’m not the only one who’s been paying attention to the lines and what they signal.
Last week, New York Magazine rolled out a new cover story about this summer’s ‘humiliating’ and ‘exhilarating’ lines by the one-and-only Brock Colyar (who’s penned famous titles like ‘It Must Be Nice to Be a West Village Girl’ and ‘The Cultural Ascendancy of the New Young Right’).
I sat down with Brock to talk about the piece — and why we’re all waiting in line.
Here’s our conversation, edited for clarity and brevity. We’re also trying something new at The Up and Up, and you can watch our full conversation on our YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe :)
You’ve covered youth and nightlife culture in New York City for years. When did lines stop being something that people just tolerated and started being something that actively seek out?
BC: Coming out of the pandemic, there was such an explosion of young people hanging out and doing new things. We were all talking about Dimes Square, and I had a nightlife column at the time, and everybody was going out, and it felt like everybody was doing ketamine and going to the rave, and then I feel like we got just the right amount of years away from the pandemic, and over the last two summers, I feel like things started to change, and the youth culture started like gravitating more towards influencer culture. Not that that didn’t exist already, it did. [But] it felt like that started to be the predominant way we thought about young people and Gen Z in New York.
Last summer is the first time I started noticing the lines. I was writing my piece about the West Village Girls, and obviously all of them were standing in line for Swedish candy at the time. And then this summer, you know, it just felt like it got so much more intense. I live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and even in my neighborhood, which when I moved here, say six years ago, felt like a quiet kind of tony, waterside neighborhood. All of a sudden, there were lines everywhere. I live very close to Radio Bakery, and like there was a line there every morning, and then of course the West Village just got even more intense.
So yeah, it feels like something that’s been happening in the last year, but really increased in intensity this summer.
From my perspective (and I write about this), there’s a social aspect to lines — of people wanting to be around other people, wanting to be where the people are. We’re in this moment post-Knicks victory in New York City, the World Cup really popped off. To what extent is there a social aspect to the line-waiting culture, and how does that fit into the narrative of summer 2026?
BC: When I started on this story, I had read a few pieces and seen a few comments online, kind of suggesting that the interest in line waiting had something to do with a third space or people getting to spend time with each other, and I will say two things.
First of all, when I was doing this reporting and just waiting in lines, I was sort of surprised at how many people were waiting alone. I mean, I think I would say it was like 50-50 of people waiting with friends, and then people waiting alone. I don’t know if I quite buy into the fact that it’s like people are doing it to interact with their community. I write in the piece, like if a froyo line is becoming a third space that just feels totally depressing to me. It feels like we’ve gone somewhere wrong as a culture. If that’s where we have to go to meet and hang out with people. At the same time, so many of the people I talked to were there with friends. They were on a date, or I talked to a group of girls that work together, and they have a weekly book club, and they decided to go get dessert after the book club. But you know, I don’t think any of them really were thinking about it as a deep community exercise. I think they were just spending time with friends. Best not to overthink it.
So, I think to some extent it’s about community, but I don’t think it’s about community as much as some people want it to be. You know what it reminds me of? There’s something quite innocent about it. It’s like when I was in high school and I couldn’t drink yet, and so the only thing to do with friends in your spare time was go (I’m from Tennessee), so in our case, go to Sonic or go hang out in a parking lot with our Sonic drinks. It feels like that, kind of just an innocent, non-alcoholic way to spend time with friends.
Gen Z is used to instant gratification. You can literally have fro-yo delivered to your apartment in five minutes from Pinkberry. So why is it that people are going and waiting in line at Mimi’s, Culture, Myka, or Birdie’s and not either going to Pinkberry, which has no line, or ordering it to their apartment.
BC: There’s something very conducive about the lines to conversation, right? Because you’re waiting and you’re wondering how long it’s gonna be, and you’re wondering if it’s worth it. I feel like that is a conversation starter. I mean, I was having to ask people these questions because I was writing a story about it, but I think naturally people were starting conversations with each other by just being like, ‘Hey, how long have you been waiting?’ And that gets people talking.
And to your point, I think part of the reason I came out so defensive of the line people was yes, everything is instant gratification, and I sit in my house and order Uber Eats once or twice a week. This is a way to not do that. I have Amazon to my house. And so I feel like there’s something commendable about leaving your apartment and doing something for 30 minutes. So many people I spoke to, I would say, you know, ‘What brought you out today?’ And the answers were often as simple as ‘I had nothing better to do,’ and I just kept being like, ‘So true, yeah, you got out of the house.’ I don’t feel judgment. I don’t know how people could be judgmental of other people just wanting to get out of their house.
I also think there’s something about all of this, the way that TikTok has affected the city. TikTok has allowed all of us to kind of be tourists of our own city every night. I look at TikTok in bed, and I’m seeing things that are in my neighborhood. I learned of a restaurant opening in my neighborhood because of TikTok this week, and I might not have noticed it for months just walking past it. But the internet [is] encouraging us to get out and be tourists in our own city or something, which I think is kind of fun.
In the piece, you cite a quote from June of 1981. What’s the through line between that era’s line culture and this one? And do you think that what’s happening is now something new, or it’s just the same thing that’s always happened, but with a new TikTok flavor?
BC: This piece from 1981 in New York Magazine, which is so great, is about line culture. It’s really funny to go back and read it because, I mean, it’s just a completely different era of the city, and you see how charmed our lives are now. Because the writer is talking about lines, but it’s the ‘80s, and I think there was a sense that the city was overcrowded, and so he’s talking about waiting in line at the bank, waiting in line at the post office, waiting in line to get through the Holland Tunnel. And now, the things that we wait on, are these kind of frivolous, small luxuries.
I do think that the connection for me was thinking about some of the lines that the magazine has covered in the last 20 years. People waiting on tickets for Hamilton. People waiting at Magnolia Bakery, people waiting for the cronut in 2015. I think that the line culture now is very similar to what was happening with the Cronut, except for the fact that it is all amplified a thousandfold. Dominique Ansel told me it blew up because he uploaded a grainy iPhone photo of the Cronut to the internet, and then a blogger wrote about it on his blog. And then the next morning, 150 people showed up. But can you imagine today? I mean, it’s that times 1000 right? You put it on TikTok, and 100,000 people see it, and thousands of people show up.
You also talk about the herd mentality that people caught themselves in. Did you find that most people were self aware about being manufactured from their For You Page into a line? Or were people in denial about it?
BC: People knew the reason that they were there. They knew that they were trying to kind of do what everybody else was doing. People knew that they were joining the masses and standing in these lines. People were very self aware about that, and in fact, a lot of times when I was talking to people, they would kind of distance themselves. It’s like they didn’t want to be known as one of the line people.
So they would say, ‘Oh, my friend is visiting town. Here’s my friend. They’re from out of town. That’s the only reason that I’m here.’ Or they would say things like, ‘Oh, my friend’s visiting,’ or ‘I don’t usually do this.’ Everybody was making excuses for why they were there.
But I don’t know if I really think that there’s anything wrong about this herd mentality. When I was writing about the West Village girls last year, there was something a little bit queasy or uncomfortable to me about the ways in which they kind of fetishized homogeneity. They kind of wanted to look like each other. They wanted to go to the same places as one another. They were all trying to fit this very specific type, which I found, again, a bit disturbing. In this case, I don’t know if I felt that. People would talk as if they were like detectives or sleuths. Like, of course, if you’ve seen something 1000 times on your iPhone, it’s not so much that you’re doing what everybody else is doing. A lot of people were going to try to form their own opinion, like they wanted to decide for themselves if it was worth it. And that’s like a human instinct… of course people want to do that.
Do you think people were resentful if they went and there wasn’t a line? Are people actually are craving the experience of being in the line?
BC: I don’t think people are craving the experience of being in a line. I do think it’s kind of a nice time killer. Again, people would say things to me like, ‘Oh, I’m just not ready to go home.’ Like, ‘I don’t want to go sit at a bar or pay $70 for dinner right now.’ So it’s a nice way to kill time with your friends. But I don’t know if anybody was looking for it. In fact, I think a lot of people are kind of looking for ways to cheat the line. Personally, I’m in Greenpoint, so all these places with lines, I know what times of day they’re not busy, and so I purposely go at those times. And I think a lot of people are doing that. I mean, Radio Bakery. If I see that there’s not a line, I will just go in and buy something, even if I’m not hungry, and save it for later. It just feels like a small miracle. Like, oh, there’s not a line today, so I want to go.
You brought up another point about how people don’t want to pay $70 for dinner. But at lot of these places, the fro-yo, or the sweet treat, or whatever it is, is relatively expensive compared to the same version of it that you can get at the supermarket. So I’m curious, at a time when economic anxiety is really high, when the New York mayor just won a campaign running on the fact that the city’s unaffordable, how do you square that circle? Why are people willing to spend this type of money on treats?
BC: Some of the stuff is expensive. A $9.50 PB&J croissant. I think I paid $14 the last time I went to Myka, and that was with one little serving of soft serve and I think one or two toppings. However, I think that that is just the reality of what things cost in New York right now. And at the end of the day, my $14 yogurt is cheaper than pretty much every cocktail I’ve had in the last two years. It’s cheaper than any lunch I could buy, even at Chopped, where I get my salads during the work week.
It’s a small luxury. And I’m not sure if I buy this, but one bakery owner said to me, in comparison to dinner, this is actually the cheaper version. Like you’re treating yourself to something. But in the grand scheme of New York prices at the moment, this is kind of the affordable thing to do.
It also reminds me of that statistic that gets thrown around like the lipstick effect in fashion. Which is when there’s times of economic anxiety, people spend their money on small goods. They don’t buy the Chanel jacket, they buy the Chanel lipstick which costs $70. So, I think there’s some level of that happening here. Also these are kids who have a ton of disposable income. These are well-to-do New York City kids. Everybody works in marketing and is making fine money.
From your point of view, what lines are worth it, and what would you wait in line for?
BC: It’s funny because you know that SNL skit, the Big Dumb Line, that came out last year. The kind of joke of it is that you get to the end of the line and you get a shitty dollar slice of pizza. I think one interesting thing that’s happening in terms of the places I was writing about is, it’s all pretty great. Like these are small businesses, all kind of like artisanal items. I didn’t really discuss this in the piece, but you see plenty of pop ups on the weekends in a neighborhood like Soho, where people are standing around waiting for a long time for free shit, and it’s usually you know just something awful. But in these cases, I think it’s all pretty great. I think Caffè Panna is delicious. Again, I live near Radio Bakery. I go all the time. L’industrie is great. I can’t really get on board with most of the trendy bagel places because I’d rather just go to Tompkins Square, where there’s also usually a line.
I don’t know. I think it’s all kind of worth it.
The yogurt is the most mystifying because again, like, how good can fro-yo be? But I have to say, I had Myka, it was pretty damn delicious. I hate to be too excited about this chain of frozen yogurt, but it’s really good.
If you had to bet, what’s the next thing that people will line up for?
BC: We’ve hit so many of the basics. It’s funny how so many of these, the critique that people make is that they’re things that you can get anywhere in New York, or things that New York is known for. So I feel like we’ve done the pizza, and we’ve done the bagels, and the like weird Frankenstein, only-can-get-it-in-New-York pastries.
I wonder if the lines will get slightly more luxurious.
Like a new lobster roll place just opened in Greenpoint. It was a pop up. A lot of these places I wrote about also were pop-ups at one time that turned into brick and mortars. It was a pop-up that has turned into a brick and mortar. They’re selling lobster rolls with a full pound of lobster topped with caviar and uni. Of course, you can’t see the prices online, but it just opened like last week, and it did kind of make me think, I wonder if we’ll start getting slightly more upscale versions of these things. I walked past The Mark Hotel recently, and they were doing kind of luxury, caviar-topped hot dogs. So I kind of wonder if this is something creeping up.
Noteworthy Reads
‘Don’t Forget About Us’: 10 Young Trump Voters Score Trump’s Second Term, Kristen Soltis Anderson and Adrian J. Rivera for The New York Times
Moving Back Home Used to Be a Sign of Failure. Now It Shows Financial Savvy., Rebecca Picciotto and Nicholas G. Miller for the Wall Street Journal
Is After Midnight the New Peak Hour for Gen Z Shoppers?, Roy Stephen Canivel for Women’s Wear Daily