Postcard from the MirrorWorld

Reflections from an end-of-season wash-out

Just like the storm clouds, Ibiza’s high-pressure hordes have finally receded, and the island is awakening to a severe case of morning-after-itis.

It was a week of drama. The much-feted ‘closings’ - that last libertine gasp of Ibiza’s non-stop, 6-month-long, multi-nightclub marathon - risked being a complete wash-out. The island gods seemed impatient for everyone to leave; a baseline of grumbling thunder heralding the first of three unprecedented storms, which rolled over the island in the space of a week. The torrential rain flooded Ibiza Town the first time, then again, a few days later, and again, the following weekend. A downpour of attrition, each sudden surge of water purged the pressurised poop clogging the city’s (poorly designed) sewerage system, bringing an entire season’s worth of unmentionables up to street level. As it swirled and curdled with drought-ravaged topsoil, the fetid flood waters literally turned the harbour brown.

As shops and hotels were shuttered, the curtains almost crashed down on sunny-eyed holidayers’ hopes for one last hedonistic hurrah. But even as phones beeped in unison to the government’s new emergency alert system, schools were mandated shut, and the airport road turned into an untraversable moat, it was full steam ahead for the island’s nightclubs. A law unto themselves, many pushed stubbornly ahead with their party plans then brought new meaning to the idea of ‘closings’ by sealing exits in the morning and telling remaining revellers they couldn’t leave until the rains had subsided. Revisiting the party must go on mantra, this time captive club crowds weren’t given much choice.

As always, Ibiza, this uninhibited island nexus of people and global power, provides a window into the psychodrama gripping the wider world.

I’ve noticed the way people treat this island is a microcosm for how we interact with our planet. The me-culture of mass extraction supplants the need for sacred appreciation, the lack of self-accountability manifests through a throwaway-culture that sees people binge in the short-term before jetting off into the sky and leaving the legacy of their bad behaviour for someone else to clean up. In recent years, the island has been beholden to the cultural spell of disassociation – the defensive symptom for an incomprehensible world that feels out of control. Each summer, us permanent residents brace for a new wave of over-wired masses to turn up so they can switch off; indulging in designer drugs like ketamine that soothe and detach to the point of full disembodiment.

This season, something seems to have shifted, though. The post-season-splotched mirror is showing a new face to the 2025 state-of-play. We’re now at the halfway point of this mercurial and mind-bending decade – and it shows.

I’ve had a low-key summer. Observing more than overindulging, slowness prioritised over nextness. I’ve had time to notice some of the nascent micro-trends stitching through the timeline of our shared tapestry. Here are just a few:

Even as every high-end fashion house splashed around the island with lavish dinners and garden parties through the month of July, the most obscene display of brand braggadocio came from big tobacco, which rolled into town for a weeks-long activation that many dubbed the ‘vape villa’. Between plumes of artificial fruit forest flavoured smoke, a retinue of no-fucks-given D-listers danced with the devil for all to see.

Sparkly clothes and shiny shoes (step aside Philipp Plein) were definitely ‘in’; a sartorial scream giving urge-to-be-seen, stand out from the crowd, while looking resplendently rich beyond one’s means. With so many dressing like human disco balls, it’s no wonder more people were forced to wear sunglasses at night.

It’s now completely acceptable to host a sound bath or outdoor yoga class with an incessant drone buzzing above to capture every move.

Yachts continued to catch fire with very few questions asked, several even sinking their charred fibreglass remains onto the protected posidonia-rich sea meadow.

Notorious nightclub DC10 reversed its policy of letting private security in for free, prompting cohorts of the global brat pack to reassign their priceless VIP wristbands towards the more noble quest of wooing additional pussy. Fortunately, this new policy led to less-frequent instances of juiced MMA fighters/babysitters pushing unsuspecting plebs out the way to make room for their nepo baby clients on the main dance floor. A win against cringe; progress we can all celebrate.

Further afield, a Barcelona brand nearly blew their budget when the rescue donkey they hired for a promo video trotted in with a bung eye, forcing a flurry of CGI to retrofit a less-mutilated aesthetic in post-production.

Meanwhile, even the dealers were innovating, circulating playfully designed PDFs via Whatsapp that served as full-blown menus complete with product reviews. Special shout out to this season’s designer drug de jour: Pistachio 2C (which, yes, was green, and yes - I’m told - tasted/smelt a bit nutty).

Towards the end of the season, a mysterious human foot washed up on the sandy shores of Platja d’en Bossa, opening a cold case that has yet to offer anything other than tabloid clickbait. A more upbeat serving of the same content-hungry coin was the apparition of the Ibiza Final Boss, whose jacked-frame and plastic-perfect bowl-cut set the Internet on fire; a meta-parody that soon netted its protagonist a string of club appearances, brand deals, and private jet rides, for nothing in particular.

This year though, the talk of the island was the long-anticipated opening of UNVRS. Touted as the world’s first “hyperclub” its (somewhat disputed) crowd capacity sits just over 10,000 and features state-of-the-art sound and screen installations and a blockbuster line-up that even resurrected Carl Cox back from career-stasis. Constructed atop the burial ground of the much-mythologised nightclub Kú (which, in the 80s was the world’s second most famous night haunt after Studio 54), the brand new mega-club - sorry, hyperclub - had very big shoes to fill. A staged UFO sighting was pushed on social media to fuel the pre-hype train, even picking up Hollywood exile Will Smith along the way.

Will was also there when the club finally opened in June and massive crowds flocked to see what all the fuss was about. It was clear that the island’s nocturnal eco-system had been irrevocably altered.

It’s no secret that the family that owns UNVRS casts a colossal shadow over the entire island, commanding a portfolio that encompasses several other major clubs, a string of hotels, restaurants, and construction enterprises that built the island’s hospital and still own the airport. No surprise then, that the local rumour mill is aflutter about the cause of clamp-downs on smaller venues, from legendary club Underground to the ban on DJ sets at Sa Trinxa and even an attempted prohibition of sunset drums at Benirrás beach on Sundays. Many point to the daily demand of having to fill a five-figure capacity venue every night, which sucks the oxygen out from everywhere else. Some have even likened the emergence of UNVRS to a gaping black hole, it’s all-devouring appetite for people and profits crowning it the Black Rock of Balearic nightlife.

But what if this hot-ticket hyperclub was just a meta-reflection for what’s happening globally in 2025? Another modern vacuum where private equity meets might-is-right, culture turns consumptive, and the spell of celebrity worship creates yet another circular spectacle of soul-numbing paralysis.

Writing for L’Officiel in August, I mused about the experiential-ness of living through Ibiza’s summer from start to finish, which I likened to the feeling of gliding through an eternal dance floor in the afterlife.

"Everyone you know - or have ever known – seems to swirl around you. A circle of friends provides the first line of defence and fun. Cast an eye a little farther, though, and apparitions from past lives start floating into view. They’re all here – that forgotten ex, a former colleague, even a classmate from primary school – all clutching their summer dreams, all unwitting cameos drenched under the club spotlights.

There’s a hyper-real dimension to this high-season hereafter, as well, with an uproariously random cast of famous faces jumping from screens and social feeds into the peripheral playground. Is that Ali G in the DJ booth? What are Bezos and Leo chatting about in the corner? I swear Natalie Imbruglia just brushed past me…. why does Travis need such an endless entourage?

But now that I think about it, surviving the Ibizan summer is more like getting through a semester of high school. The fuzzied sense of self awareness, the swerving into identity crises, the clout-chasing that cudgels everyone from the cool club kids to the spiritual and psychedelic scene. Do you have a plug for that secret villa party? Are you welcome at this VIP table? Did you get clearance to join us on the boat? Getting on that list, the quest to be invited – the feeling of being validated – is all that seems to matter. Being chosen means finally making it.

What Jung called Puer Aeternus and J. M. Barrie immortalised into Peter Pan, this quest to float through a state of eternal teenager-hood really comes alive on the island’s commercial dance floors. Amidst the performative swell of sexual signalling and over-affected projecting, even this escapist enclave is being ebbed away, its youthful soul sucked into the screen of handheld devices.

Which is why we need to talk about how our phone addiction has murdered the mood on the dance floor.

As DJ booths have evolved into elevated altars, adulating fans stare and swarm below, as elaborate AI animations bait further content capture, it’s not unusual to be standing in a motionless crowd and wonder why upwards of 80% of 10,000 people seem so intent on standing still to broadcast to anyone not in the actual room.

Such moments of mass hypnosis provide the most visceral indictment of the way social media continues to have such a reductive effect on actual, organic reality. To think that most of these wide-eyed travellers have worked hard, saved so much, then splurged four figure sums just to arrive in an Ibizan club. So much in fact, that they all feel an innate urge to (boastfully) show the entire virtual world that they’ve finally made it to EDM Mecca. To think that all their effort, all that money and time, amounts to a sub-par reel that is received then reduced into a seconds-long swipe to the left, extinguishing everything that led to this moment with a shrug and a meh.

This dead-end ritual is not only sucking the life out of the club, it’s stultifying the very fabric of liveable, enjoyable reality.

A black hole upon our very existence.

Maybe we’re approaching a tipping point of over-saturation, or maybe Androids are destined to soon start dreaming of electric sheep, but in Ibiza the rampant culture of spectacle, which continues to render every experience into an act of consumption, is still very much the mainframe. Emerging from the spell of disassociation, we’ve now stepped into something even stranger. Instead of tapping out, people are well and truly plugged in; locked into a communal act of broadcast to no-one in particular but also to everyone at the same time. This form of atomised mass surveillance turns everyone into both active producer and passive consumer as we record and attempt to remember everything, all at once. No wonder the world is going to need a bigger data centre.

But even in Ibiza, there are happenings that the content creator hive mind doesn’t capture – or prefers not to see.

This summer, a new human trafficking route was pointed directly onto the shores of Ibiza and sister isle, Formentera. At least 1,500 migrants made the perilous sea journey from North Africa across the Med, first startling sunbathing crowds on the beaches, then bringing emergency shelters to breaking point. Piercing the allure of the summer sand, the darker side of the North-South divide washed ashore several drowned corpses, which may be a clue to the yet-to-be-resolved case of that detached human foot.

For a few weeks, wildfires raged across mainland Spain, blanketing the summer sky with so much smoke that August turned a muted grey, the afternoon sun, a fiery red. As photos were snapped and videos set against the protracted crimson sunset, there was little acknowledgement that this beautiful backdrop was drenched in the palette of pollution, a refraction of the climate catastrophe which burned only a few kilometres over the horizon.

Adding credence to my claim that Ibiza is an epicentre of global power and influence, the misadventures of the elite transcended the mere comings and goings of the newly wed Bezos clan or their tag-along guest Leo, who really did seem to be at one party after another.

Sometimes you just have to spot the super-yachts. In August, Queen Miri - a gaudy blue and yellow, 92m, $70 million affair - berthed in the Ibiza marina to very little fanfare. You might know its owner, who, apart from being a billionaire sixty times over, is one of the central backers of the Trump presidency and overt pushers of Israel’s genocide. That is, according to Trump himself, who had nothing but gushing praise for casino heiress Miriam Adelson during his recent eye-brow-raising, admission-riddled, off-the-cuff speech inside the Israeli Knesset.

Don’t forget the private jets. On August the 9th, Special US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff flew his onto the island for an impromptu pre-Gaza-peace-talks summit with the Qatari Prime Minister. Further details weren’t forthcoming, but the chosen destination for the billionaire link-up showed, once again, why little Ibiza isn’t too far detached from the geopolitical storms brewing just beyond the hazy skyline.

October always ushers in a reality check. Runaway summer ambitions are brought to heel. Life dials back a more serious tune. We are forced to face who we’ve become – or still becoming.

There are only 10 more weeks left of 2025 – and the exhaustion is real. If there’s one message to heed from Ibiza’s quantum mirror, a message which seems to ripple out, Matrix-style, into our collective conscience, it’s that the saviour we all secretly yearn for might not be coming, after all.

The colossi currently steering political, financial, and quasi-cultural power are clearly too busy staking their own self-interested flags in the sand, all funded by attention harvests and money grabs, all revealing very little concern for the values of our precious time or general welfare.

The rains may have finally swept away the smoke hanging over the Mediterranean, but even with the flood waters lapping at their heels, those down on the ground seemed intent on one final dance. Just one more chance to sparkle, to be noticed, to have someone heed their silent squeal for help in the middle of a floor bereft of motion.

But that saviour is still nowhere to be seen, meaning these same people will jet into the sky and let the next wave of wide-eyed seasonal travellers to dance with one imminent truth. Storm clouds always return, but sooner or later, we’re going to have to stop pouring our attention into any perpetual broadcast, to truly unplug and start showing up for ourselves.

The ColourFeel Dispatch is written by a souled human being. No LLMs, predictive text, or algorithms were employed in the making of these narratives. All ideas are received rather than formulated, all thoughts shared not targeted. The above words have been thoughtfully tailored for your inspiration, enjoyment, and ongoing expansion.   

If you'd like to read about a more inspirational side to the island and discover Ibiza's fertile fields of creation, please consider buying a limited edition copy of 'Creative Time, Ibiza' - an interactive guide compiled by ColourFeel. 

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