Don’t be a Dick: Follow the Karaoke Rules so Everyone Has a Great Time

There I was, fully sweating through my knock-off Spanx in an impossibly humid outdoor theater in Cancun while some dude named “Adam” hork-bawled his way through his second whiny-bro anthem in a row (in a row!) at the Mexican resort’s karaoke hour. Adam’s first song had been one of the more forgettable wank-rock hits of the oughts—a lesser Lifehouse release, or possibly a Puddle of Mudd deep cut. Bad but tolerable, as is the way of karaoke: The promise of a better performance is always on the horizon. But in this case, next came more of the same. New karaoke technologies that sideline the critical role of the karaoke deejay—the “KJ”—are on the rise, and Adam’s bachelor-party buddies had gamed the resort’s wholly unmoderated virtual queue to put Adam and all his unresolved issues on repeat display. 

And thus, a tragedy: I could do nothing but drink watered-down mango margaritas and wait, cringing while the saddest man in paid paradise sat cross-legged with his back to the crowd, crowing through that Staind song (you know the one). 

Karaoke can go sideways real easily, and poorly managed karaoke is practically guaranteed to self-destruct; nowhere is the phrase “we live in a society” more tenuous. Which makes it that much more important to follow the karaoke rules, which are published nowhere, vary widely, and enforced haphazardly, if at all. The best way to learn the karaoke rules is by simply doing a lot of karaoke, but if you fall into the wrong crowd, you may just as easily learn the wrong rules. A fucking nightmare! 

Great karaoke is a conversation, not a monologue.

I love rules. Though I yell at people quite a bit on the internet and can sometimes come off as kind of a salty bitch, I am also filled with anxiety at the prospect of upsetting the social order in my daily life. I worry a lot about sitting in the wrong plane or train seat, scanning too many items in the express lane, or saying too much or too little to a cashier, receptionist, or bus stop rando. I worry about calling my boss “Mom” or telling the plumber “I love you!” instead of “Thanks.” I worry about ordering off the lunch menu at dinner time, or forgetting my neighbors’ names—or worse, their dogs’ names. 

As an inveterate rule appreciator, it gives me extreme agita to believe that there is even the smallest chance I could be breaking rules not despite, but precisely because, I am in fact trying my hardest to follow them. 

Like, okay: I used to live in a building with a coffee shop on the ground floor. This one time, I was walking home just before the shop closed, when the baristas had already half-shuttered the big front entrance, a rolling garage-door thing. I watched in absolute horror, like truly slow-motion panic, as someone a half-block in front of me clocked the coffee shop, crossed the street, and bent down into an inverted crabwalk to squeeze under the door and, presumably, order a drink. From a practically closed beverage establishment. Full of baristas trying to go the fuck home. What is it like to just do stuff like that!? To pass your every waking moment with absolutely zero compunction whatsoever! How!? Am I the weirdo here? Is the kind of person who would crawl under a garage door to order a coffee at closing time the well-adjusted one in this story, and it’s me who’s bonkers? WHAT EVEN IS THE RULE ABOUT WHO IS BONKERS?

A talented KJ is as irreplaceable as any other skilled service worker. The lack of one really calls into relief the trickle-down effects of the AI-ification of anything and everything, including on the ways we socialize with each other.

So, yeah. Karaoke is perhaps not a natural fit for a person as anxious as I am. Especially not in my preferred karaoke format—bars, ideally of the “dive” variety, rather than private rooms. But I do love it. I really, really do. Maybe my anxious constitution loves karaoke all the more because of the rules, which everyone and no one knows, and everyone and no one agrees on. And look, I don’t even mind a little light rulebreaking. A great karaoke night should be 98 percent rules, two percent exceptions. See that? I just made up a new karaoke rule. 

The way I see it, there are eight primary rules for bar karaoke. You can do whatever you want in your private room rental, but if you’re karaoke-ing in public:

1. No songs over 5 minutes, and ideally, choose songs under 4 minutes long. This is basic courtesy, of the same type you’d use to avoid hogging the conversation at a dinner party. Great karaoke is a conversation, not a monologue. Performances may complement or clash, but the important thing is that there should be as many opportunities as possible for the people who want to sing to do so.
2. No signing other people up without their consent. Please believe your friend who says they are just there to watch. Do not put their name in the queue as a bit. Do not force the KJ to fuck around with trying to find the next person while your buddy who doesn’t want to sing crawls under their chair in self-defense. You are wasting everyone’s time and you’re doing it while being a huge asshole. Shame on you.
3. No showtunes. This is by far my most controversial take. Many consider this rule counterintuitive; why outlaw songs that were literally written to be performed on stage? The first reason is that a lot of the most popular entries in the genre are long as hell, and thus violate rule 1. The second reason is that there is already a place you can go to enjoy your favorite showtunes: the theater. But I don’t have anywhere else I can go to see a six-foot beanpole of a beardy man in Wranglers perform a heartfelt rendition of “Toxic.” Please, let me have this.
4. No “American Pie.” See Rule 1.
5. No “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.” See rules 4, 1.
6. No downers unless you’re prepared to destroy. I love sad bastard music. I love to put my emo faves on repeat and bawl my fucking eyes out. But there’s nothing actually sadder than somebody half-assing their way through “Creep.” It can take three or four songs to pump the vibes back up after they’ve been dismantled by a performer who didn’t put their everything into “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Bringing your worst self to the saddest songs is both rude to the performers who have to follow such fuckery and disrespectful to the audience. 
7. Always tip the KJ. It is a miserable job keeping a bunch of drunk, attention-seeking motherfuckers in line. Even when the KJ is mid or bad, be sure to drop them some cash, and if the KJ is great? Show your appreciation in dollar amounts.

As my recent resort karaoke experience showed, overreliance on inadequate technologies is as much of a problem in the karaoke sphere as it is in the rest of the world. Now, of course resort karaoke was never going to be spectacular. When you give hundreds of people who probably wouldn’t otherwise choose to do karaoke just one entertainment option for an evening, you get what you get. But a talented KJ is as irreplaceable as any other skilled service worker. The lack of one really calls into relief the trickle-down effects of the AI-ification of anything and everything, including on the ways we socialize with each other.

It increasingly feels like the social contract is being held together with string and Scotch tape, which is why it’s really important that we all agree not to let Adam bogart the mic. We owe that to each other. In the absence of principled leadership, the community must care for itself. That means agreeing on how we’ll treat each other and sharing essential information (even if it means I have to repeat myself about “American Pie,” like, I promise that song is so much longer than you think it is, and so, so much more boring).

I know this metaphor is heavy-handed, and I don’t give a flying fuck. Karaoke is a lot like political participation. It’s easy to think karaoke is a waste of time if you only do it once every four years and only because somebody pressured or guilted you into it. But it’s easy to enjoy karaoke if you take a little time to understand it, and to participate in the co-creation of a supportive karaoke community where everyone gets stage time. When you witness the power of great karaoke, performed for and with the people, you’ll yearn for it. You’ll chase it. You’ll work as hard as you can to bring that same joy to others. You’ll make the world a better place … through song. 

Just not through “American Pie.” 

This piece was edited by Chrissy Stroop and copyedited by Nicole Froio.

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