On a gloomy Wednesday evening, my best friend and I decided we wanted to scratch our singing itch. We searched for a pub that was hosting karaoke but couldn’t find anything in our area. So we headed to the local branch of a well-known private-booth karaoke bar instead. But it wasn’t just the astounding £18 per hour (per person!) charge or the poor sound quality that made the whole experience so profoundly sad.

Private karaoke booths are sticky little cubicles for people who like singing but don’t want to be seen. They’re places where you pay a premium to avoid rubbing shoulders with strangers or making new connections. The whole point is to avoid exposure to the real world, which fundamentally misunderstands the power of........

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