Kandi Culture By Isabel Cook

By Isabel Cook

Kandi, a vibrant bracelet made of pony beads, was born in Southern California in the late 90s. These bracelets took roots in US rave culture, growing into what was known as “Kandi Culture”. Historically handmade and lettered, ravers would exchange these bracelets and do the “PLUR” handshake, often followed by a hug. PLUR stands for peace, love, unity, and respect.

Sometimes, leaving a rave or a music festival brings you to feel the way you did as a child leaving all of your new friends from summer camp. When you combine music, an ultimate connector, and those devoted to experiencing it, there is no doubt that people form intense connections in a short period of time. More than an accessory or a peace offering, Kandi is a way to break the ice. My best friend and roommate always says that the first form of communication is eye contact– the moment that two people choose to acknowledge each other’s existence rather than looking away. In rave culture, the second form of communication is exchanging Kandi.

I had no idea what it was when attending my first ever music festival– Bonnaroo. As I walked around in the slow-drying mud and blazing sun that resulted from erratic Tennessee weather, It felt like I was absorbing a new world all at once. The only consistency I noticed between the bewildering array of outfits were stacks and stacks of colorful bracelets on people’s arms. When our campsite was finished and we were ready to explore the 10-acre field, my roommate pulled out bracelets of her own. She had just returned from a small music festival in rural Kentucky, and conversely she was holding adorable bracelets with vulgar words spelled out in pony beads. To me, they were reminiscent of the ‘silly bands’ that I traded in elementary school. Immediately I connected what I was seeing to the playful, childlike aesthetics that often appear at raves.

I bashfully watched her run up to strangers, like a child about to show their mom the firefly they caught in their hands. Instead, I watched many beautiful interactions unfold, often including the PLUR handshake and an embrace. Sometimes watching someone you know meet new people is like meeting them again for the first time. I wondered if it was Kandi that made the environment so amiable, or if the nature of the group of people gathering would inevitably have a special means of connection.

To many people, Kandi is not just jewelry. It is something handmade to welcome strangers into a new environment, an opportunity to meet someone new, and a way to spread peace, love, unity, and respect. Thinking about Kandi makes me consider human nature. I think that it is a beautiful thing to go out of your way to improve an experience for others or meet someone new for nothing in return. In our current culture, many relationships are beginning to be viewed as merely transactional. What if an inherently transactional interaction, like trading bracelets, is actually the antithesis of that culture?