“Manchester has fallen,” reads a tweet that has been viewed more than a million times. In the video attached, a man who goes by the Schooner Scorer (@schoonerscorer) downs a two-thirds pint and gasps a half-arsed review to a cameraman who moves like he’s broken the seal. Believe it or not, this is the shtick that’s earned him hundreds of thousands of followers (341,000 and counting) and millions of views.
“This is why I never want to move to London,” reads one reaction. The association stings, but it’s true: Schooner and his fellow influencers are a blight on the London pub scene, and time is running out to stop them.
At some point after the pandemic, what you might call the Schoonerati arrived, descending on the capital with a simple goal: to turn the pub into content. From there grew an internet subculture that gave us viral hate-hits like pints, chit chat and good people, and London Pub Culture. Every video is a carbon copy of the other: Gen Zs flock to London boozers, dressed to the nines in vintage garms and designer streetwear. Soho bears the brunt of it.
Manchester has fallen pic.twitter.com/CSo9IyjIbp
— The Screen Rot Podcast (@screenrotpod) April 10, 2025
When the pints and chit chat clip received hate, it wasn’t difficult to understand why. Trying to appear relatable while pretending that your local is in Central London, where punters dress like models and pints cost £7, reeked of conceit. It got write-ups in the press as group chats fumed across the nation. For a brief period, the Blue Posts on Berwick Street became the most hated pub in London.
And yet, for the Schoonerati, being unbearable hasn’t reduced their influence. Just go for a night out in east London and you’ll see. The bars of once low-key pubs spill with scrums of Paul Mescal lookalikes who split the G like they’ve just discovered fire. Women clink glasses of “natty” wine and click the heels of their £900 tabis under the table. The occasional whisper can be heard about a place called the Devonshire.
It means, then, that the feeling in pubs has changed. Self-awareness now hangs in the air as everyone tries to maintain their role in a curated mise-en-scène. Don’t believe me? Last week I had a pint in the Faltering Fullback next to a guy wearing a mink coat and Kangol beret.
Scenes like these are a threat to the social contract between pub and punter. Once the great leveller, pubs used to give permission to be unremarkable, softening the edges of competition and hierarchy that exist in the world outside their doors. The influencers have upset this balance, whether they intended to or not. Their popularity relies on being able to heighten normal experiences into something called content.
To sell that content, it has to say: “You’re missing out.” But when applied to something as ordinary as the pub, it has to go further. It has to say: “I’m doing this — pubbing — better than you.”
And so now you don’t just walk into a boozer, sit down and drink a beer with your mates. You peacock with a pint. You join an exhausting performance of status theatre. It escalates and has no end. You find yourself attending midweek drinks in Clapton dressed like you were behind the Fontaines D.C rebrand.
The corners of the pub scene untouched by the Schoonerati are worth defending — yes to the sticky carpets, the warm glow of the fruities, the soft clack of pool balls.
It didn’t have to be like this. It could have been fun. Pubs exist as places for every kind of pint: the crisis pint, the breakup pint, the quiet one you nurse alone. A pub where punters perform instead of just being is no longer a pub — it’s a set. A set but not a scene: scenes are organic, made by people. This isn’t. It’s top-down, enforced by the wiles of the Instagram’s Explore Page. And so most pints in London feel like a competition staged for the trends and algorithms we should be trying to escape.
It seems unlikely the New Londoners will be able to resist this; their idea of London may have come almost entirely from the Schoonerati. Schooner himself is the patron saint of out-of-towners, with a watered down regional accent and a brand that hinges on a concept –the ‘schooner’– that was unheard of in London until the Aussies took over Clapham.
His ilk are accidental recruiters, mapping out London’s coolest nights for fresh-faced Surreyites. Accounts like Top Jaw, which can ram a pub by just mentioning it, serve the same purpose. And so do the meme pages meant to mock London neighbourhoods. They create a shield of irony: we can still act unbearable in Broadway Market, so long as we do it with a wink and a puff of the Lost Mary.
The corners of the pub scene untouched by the Schoonerati are worth defending. When you’re there, you remember what a pub is for: tuning out from the chaos by getting really pissed and not caring how you look doing it. This isn’t The Spurstowe Arms or The Lexington; this is the nation’s living room. Yes to the sticky carpets, yes to the warm glow of the fruities, yes to the soft clack of pool balls.
So next time you’re out on the lash, forget the Explore Page. Wear whatever. Don’t call it a “schooner” or give it a score out of 10. Just drink it. Be present, not performative. That way, the Schoonerati might just be reminded of the magic they were drawn to in the first place, before they ruined it for the rest of us.
