Ari Lowkey Thinks Gen Z Has a Point with ‘Low-key’ — But Nearly Gets into a Ryder Cup Brawl Trying to Prove It

“Go back home you damn Leprechaun!” one very large man shouted from behind the tee box. Aristotle and I visibly winced.

“You suck, McIlroy!” he continued. “USA! USA!”

Ari, Dunk and I had been looking forward to our Ryder Cup golf excursion for months. We were fully decked out in our red Ryder Cup 2025 Team USA ventilated polo shirts and our New Era team uniform caps in light gray. But this first day of competition was not turning out as we’d expected. The European team was crushing Team USA in the early going and the fans were unruly, to say the least.

Then, it got much worse. Ari, my deeply philosophical pal, inadvertently shot a look of disdain at the unruly fan, who noticed the slight and responded aggressively.

“You got a problem with what I said?” he boomed at Ari. “You think you’re better than me! I’ve been heckling athletes ever since Tonya Harding had that oh-so-proper Nancy Kerrigan billy clubbed in the knee.”

“I tell you what,” he continued. “If I don’t hear you lobbing some insults at that jerk Rory McIlroy before he tees off, I’m going to take out my frustrations on your face!”

“But,” Ari began, “I was lowkey just…”

“Shut up and make some noise!” he screamed, moving closer to Ari. “If you’re for Team USA, then show it or I’ll make this tee box look like WrestleMania!”

Ari backed away and fell deep into thought. Dunk sipped aggressively on her iced coffee. I’m not sure where she procured it at the Bethpage Black course, but she has her ways. For my part, I wondered how we were going to get out of this mess with Ari still in one piece.

Ironic that this happened to Ari, of all people, given his new “low-key” approach to life. Ari explained it to us in detail as we gathered at his place Friday morning so we could head to the tournament together.

When we arrived, Ari’s apartment was dark, but the lights were all on. He’d apparently put in lower wattage bulbs. Soothing jazz music was playing. And Ari had redone the décor to remove all the bright colors. Everything was shades of brown, gray and cream.

“This is very relaxing,” Dunk said, tongue-in-cheek. “I should have switched to decaf before coming over!”

“What’s going on, Ari?” I asked. “Everything seems the same, but also very different.”

“Well, I’ve lowkey adopted a new ‘low-key’ approach to life,” he explained. “I’ve been hanging around my Gen Z friends, and they use this terminology all the time. But I decided to study its etymology and, as expected, it seems there’s much more to it.”

“I lowkey use it myself sometimes,” Dunk said. “What did you find?”

Ari explained that, as we all know, Gen Zers use the word lowkey to mean chill and understated. It also has tones of secrecy and authenticity, though sometimes people just flat out use it to mean the opposite.

Low-key came to life in painting and photography in the 1800s, referring to a subdued, calm lighting style. The opposite, high-key lighting, is bright and intense. The phrase was later embraced by musicians as well.

“When Gen Z lowkey slips this word into everyday language, I see it as a bigger statement — the beginnings of a social movement in a world where everything has become as high-key as possible.”

“How so?” Dunk asked.

“Just look,” he said. “Every movie and TV series, which we lowkey watch all the time, is adrenaline packed with stakes so high that it seems like the future of the entire planet hangs in the balance.”

“Look at politics,” Ari continued. “Our leaders are literally screaming at each other, over social media and even in person. It requires a full-on shutdown of the federal government to get them to agree on anything. And then the news media portray everything as a major crisis. Every rainstorm is a Nor’easter. Every misstatement is a gaffe.”

“So, Gen Z,” I jumped in, “by adopting a low-key approach…”

“Is quietly rallying against this,” Ari continued. “Therefore, I’ve decided that I’m lowkey going to adopt the low-key lifestyle myself to see how it works.”

And with that we headed off to Bethpage on Long Island, hoping for a low-key Friday at the Ryder Cup.

“So, what’s it gonna be, quiet boy?” the big, angry fan said, ripping us back into the moment.

“You gonna make some noise or do I need to go Stone Cold Steve Austin on you?”

“Well,” Ari began, “I lowkey think…”

The man stepped close enough that we could smell the stale beer on his breath. Just as it looked like fists were going to fly, Dunk took action.

She slid right up between the big man and Ari, reached forward, grabbed his waistband and dumped the contents of her 24-oz. cup — coffee and plenty of ice cubes — right down the front of his golf shorts.

He jumped up and down, screaming as the coffee iced his family jewels.

“Tee off on that, loudmouth!” Dunk said.

As the man was frantically scooping iced coffee from his shorts, Dunk led us away into the crowd, which was enjoying Dunk’s revenge as much as the golf. Even Rory seemed to crack a grin before striping his drive down the fairway.

“Thanks Dunk!” Ari said as we hurried away. “Though, that really wasn’t a low-key way of handling the situation.”

“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “I lowkey wanted to be low-key. But the minute he got in our face, my instincts took over and I just couldn’t let it go.”

“Good thing you weren’t drinking hot coffee,” I said.

“Yeah,” Ari said. “Then he would have been yelling in a high key — a real-life fairway soprano!”