A Dystopian Weekend at Piccadilly Gardens: Manchester’s Doomscroll Ultraviolence Factory
· Vice
This feature is from the spring 2026 issue of VICE magazine, THE NOT THE PHOTO ISSUE. Buy it now—or get 4 issues each year sent straight to your door, by subscribing.
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Maybe you’ve seen the videos. The one where the queer clubbers have their togas torn off as they go blow-for-blow in a brawl with hoodlums in lacquered puffer jackets, throwing fists and taking flying crutches to the face while a circle of braying streamers broadcasts the dismal scenes to a watching world.
Or maybe it was the one where “hundreds of school kids run riot” outside Costa Coffee, or the rogue Deliveroo driver gets half a can of mace in his eyes from six inches away, or the man goes around karate chopping teenage boys in balaclavas.
Or perhaps, like me and so many others, you’ve seen some of it in the flesh: the woman getting sectioned while facing down a wall of iPhone screens, the savage domestic assault outside the Labubu shop, the blood on the pavement, the fireworks going off, the dizzying coalescence of violence, commerce, protest, preaching, hedonism, and destitution that happens here almost every weekend.
“For every moment of human misery that takes place here, there is a band of vultures looking to capture it”
These flashes of the violent surreal are all emanating from one place: Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens, a public square in the heart of post-industrial Britain that has become a (or perhaps the) physical frontline of doomscroll street violence. Previously home to a clay pit, a mental institution, and the sharp end of the 2017 spice1 crisis, the gardens have recently been seized upon by a band of content creators who view them as the spectacular epitome of a failed district, in a failed city, in a failed nation, inextricably bound to a failing continental project.
Search “Piccadilly Gardens” on Instagram, X, TikTok, or Facebook, and you’ll find a production line of bleak, dystopian images. Those offering them up to the world gather there nearly every night of the week, phones and cameras aloft expectantly, ready to push out chaos and despair to audiences watching far, far away. In the late 1800s, Manchester was “Cottonopolis,” a city at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Today, this place is a very different kind of factory, one that specializes in churning out deep viral dread.
This is what happens when the ancient tradition of boozy British street aggro collides with our tech-heavy present. The images feel like something new and entirely of their time, like a flagship Saturday night talent show spotlighting the country’s leading practitioners of bad vibes, precision engineered to fire the nerves of users gleefully evolving into slop-brained accelerationist dopamine pumps.
picture by jay chow picture by thurston fosterPiccadilly Gardens is now known worldwide, the replies to the videos filmed there invariably full of international commenters transposing their own tribal gripes onto street-shot northern English snuff. Local content creators roam the streets of Manchester winding up everyone from drug addicts to drug dealers to gig-economy serfs to private-security forces, not sparing the middle-aged men who frequent the city’s al-fresco cruising spots—all while making grandiose pronouncements about the collapse of British identity.
Having walked through the gardens maybe 20 times in my life, I’d never really seen this side of it before—the heady mix of Kensington, Philadelphia and Kowloon Walled City it’s often presented as. Rather, it just seemed like the rest of Manchester city center: a chaotic, heaving interzone of trams, tents, Joy Division murals, and rose-chrome-laden restaurants serving truffle fries, all overseen by that famously pallid sky and hotels that look like Serbian government offices. But then again, I’ve only ever passed through. I’ve never really stood around and got to know it properly.
So, is Piccadilly Gardens really some semi-autonomous zone where feral gangs battle for supremacy like a Grok-made version of The Warriors? Or is it really no more prone to chaos than any other focal point of any other major city? As so often seems to be the case these days, the task at hand was to work out if the images show the true picture.
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We arrive in Manchester on the bitter cusp of December, and the gardens appear to be in the midst of a sea change. An immense, faux-alpine Christmas market has taken over the square, snaking all the way up to the Arndale shopping center with stalls selling everything from eggnog cocktails to Korean hot dogs to “rubber ducks from Germany.” The queue for Philadelphia cheesesteaks is one that would give Manchester’s premier superclub the Warehouse Project a run for its money.
At around 8PM, we see our first incident. A 30-something woman is lying prostrate on the pavement. She screams for her mother at the top of her lungs, the whites of her eyes beaming through the morass of combat trousers, and onto a dozen or so pointed screens, as the rubberneckers are held back by outsourced security.
A youngster gets in a copper’s face with his phone and demands to know what’s going on. But this is no Good Samaritan; he is visibly amused by the woman’s distress, and intent on winding up the police. For every moment of human misery that takes place here, there is a band of vultures looking to capture it. To me, it looks a lot like voyeurism disguised as citizen journalism. But then again, what are we doing here?
“The woman getting sectioned while facing down a wall of iPhone screens, the savage domestic assault outside the Labubu shop, the blood on the pavement, the fireworks going off, the dizzying coalescence of violence, commerce, protest, preaching, hedonism, and destitution that happens here almost every weekend”
“Mental episode, bro,” says Michael,* a teenager in a puffer jacket and Diesel hat who has come to watch. We get talking, and Michael, who hails from Moss Side, tells us he’s been hanging around Piccadilly Gardens all his life. “I had my first arrest over there,” he points out, wistfully. “The coppers are twats; they take it out on everyone else… but overall, it’s a decent place.”
“When I grew up, this place [Manchester] was the devil,” he continues. “You’d hear gunshots, cars screeching, and house robberies every night. But now they’re revamping the place.” He flashes us a pretty benign-looking penknife, then a grin, before disappearing into the crowd.
photo by thurston fosterRight now, authorities are trying to stem the chaos in the gardens, with limited success. Alongside the private security goons and the various police units, a new force of order has appeared in the area: a band of semi-authoritative “TravelSafe officers” who patrol the bus and tram stops in gray Arctic-combat-style fatigues that make them look like the NPC grunts from Metal Gear Solid. Controversial facial-recognition units have also been installed. The overall effect is a kind of temporary gentrification, kicking the hooligans and the homeless up the road, leaving throngs of tourists and daytrippers to spend their money in peace. “There’s no mandem here today,” we overhear one local saying.
Walking further into the bowels of the city, the novelty hospitality matrix is in full flow. A Michael Jackson impersonator runs through his “Smooth Criminal” routine in front of some garden furniture; a man in a wheelchair blasts “Party Rock Anthem” from a specially converted DJ booth; and teams of pissed-up couples in Christmas jumpers and pleather trousers stumble through the streets, mulled wine in hand. The queue for the Labubu shop hemorrhages into Market Street. A harrowed, agitated man asks if we know anyone selling cocaine, and when we say we don’t, he screams, “Fuck it, I’m going to Crackadilly Gardens,” a nickname the square has acquired in recent months.
It all feels rather surreal and completely unsustainable, like the dashboard sequences from Taxi Driver run through some kind of slop filter. These are rich visual pickings for anyone who has a problem with Britain in 2025. I head back to the budget hotel we’re staying in, and there are police in the lobby.
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The next morning, beneath the gardens’ famously birdshit-encrusted statue of Queen Victoria, two very different camps of activists have gathered.
On my right, a pro-Palestine group is beginning one of its regular marches through the city. Its membership is diverse, including aging hippies, fey students, fey lecturers, and Mancunian Muslims.
Joining them are a very different crowd: a ragtag band of conservative and Christ-pilled content creators who, apparently, also come here every weekend—to counter-protest the march, livestream on expensive camera gear, and make snide comments about “the Fall of Europe.” It becomes clear very quickly that nobody wants to speak to us. “Sorry lad, don’t talk to mainstream media,” says a young man with startling ginger facial hair and a “Make Britain Great Again” cap. A distinct sense that everyone here is performing for a remote audience rears up.
photo by thurston fosterPiccadilly Gardens has been the center point of Manchester’s political scene for many years. As far back as the Victorian era it was a gathering place for trade unionists and suffragettes, and in the 20th century it was the site of anti-fascist demonstrations and CND marches. The likes of Emmeline Pankhurst, Bertrand Russell, and Tony Benn have all climbed a soapbox here. But today, the star of the show is a YouTuber from Liverpool called Billy Moore, a former boxer and Thai jailbird who now spends his days documenting the alleged collapse of Britain. He isn’t too shy to dish out a few slaps in the process.
While Moore wanders about, recording everyone on the sly, the red-haired English Trumper mutters about Christians being killed in Nigeria and Sudan into his phone. A ravaged-looking bloke with a huge wheel-along crucifix has also emerged onto the scene, and on his cheap, light-up backpack scrolls of text appear: Bible verses and the immortal maxim “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Weeks later, an X account flags the ginger guy as a convicted pedophile.
The march begins, quickly descending into a mortifying Mexican standoff. As the protest speeds along Portland Street, past the brutalist Mercure hotel and a branch of Don Tacos2, the right-wingers get their lenses in the faces of the protesters, jeering, shouting catchphrases from the internet, and falling over backwards into the street.
The police join the clamor with their own video crew, while the man with the crucifix, struggling beneath the weight of his cross, has to be helped along. Despite the fact they have more cameras than Sky, the right wingers do not like our small point-and-shoot number at all, and the ginger man screams in our face, “They’re [antifascist magazine] Searchlight! They’re Searchlight! You’re communists. Communists, boys!”
picture by thurston fosterIt’s a fascinating manifestation of the paranoid world we live in. Here are two camps, both of which believe they are valiantly upholding humanity, locked in an officially scheduled, heavily policed, livestreamed proxy street war. The fact that they mingle freely before the protest begins only adds to the feeling of organized futility.
“You should speak to the bloke in the mobility scooter,” laughs a police liaison officer. “He’s here every week.”
As I stand staring, Piccadilly Gardens starts to feel like England’s answer to the Colosseum or the campus of Columbia college: a designated arena of rage.
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That afternoon, we return to the gardens. The Christmas market is in full effect with stalls hawking scrambled pancakes and matcha concoctions; there are designated “karaoke islands” and a woman belting out “Seven Nation Army” on a podium while the scent of donut sugar hangs in the air. Behind the gardens heaving citizenry move in all directions; some carrying bright yellow Selfridges bags, others their entire worldly possessions.
One of the things that strikes you about Piccadilly Gardens is how hard it is to avoid. The square has long been seen as a civic design failure. In an architecturally inclined YouTube video titled “Is Piccadilly Gardens the Worst Public Space in the World?”, one creator sums it up: “You can’t sit here and enjoy some peace and quiet from the hectic city around you. You can’t gather here in any decent number for celebrations, parades, protests, or public speaking. It’s hard to flow through on foot, and it doesn’t invite you to sit down. It’s surrounded by buses, tramlines, and derelict retail units.” It is not a place that is going to win a RIBA award anytime soon.
The gardens boast an impressive ability to resist gentrification. When Japanese architect Tadao Ando, who has put up museums and mega-homes all over the world, was commissioned to build a sprawling concrete edifice on the edge of the square, locals quickly started referring to it as “the Berlin Wall,” the grand designs of this idealist reduced to a sarcastic proto-meme in typically Mancunian manner. In 2022, ice-cream brand Magnum created minor uproar with a billboard sneering: “Magnum… the only thing that can make lying on Piccadilly Gardens even better.”
Yet many remain protective of the place. “People love to describe it as some Mad Max hellscape where nobody gets out alive,” says Joe, a doorman who works in the city. “It’s an easy place to go and wind up poor people and black and brown people, and some people see that as a cash cow. Most in Manchester know it’s not the nicest place in the world, but it’s nowhere near the lawless frontier it’s depicted as.”
photo by thurston fosterBack in the market, one straggler catches my attention. He has a shock of white hair, a high-vis donkey jacket, and nails painted black. He is eating a tray of luminescent Chinese food while talking at a selfie stick. Like many in the vicinity, he appears to be “going live.” I’m sure I hear him claiming the food he’s eating is actually pigeon.
It turns out he is Christian Smith, a YouTuber of some description. As we approach, Smith launches into a friendly verbal assault. To begin with he seems almost woke, talking about “bringing people together” and how we’re “all the same, really.” But then I notice the logo on his jacket, “UTK” (Unite the Kingdom was the name of a nationalist rally held in London in fall 2025), and I realize that when he’s talking about hotels, he’s talking about hotels, the ones controversially housing migrants.
photo by thurston fosterBefore cheerfully bidding us farewell, Smith hands over a business card, which reads: “UNITY RAISING THE FLAG. Facebook. UK Bat Shit Bonkers Britain. YouTube. @christiansmith5590.” In the distance, a street preacher stands on a plinth, talking about Jesus. “He was a carpenter… he lived in obscurity!” he bellows. A girl with rollers in her hair walks past gossiping about Sonny Fodera. Another woman hands me a religious pamphlet. It’s about what’s happening in Nigeria. Global horrors manifest in the most banal of settings, surrounded by Christmas shoppers.
Back in the hotel, taking a breather, I look up Christian Smith’s YouTube channel. It turns out he has 17 subscribers and the catchphrase “Shacklackaloo.” What strange heroes we have created.
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Later, people have gathered at the gardens, waiting for the evening’s violence. Likely, they are hoping for something big and loud, to be shared online for the day and then swiftly forgotten about.
And eventually, it arrives, in the grimmest form possible. Photographer Jay sees the worst of it: a brief shoving incident outside McDonald’s that turns into a vicious hook to the jaw and a crash to the pavement. And then, a man who (allegedly) assaults his wife before being served up by vigilantes. Could this happen anywhere? Of course. Does it feel more heightened, more reliable, more de rigueur in Piccadilly Gardens? Probably.
Yet, for all the chaos, there are flashes of humanity. In the infamous queer clubber brawl video, there is a moment where someone in the crowd hands one of the wounded a tissue to wipe away the blood. In another clip, a heavily tattooed Dutchman tries to argue with local youths, but is swiftly whisked away by a long-term drug addict, who keeps telling him he doesn’t want him to get hurt—and that the people threatening him are really “just kids.”
Speaking to the people who while away their days here, you’ll find all sorts of fascinating and tragic narratives, perspectives, and experiences that draw people to the gardens. Stories that are mostly lost in the clamor to provoke and condemn.
We strike up a conversation with Derrin, a long-time rough sleeper around the gardens who grew up in the city. “It’s always evolving,” he explains. “It’s gone from a place where homeless people were welcomed to being turfed out… the police try to stop people from seeing us. We just want to get on with our lives. We just want to relax here, because it’s home to us.”
On our way back to the station, we bump into Michael from Moss Side again. He seems agitated and tells us that he’s been kicked out of home. Where’s he headed? Back to the gardens, of course.
It strikes me that Piccadilly Gardens is a place where lost people can go to feel alive. Here, you can hide among the pack, near-invisible, yet very much part of something. There is an overwhelming temptation to look at it as a skid row with a Blank Street Coffee stuck in the middle, but it’s also a place with several tight, distinct communities, many of whom are trying to make a quick buck. We stand and watch another street preacher, who booms his interpretation of scripture into the damp sky. “I used to be a sinner,” he cries. “I used to be a womanizer.” His eyes are flaring, and he seems too lost in the moment to talk, but one of his assistants, Kevin, gladly obliges.
“How do you feel about preaching in Piccadilly Gardens?” we ask. “It’s a nice place. Very beautiful,” he replies, without a hint of cynicism. But are there not many sinners here, we wonder? “There are sinners everywhere,” he smiles.
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Editor’s notes:
1 Spice is the street name of a synthetic cannabinoid that was sold in local head shops and once used so liberally in Piccadilly Gardens that the area became infamous for its “statue people” or “spice zombies,” who would stand frozen in position in broad daylight, under the punishing, transportive effects of the drug.
2 You wonder how many anxious board-room meetings have been called by the brands whose branches and logos appear in the background of the Piccadilly Gardens horror footage—and how many subsequent Uber Eats orders that exposure generates, subliminally, among those lost in the doomscroll.
*Names have been changed to protect identities.
This feature is from the spring 2026 issue of VICE magazine, THE NOT THE PHOTO ISSUE. Get four issues each year, sent straight to your door, by subscribing here.
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