By Staff
By: Dominique Lopez
With places having less restrictions and venues fully opening up to patrons since the 2020 quarantine, concert attendance has been at an all-time high.
Many artists have been on tour within the past year like Harry Styles, The Weeknd, and Olivia Rodrigo, just to name a few.
But it seems like lately, many of those in attendance at their concerts are there for the popularity and to have a reason for content on social media rather than being there to enjoy the music.
Many have seen this popularity battle when at big music festivals such as Coachella, but it’s slowly making its way to actual venue-held concerts.
Although Coachella isn’t considered a concert, it is a bunch of small concerts under one big festival, which is where most people have seen clout-chasing happen on social media.
This popularity race is now making its way to regular concerts, using Harry Styles as an example. Styles recently just wrapped up a 15-night residency (three of which got moved to January 2023), at the Kia Forum in Inglewood.
On Twitter and TikTok, people in attendance have shared videos of them camped-out to be at the barricade, which is the closest someone could be to Styles, on their phones and appearing like they are not enjoying the concert at all.
Incidents like this have happened at The Weeknd concert as well.
An anonymous source claimed that while they were in attendance at The Weeknd concert, they were sitting on the floor and they overheard other people next to them that they hardly knew any songs, and they were only there to show that they went.
Clearly, this shift in concert culture is a big one and not many people are going for the actual music and to appreciate the artist, but to show to all of social media that they’re there.
It’s insulting to fans who were not able to get tickets to these concerts and equally as insulting to the artist, because their real fans aren’t in attendance. Hopefully, this race for popularity and clout-chasing culture at concerts dies down, so the real fans can be there to support.
