TikTok may be a concert buzzkill

The Future. Concerts are routinely getting disrupted by people trying to go viral on TikTok. The phenomenon is exhausting for artists and annoying to fans who actually came to listen to them. The interruptions show the dark side of reducing artists and songs down to a buzzy clip… and may lead some musicians to actively avoid the short-form circus, even if it hurts their reach.

Muting artists
Some fans may be going to concerts just to go viral.

• Fans are showing up with large signs that they keep up the whole time or screaming to get an artist’s attention, to ask to come up on stage. or to play an odd cover.
• While disruption has always been part of the concert experience, more are now doing it in order to craft a viral moment for a TikTok.

So, the disruption is purely performative for 15 seconds of fame… and artists are noticing that they’re just fodder for TikTok. After multiple screaming interruptions at shows, Maggie Rogers had to go on TikTok to tell people to cool it.

Clipped
Additionally, some artists may be noticing that TikTok has created some other weird habits at concerts.

• At Steve Lacey concerts, people sing along to “Bad Habit”… but only the parts they recognize from TikTok snippets.
• People are showing up to I Prevail concerts, but only staying for the opener, Pierce the Veil, who blew up on TikTok last year.

It’s just further proof that the closest thing we may have to a mainstream culture is whatever is hot on TikTok… at least until it gets banned.