So I’m going to sound old a hell but back in my day a concerts even for famous bands, were much, much, much cheaper even accounting for inflation and I would argue that that’s a bigger driver than some nebulous crap this author is offering up about people not being taught how to act from the quoted "etiquette expert"s.
Nowadays I can kind of understand because now with paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, for a ticket, I wouldn’t want to miss a single second of a concert if I’m paying out the nose for tickets driving more people to do whatever they need to so they don’t lose their spot that they spent way too much money for thanks to monopolies and spent way too long waiting for their prime spot.
I’m pretty sure I saw Green Day for like $20 in a place a little bigger than my house after Dookie came out. Billie Spit on me
I don’t like Green Day anymore, but my gut says tickets are like $100 and I’ll be so far away I have to watch them on a giant TV
I saw Green Day at a house party once. They played in the kitchen.
I can kind of understand because now with paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, for a ticket, I wouldn’t want to miss a single second of a concert
Shitting your pants, though?
Oh, noses are involved all right
People often view concerts as a way to let loose, express themselves, and make the most of the money they’ve spent on the experience
This is a hell of a sentence. Let me emphasize one part of it.
People often view concerts as a way to … make the most of the money they’ve spent on the experience
Man that says a lot. Once something costs $200 you start getting entitled behavior from people who “paid $200 for this.”
Make concerts affordable again.
People often view (expensive purchase) as a way to make the most of (expensive purchase).
Brilliant shit, HuffPost. Heavy hitting journalism as always.
Even inexpensive purchases may be looked at that way! Yeah what they wrote has no meaning.
Peeing oneself at a concert has a long history.
Not sure if shitting oneself has the same background.
Yes, these Gen Zers graduated from high school/college, got their first jobs and started attending concerts and festivals around this time, but they also missed out on fundamental life lessons due to their severely limited social contact and interaction (from roughly 2020-2022).
I know different people reach developmental milestones at different times, but potty training is usually complete well before high school graduation.
Nobody likes a bragger, mate 👍
Semi relatedly apparently there’s some big problem with American children not being potty trained nowadays.
Parents legitimately expect public teachers to do this. I’m not kidding. Not all of them obviously but in my partners class of like 25 1st graders about 5 kids were not poddy trained and one parent legit said she thought the school was going to do it. Like wtf lady did your 1st grade teacher poddy train you or something?
I have a shitton of memories from very young and I don’t even remember not being able to go to the toilet myself.
I didn’t potty train my children cause I was told that the children who had been potty trained has been overtaken by the woke-mind virus mob.
How presidential of them.
Loud talking during performances. When — and why — did we start acting like undersocialized animals
Loud talking?? At a concert?! Animals! 🙄
I’m not surprised that with absurd monopoly-driven ticket prices, some people will decide that an hour long bathroom wait is not what they paid for.
We don’t need to be pearl clutching about pandemic related difficulties with socialisation to explain what’s going on at concerts. Firstly, the windows for learning soft skills are in childhood and the pandemic was only 5 years ago. The affected cohort would be like 9-13ish.
So if the concert-pooping is all those 10y/o kids at coachella, maybe that’s the cause. But otherwise i think we can all safely ignore what an “ettiquette expert” has to say.
It’s not even waits at bathroom lines (which are fine once the show starts). It’s the simple act of having to leave your spot. The fomo is that strong.
They don’t want to give up their spot on the rail. And they lack the confidence/assertiveness to work their way through the crowd back to their spot.
The general lack of proper crowd etiquette and insistence on being part of the show I attribute to streamer/online culture. It’s not enough to be there, you’ve got to be acknowledged. This does predate the pandemic. But what the pandemic did was give these already learned behaviors a void of a couple years for those behaviors to fester without check.
So, I wasn’t wrong in my reasons for not going to concerts anymore. 1, they’re too fucking expensive anymore. B, people seem to suck at being in public nowadays.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve just become older and grumpier or if society has slid farther and farther away from what should be considered normal public behavior.
Go to shows at small venues, smaller shows have smaller prices. I’ve seen some great shows from headliner artists for under $50. Cheapest I ever saw was a few years ago, $9 to see Slipknot from 10-50ft away. And by a few years I mean 2 or 3, not 10 or 20. Sign up for newsletters from local venues and your favorite artists, check websites for schedules, you’d be surprised what pops up.
Also never had someone poop on the ground at one of those.
One of the last places I enjoyed here in San Diego is closing. Small, bar has a good a view of the stage, big names showed semi-regularly, and tickets were still always about 30 bucks.
Last big show I saw was Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan. Shouldn’t have gone, seeing those guys so meek and unintelligible was just sad. There may have been stage shits during that tour but no crowd poops.
Some comment in here suggested certain artists might attract certain shitty fans.
I’ve been to 6 concerts this year. You don’t have to be part of the insane rail crowd. I’ve done a mix: one stadium, one arena, 2 midsize places, 2 downright small places. I don’t do GA when it’s in the big places, I take a seat. But, everywhere else, I’ve never smelled a floor shit. People aren’t ridiculous at my shows, but maybe that’s just the crowd being different. I usually have no interest in the current mainstream headliners, so maybe that’s why I’m missing out. But, at each, I get to be the boring crossed arm guy swaying on the back rail. I usually slide up for a song or two for the view before sinking back.
But still, they can be expensive. I have a limit. I’ve caught a couple deals buying resale the same day as the show. I get it if that’s the ultimate deciding factor. But if you enjoy the music and the artist performs well live, I’d recommend at least trying a show before assuming everyone shits on the floor.
I haven’t been to that many, but I’ve been to a few smaller concerts in the last couple years, and they were great experiences with the crowd. And these are heavy metal shows. Many years ago, someone spilled beer on me at one of those shows, and while I was annoyed, I was also glad that they hadn’t spilled it on the cast that was on my left arm. They apologized.
I saw a woman carrying a baby (with ear protection for the baby) at the most recent concert I saw. No idea if she was a huge fan of one of the bands or possibly the spouse of one of the band members.
One of the last places I enjoyed here in San Diego is closing. Small, bar has a good a view of the stage, big names showed semi-regularly, and tickets were still always about 30 bucks. No floor shits.
Taylor Farms?
Taylor Farms remembers.
How are people not getting beat the fuck up for this? I hate to be the “back in my day” guy but I have seen vicious beat downs on misbehaving jerks at concerts all the way through the 2Ks.
Kids these days haven’t been punched in the face enough and it shows.
Be the change you want to see
Punch yourself in the face
It doesn’t have the same impact if you do it yourself.
Not with that attitude
Why does everyone always talk about my attitude?
It needs adjustment. Here, use my attimeter
Ok Boomer 😆
Ok millennial
For the past 20 years, we’ve been working on being less violent, more tolerant. There are a lot of advantages and a few disadvantages in that.
It would be fantastic if people had a sense of shame.
yeah, not enough do. Especially not enough rich people
Because in concerts, you generally won’t get away with something like that. Security isn’t just tighter at the door.
It’s the Mad Pooper! Aka the buttler.
Poopetrator
What poops at midnight baby!
And so he says to me, ‘you wanna be a bad guy?’ and I say, ‘Yeah baby! I wanna be bad!’ I say 'SURF’S UP, SPACE PONIES! I’m making gravy without the lumps! ’ AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Darn, I don’t get the reference. But still love you as a human being.
The Tick (animated).
Fantastic weird show ;)
Damn, I remember that show but not the reference! I’m loosing it man!
Not to excuse the public defecation, but their reasoning seems spurious at best. The 2 “experts” in the story sound like a couple of old curmudgeons. "These damn kids today got no respect. Back in my day… "
Well, I’m 40 and been to my fair share of concerts and fests, never even heard of people shitting in the crowds so they don’t lose their spot. Heard of and seen a sneaky piss some where or some genuine runny accidents. I’ve yanked my own broken nose straight at the edge of a mosh pit but I’ve never heard of people shitting their pants to hold a spot, nothing near creating a public shitting trend so bad artists are addressing it prior to their show.
Back in my day this wasn’t a thing; you kids are weird.I have a feeling it’s not a thing in this day either. Getting “they have litter boxes in classrooms now” vibes
Also very likely.
Dibs on the band name Genuine Runny Accidents
Just give me some royalties or a writing credit on something.
We’ll definitely give you credit. “We were looking for a perfect name and JamesTBagg had Genuine Runny Accidents”
Is it the ghost of G.G. Allin?
“Gen Z etiquette expert”
Never seen shit like that at a Metallica/Korn, Breaking Ben/Three Days Grace/etc. concert.
Maybe it’s the fans of those artists that are the problem, not an entire generation (my kids know better)
Three days grace and Korn in the same sentence
“I ain’t never seen anyone shit themselves at a Korn show”
Meanwhile at Korn shows
His lawyers say he did not carry out the alleged acts and had been the victim of a purposeful drugging incident against his consent and that this had caused his disorientation.
“I swear your honor, I was on someone else’s drugs!” is enough to get your case thrown out? Holy shit.
Maybe take Imodium before the concert so you don’t need to take a shit for many hour then take an exact to loosen back up after the concert.
I would suggest, rather than xlax, use a suppository. Otherwise you’re gonna be a rather uncomfortable for a few hours while it works its way to the brick.
I find it funny how this also coincides with the generation that loves Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate, and turned out more conservative than their grandparents. Willing to bet that this is a mainly male phenomenon, if not 100% men doing it.
Pete Hegseth: Hey look everybody, Andrew Tate shit his pants.
Andrew Tate: Of course I shit my pants, all men shit their pants. It’s the manliest.
Pete Hegseth: Really?
Andrew Tate: YES. You ain’t a man, unless you shit your pants.
Pete Hegseth: Hey look, Joe Rogan shit his pants too. Alright!
Donald Trump: If shitting your pants is manly, consider me Supreme Andrew Tate.
Andrew Tate: OOH. That was the manliest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Let’s go!
All they need to do is “flush” the pit every show.
Like, back in the day, that was just how it worked.
The closest area to the stage was separated, the only way to get in was a guardrailed line from one side, after every artist, the area was completely emptied to the opposite side. Then ideally staff could do a quick 15 minute clean sweep while the stage changes, they can clear out, and the next batch released.
That’s the only way to keep it sanitary
But that’s all extra cost, it’s cheaper to just leave one giant field and let the nonvips act like animals.
They try to make people move between stages by playing drastically different acts in a row, but it just means they don’t even enjoy what they’re waiting thru.
I stopped going to big festivals a while ago, the people running them just don’t know what they’re doing. It’s not like they need to come up with ideas, they just need to go back to what always worked.
Organizers think they can achieve the same effect by having one show starting at a neighboring stage as one ends.
But nothing ever runs on time so it all goes out the window the moment there’s a 15 minute delay.
