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You Can’t Take An Influencer Anywhere These Days

There’s a new disruption at concerts: Influencers trying to create viral content.

It appears that individuals looking for social media fame and glory are becoming a nuisance at concerts by engaging in wild shenanigans, annoying noises, and demands on artists to play unusual songs.
Check out this article from the Wall Street Journal: Why People Are Getting More Disruptive at Concerts.
Some of them are holding up massive signs to disrupt the other concert-goers.
Some of them are screaming out at inappropriate moments to get the artist’s attention.

Whatever happened to tossing a beach ball around?

Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have contributed to this trend by making it possible for any moment of a concert to go viral.
The behavior of these “influencers” is hurting the concert experience for others.
As if the prices of tickets and artists using a ton of backing tracks weren’t painful enough.

It goes beyond concerts.

We’re hearing about patients who are concerned that their therapists are trying to create content more than help.
We’ve already seen comedians force smartphones into a locked bag prior to entry.

Do these creators and influencers have a right to film and act as they choose?

It seems like the desire to create a quick piece of content to share online has become a buzzkill for everybody else at the show, obstructing views, causing early exits, and creating unruly audiences.
Now, artists are starting to respond to the misbehavior they’re witnessing from the stage, reminding fans that they are there to hear the music, not to make noise and distract from the performances.
Does the debate boils down to this: Are you attending the concert to enjoy live music with like-minded fans, or are you just there to get something for your TikTok channel?

What do you think?

This is what Ken Connors and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM this week. Listen in right here.

Mitch Joel · You Can’t Take An Influencer Anywhere These Days

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Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.