PSA: It’s Not Cool To Take Pics Of People Hooking Up At Music Festivals
If you’ve been to a music festival before, you’ve probably seen some more than ratchet occurrences. Perhaps you watched two chicks strip naked and start making out in the crowd of a Bassnectar show, maybe you saw a guy whip his dick out in excitement for a Bieber concert. More than anything, you’ve likely seen tons of people hooking up in the open field, grass, or whatever venue accompanies said music festival.
With the increasing popularity of Snapchat and your desire to have the sickest story for your followers, you may be tempted to record the two maniacs attacking each other like two wild animals mating. Perhaps you want to increase your Twitter followers by tweeting the “hilarious” video or photo. Here’s a hint: don’t.
While the people fucking on the ferris wheel at Coachella may not be the smartest or most sober, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have lives outside of music festivals. I mean, are you always the classiest bitch at the music festival? Probably not. How would you feel if videos of you hammered or tripping at a concert got around Instagram and made their way to your family or co-workers?
Take for example the concert-goer now known as “#SlaneGirl” who was photographed having oral sex with a guy at an Eminem concert in 2013. The photos quickly went viral and went on to become memes and a trending hashtag. Nobody passing around the photos knew what the girl’s life was like, and nobody knows that this girl was actually hospitalized at the concert for undisclosed reasons (but if we had to guess, because she was intoxicated out of her mind). Moreover, instead of questioning if the girl was blacked out and taken advantage of, the internet slut shamed her. How would you feel if you got a girl kicked out of college on top of being sexually assaulted just so you could get some “likes”?
While it’s one thing to send a funny video of two people in their underwear drunkenly fondling each other in the middle of a crowd to your BFF, it’s another to post it on the internet where anyone can take it and use it for their own purposes. Is a couple of faves on Twitter or Instagram likes worth someone losing their job or getting rejected from college? Sure, it might not be someone you know or someone you care about, but put yourself in their shoes and you may feel differently.
Whether you’re heading to Coachella weekend two or attending another festival this summer, try to focus on taking selfies and pics of the performers rather than photographing other concert goers without their consent.
