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.

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.

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.

No one is worth skipping the bathroom for.

Nina Simone disagrees.

YouTube warning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=995S1v-yHE4&t=71s

Edit: also: feels warning. holy shit. hello to bojack horseman fans.

edit: but also youtube warning because they cut to commercial in the middle of this song. ugh.

edit: here you go, some kind of mirror so you can listen unmolested, but minus the interruption: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1YP4y1c72L/?uid=42563159503479316337324C

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)

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.

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... "

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.

Nobody likes a bragger, mate 👍

Ok Boomer 😆

Be the change you want to see

I haven't witnessed a poop problem, but the loud talking has gotten progressively worse over the last 10 years.

I don't even mind bad singing that much. At least you're enjoying the concert. It's the having loud side conversations through almost the entire concert that annoys me. You could have stayed home and talked to each other. Why do it here?

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.

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.

Punch yourself in the face

It doesn’t have the same impact if you do it yourself.

Ok millennial

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

https://www.nme.com/news/music/korn-concert-goer-ejected-for-public-masturbation-at-new-jersey-concert-3888759

Because in concerts, you generally won't get away with something like that. Security isn't just tighter at the door.

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.

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.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/noah-kahan/pooping-on-the-floor-at-concerts-escalation?md5=f82a411af4f399843db06d7bd150841e

A big part of that social contract is the golden rule: “Don’t shit on the floor.”

This is why Noah Kahan will never be as cool as Mr. Bulldops. He always lets us shit on the floor at his shows.
https://youtu.be/4ctK1aoWuqY?t=34

EDIT: Also, I'm sorry, but this is the funniest shit I've ever read in my life

Is it the ghost of G.G. Allin?

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.

Taylor Farms?

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.

Dibs on the band name Genuine Runny Accidents

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.

“Gen Z etiquette expert”

It's the Mad Pooper! Aka the buttler.

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.

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.

What poops at midnight baby!

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.

Taylor Farms remembers.

Semi relatedly apparently there's some big problem with American children not being potty trained nowadays.

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.

Poopetrator

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!

I have a feeling it's not a thing in this day either. Getting "they have litter boxes in classrooms now" vibes

How presidential of them.

Also very likely.

Just give me some royalties or a writing credit on something.

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.

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.

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.

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?

It would be fantastic if people had a sense of shame.

yeah, not enough do. Especially not enough rich people