The grandma (obviously innocent-looking) who steps in front of you in the queue as if you were invisible, the motorist who honks like a madman while the light is still red, the glutton at the cinema who eats his popcorns and crunches his candy wrappers in Dolby stereo… The initial idea is simple: to be interested in these “naughty” little gestures which tickle us every day. To this “feeling of omnipotence which makes us say ‘if I don’t do it, the other will do it, so I might as well do it'”, as described by psychologist Robert Zuili, author of Power of links (ed. Mango, September 2023).
These little annoying things, they are legion. And above all, above all, they concern us all. Because in the end, “we are all someone’s pest,” says Robert Zuili. Especially when you spend an entire concert filming instead of enjoying it.
The annoying fact
Your heart races and you congratulate yourself for putting on the dose of deodorant because you’re sweating before it even starts. Only a few seconds left and the handsome Harry Styles will arrive on stage, with his tattooed arms and his crazy hairstyle. The moment promises to be magical. It has to be, since you paid a lot of money to live it and made everyone drunk with it. Except no. No divine appearance. Instead, a “forest of cell phones” stands before you, formed by the nerds who will spend their concert filming rather than enjoying. “We only see these small screens filming other screens, filming other screens,” exclaims a music lover at the end of his tether on a music forum.
This “wall of telephones” really makes Alice*, who thought she was grown up, want to kill. She is frankly tired of spending her concerts dazzled by lamps that everyone forgets to turn off after the moment of communion of the romantic stroll. Especially since she notes that the phenomenon is getting worse: at her last Scorpion concert, “the four girls” who stood in front of her “weren’t filming the group, they were filming themselves!” »…
Why is it so annoying?
We have all learned – through extensive tutorials – that to be effective on social networks, you have to film vertically. Except that the vertical, for the fan behind you, already on tiptoe, is a double penalty. And then what’s the point of blocking his view to obtain “totally rotten” videos? No matter how much you lift cast iron, no one normally constituted can capture stabilized, therefore watchable, images in the pit of a concert.
Furthermore, our furious Internet user cannot explain why many now choose to entrust “the memorization of their memories to their smartphone” instead of “taking full advantage of the show to print “real” images” in their brain.
Finally, this annoying habit transcends generations. Alice thought she was having a quiet evening accompanying her mother to a Calogero concert. To his great disappointment, his sister started filming too. Boomer way too. “Not even on silent. She received calls. Shame ! “.
The arguments of the stupid
Most fans of “live capture”, if they admit their fault, indicate that they only film “a few minutes” or “only [leur] favorite song. But either you are an alien, or your favorite song is also that of your one-night companions. The one that everyone wants to experience “IRL”, thrilling.
Darlène*, however, reshuffles the cards: she films efficiently and “replays her videos taken live on repeat for days” after the concert, so much better than in the studio. Another strong argument: “as I’m small,” she says, “I often look on the phones of people taller than me when I can’t see the stage.”
Finally, Xavier is honesty personified. “We are human. There is narcissism in all of this. We do it to post it and tell others ‘Look at the life I have and that you perhaps don’t have'”, admits the one who has just paid 168 euros to see the Boss in the “golden square” of the Velodrome. And then posting means sharing with a community that vibrates on the same musical waves as you. And even have a chance to touch the Grail when the artist himself – Miles Kane does it sometimes – thanks you on Insta.
What is the foolproof trick to make the jerk understand that he is a jerk?
“I yell at them! », suggests Alice. Which does not exclude launching a devastating pogo, with guaranteed risk of breakage for your neighbor’s latest iPhone. But there are more peaceful methods than Alice’s for getting phones into bananas.
Like for example striking consciences with the ecological argument. Seeing “all these people jumping brandishing their cell phones”, Cédric, a Toulouse resident, “thought of all the forests which disappeared in the cloud” via “these unusable images” during his Dionysus concert. And the irony, he says, is that “the majority of people who film are eco-anxious youth”.
Otherwise, to be sure to put the kibosh on the phone olas, you have to have the idols you deserve. During its last tour, the group Placebo asked its fans to avoid films and photos. “It makes performing much more difficult. Harder to connect with you and effectively communicate the emotions of the songs,” he explained. One evening in 2016, the diva Adele also turned off a spectator live. “Could you stop your camera?” Because I am here, in real life. Enjoy me in real life rather than through a screen.”
* First names have been changed