Spoilers are the price of living online now, and concerts are the latest thing getting spoiled before anyone gets there. Months before a favourite artist plays, fans know the set list, the stage design, and where to stand for the best view — all of it shared across TikTok before the show even starts.
Fans fight algorithms to stay surprised
Aurélia Collins, a 20-year-old criminology student and huge One Direction fan, spends weeks tricking her algorithm to keep her feed free of concert content. She taps “not interested” on videos about her favourite artists, even though she says it hurts her soul. Her social media feed ends up bland, but she tells BBC Newsbeat it is worth it for the surprise.
Collins just about avoided spoilers for Harry Styles’ Together, Together tour over summer. But one slip got through before she saw Niall Horan in London on Saturday — her first live Horan show after 16 years as a fan. She was gutted.
“When I was younger, we couldn’t afford to go to events like this and hear live music,” she says. “Because it’s such a moment, I really want to take it in.”
Georgia McAdam takes the opposite view. The 22-year-old loves spoilers because she likes to be prepared. She sees online videos as “teasers” rather than spoilers, and she thinks nothing online can really take away from the excitement of the real thing.
Artists switch up sets to stay surprising
Some artists are fighting back by changing their shows nightly. Taylor Swift had bespoke outfits and surprise songs during her Eras tour. Sabrina Carpenter performed unique positions during her song Juno and switched up her Nonsense outro. Jay-Z has been changing his set list on his current run.
Laura Snapes, deputy music editor at the Guardian, says these changes help artists stay in the press. “Obviously, it’ll be all over TikTok,” she says.
Figures shared by TikTok with Newsbeat show posts using #CharliXCX have increased by more than 40% since the singer launched her Music, Fashion, Film tour last month.
Phone bans and the future of surprise
Snapes offers a blunt solution: “You have to not look at TikTok.” If you want to be surprised, she says, you have to protect yourself from absorbing any of that culture.
Phoebe Bridgers is taking things further. She is banning phones entirely at her shows. Fans must lock their phones and any recording devices in a special pouch when they enter the venue. Anyone found breaking the rules will be escorted out.
McAdam would not support a phone ban, saying recording at gigs is “part of the experience” for a lot of fans. Collins is “not totally against it,” but she wants more spoiler warnings on videos so fans have the option to be surprised if they want.
Even with all the set list leaks and fan footage, Snapes says there is still room for surprise. “I went to the Edinburgh Eras show where Taylor Swift was really snotty and she had to blow her nose. That’s not part of the script,” she says.
“You’re always going to be surprised.”
The choices fans are making
Fans are choosing sides — some want to know everything ahead of time, some want nothing spoiled at all. Here is how they are doing it:
- Aurélia Collins fights her algorithm to keep her feed clean.
- Georgia McAdam watches every leaked video to know exactly what she is getting.
- Phoebe Bridgers bans phones entirely to protect the moment.
Source material: “Spoiler alert! Is social media ruining big gig surprises?,” the BBC.
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