FESTIVALFEATURE | performance-enhancer

WORDS BY: COREY-LEIGH JOHN

WITH THE POPULAR UP-RISE IN USING SOCIAL MEDIA, FESTIVALS HAVE BECOME MORE ABOUT FASHION AND WHO HAS THE BETTER SET OF OVERLY EDITED PHOTOS ON INSTAGRAM.

PUT THE PHONE AWAY :

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA HAS RUINED FESTIVAL CULTURE

BRING BACK THE DAYS WHEN THE SMELL OF BURNING HAIR WAS A FESTIVAL COMFORT, FROM LIGHTER'S BEING HELD.

At Festivals, do you suffer from seeing cheeks gracefully hanging out from the new brand of River Island’s butt-suffocating shorts, a halo of cheap fake flowers? Unflattering smudges of horrendous neon paint? And dislike the overabundance of V-neck vests and snapbacks. You do? Well this, I’m afraid, is the starter pack on ‘how to annoy most people (mostly me) at festivals’.

With the popular up-rise of using social media, festivals have become more about fashion and whom has the better set of overly edited photographs on instagram. Nobody cares about your hippie-inspired outfit or your pouty lips. The meaning of festivals is being lost with the motion of always looking ‘cool’.

Festivals should be about forgetting about your phone, your life or problems; it’s about embracing new and old forms of music.

The Cure, I waited years to watch them play live, finally in 2012 I got my chance at Reading festival. I was glued to the front barrier all day - unfortunately due to the amount of sweat from the heat, mixed with cups of beer or possible piss that landed on me throughout the day. When they finally came onstage, unwanted camera flashes surrounded me, the blue hue light from smartphones appeared everywhere. People were actually writing Facebook statuses when the band was playing. It baffles me, why anyone would pay a high amount of money to attend a music festival to only go on Facebook when the music is there in front of you.

People who constantly take photos and videos just to share on social media are a constant annoyance. If you pay for a ticket then use your eyes to watch, don’t let your smartphone have the front seat.

A memory is what you want, what’s the point in a 2 minute clip that you’ll probably never see again because the quality is shockingly bad.

Looking back at footage from Reading festival in 90s when Nirvana hit the stage, you see no mobile phones, people texting ,constantly filming OR taking photos. Music festivals are about embracing live music acts. Bring back the days when the smell of burning hair was a festival comfort ,from lighters being held. It’s sad that the old festival culture has gone.

When Green Day headlined Reading in 2013, lead singer Billie Joe made – what seemed like - a heart warming speech, ‘‘When I first started listening to punk rock music I used to get my ass kicked for it. I was known as a fucking freak. But now I’m among many many freaks here tonight".

This is evidence of how the festival culture has changed, back in the 1990’s this speech would have been perfectly fitting because that’s how the culture was back then, people who were outcasts went to festivals. The culture has changed nowadays; the uncool has become the cool. The term ‘going to a music festival’ is more of a social aspect rather than actually going to see the live musicians.People go just to say that they’ve gone to a music festival, it’s all about getting the money shot for your new profile picture.

People just don’t understand the meaning of festivals anymore, they only know what is cool, or maybe cynicism has me wrapped around its little finger.