A few months ago, a devoted fan named Sydnee Tallant used her phone to record BTS rapper Suga performing on a Jumbotron at the Kia Forum near Los Angeles. However, Tallant’s own wailing drowned out Suga’s singing in the footage she posted on TikTok. When I asked her about it later, she admitted, “I sound like a beast.” Similarly, a recent video showed a young woman at a Taylor Swift concert in Arizona capturing herself screaming the bridge to “Cruel Summer” instead of recording the live music. This clip has been viewed over 2.6 million times.
As many artists are embarking on their first tours since the pandemic, numerous concert clips on TikTok primarily capture a behavior known as “demon screaming.” Fans self-deprecatingly describe this as emitting raspy, ungodly noises at incredibly high pitches, as if they were possessed. Some people accuse Generation Z and TikTok of ruining concert etiquette. Refinery29 even asks, “Is TikTok to Blame for the Demise of Concert Etiquette?” Thrillist boldly declares, “Loud Singing at Concerts Is Dividing the Internet.” I understand the frustration of the Swift fan who spent $3,000 for a front-row seat, only to endure someone else’s constant screaming. However, when I attended Swift’s concert in Philadelphia in May, I found myself yelling the lyrics until I felt exhausted, and I wasn’t doing it for TikTok.
The question arises: are fans simply having fun, or is their behavior too extreme? Similar questions have been debated for decades. The Beatles famously stopped touring in 1966 due to the overwhelming cheers from their fans. In 2016, Justin Bieber implored his audience to tone down their screams, calling their behavior “obnoxious.” Therefore, these recent complaints are not new. However, if the screams nowadays are indeed louder and more intrusive than in the past, TikTok could be a likely culprit. Demon screaming can be easily dismissed as just another social media trend, showcasing how the desire for viral fame has transformed everyday life.
Alternatively, there’s another explanation to consider. Young music fans who are now reaching the prime age for attending concerts spent a significant portion of their high school or college years away from friends and missed out on many joyful experiences. A notorious sign at a Japanese amusement park during the first summer of the pandemic famously requested, “Please scream inside your heart.” Now, as more well-known musicians return to the stage, music fans can finally let loose and release their screams. In other words, if Swift fans’ demon screaming sounds like an exorcism, that’s precisely what it is.
Tallant, who resides in Fullerton, California, describes the experience of seeing her favorite artists up close as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” We exchanged Instagram handles after sitting next to each other at a BTS show in late 2021. When I recently spoke to her about her TikTok concert videos, she mentioned working extra shifts at her two jobs and selling old clothes and books to afford sound-check VIP tickets for Tomorrow X Together, a South Korean group known for their energetic emo-pop tracks. Her efforts paid off in May when she saw the five members perform live for the first time. She enthusiastically said, “It was surreal. I screamed screams I didn’t think I was capable of.”
Harold Gouzoules, a psychology professor at Emory University who studies screaming, explains that screams elicit interest and attention regardless of their context. He emphasizes that screaming has a distinct acoustic trait called “roughness,” which can be particularly grating to certain ears. Screams also change in volume much more rapidly than regular speech, activating the brain’s fear center. Gouzoules adds that screams of joy are often indistinguishable from screams of distress, making them challenging for others to tolerate. Many animal species use screams to fend off predators or call for help. In the context of concerts, the purpose of screaming is less clear, as it doesn’t serve survival purposes. However, when emotions run high, screaming can become contagious. Gouzoules notes that this contagion has been observed in various animals, including birds, where one member’s distress triggers screams from the whole flock. He believes that fans seek attention from their idolized artists through screaming, saying, “The screaming, in essence, says, ‘Look at me, look at me!'”
Some commentators suspect that increased competition among fans for scarce tickets and musicians’ attention has eroded concert etiquette or that the youngest fans never learned it in the first place. A Gen Z fan named Devon Hunt attended a Louis Tomlinson show and witnessed behaviors that he found not just irritating but also dangerous, such as pushing, shoving, blocking views with large signs, and throwing objects. In a TikTok video, Hunt, a 22-year-old from Fresno, California, wondered if the pandemic has hindered young people’s social skills.
Despite this, Hunt continues to attend concerts, even if they are hours away in the Bay Area or Los Angeles. He acknowledges that bad concert etiquette exists but believes most concertgoers understand that screaming “comes with the territory,” especially for those who choose to buy floor tickets. Demon screaming may not become a permanent fixture at concerts. If it’s merely a social media trend, it will eventually fade away. Gouzoules suggests that if the behavior is a result of the pandemic, it might return to a pre-pandemic level, assuming there was one.
In the meantime, concerts don’t have to be unpleasant for those averse to screaming. Earplugs and a sense of humor can go a long way. When I attended Tomorrow X Together’s concert in Washington, D.C., I heard a girl in another section of the arena scream “Soobin”—the name of the group’s leader—so loudly from the nosebleeds that he likely heard her. Yet, I resisted the urge to judge her. After the Swift show, a friend showed me videos of myself embarrassingly singing off-key along to “My Tears Ricochet” and “Tolerate It.” These songs had kept me company during the most isolating days of the pandemic. Seeing them performed live was a dream come true, so it was hard not to scream in excitement.
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