This summer, there have been a slew of strange headlines about concert-goers throwing things at the very performers they are paying to see.
Excited fans have been known to throw things on stage – including panties and flowers – but throwing a phone at a star (as one man did to singer Bebe Rexha) is a different story. So, the “Something Offbeat” team decided to investigate.
We reached out to Emerson College Professor Kristin Lieb – author of Gender, Branding, and The Modern Music Industry: The Social Construction of Female Popular Music Stars – to explore this weird, concerning trend.
“I hate this trend so much, I can’t even tell you,” she said. “I think there are a lot of things going on at once... I think certainly it’s… an attention grab. And that may be happening for a number of different reasons.”
From Tom Jones to Harry Styles, Drake, and Cardi B, we’ll go on a tour of concert etiquette over the decades and try to parse out what’s going on with today’s audiences. Listen here to Lieb’s analysis.
Each week, “Something Offbeat” takes a deeper look at an unusual headline. If you have suggestions for stories the podcast should cover, send them to us at somethingoffbeat@audacy.com.
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