Send your unsigned rant, love letter, confession, or accusation to ianonymous@thestranger.com.
by Anonymous
It turns out having half a dozen people shove their giant cameras into the stage to repeatedly fire flash bulbs into the faces of performers is pretty fucking distracting.
You are worse than the people holding their phones up, and you actively take people out of the performance by inserting yourselves aggressively between audience and performer.
And you are never alone. Every show now apparently needs to be exhaustively documented by at least four of you talented professionals. So no, it isn’t just a few snaps here or there, as I am sure you tell yourself. It’s a compounded problem that you perpetuate.
I can’t imagine you are all hired by the bands for publicity, so I am not even sure where most of these photos end up, beyond being buried in your Instagram portfolio. Need those likes! Build YOUR brand! If you’re lucky, you’re getting paid sometimes, maybe free tickets. But remember that the rest of the audience is doing the opposite and paying to be there. Trying to lose ourselves in art. Trying to live in the moment.
If you absolutely must capture that vibe, find a way to do so without killing it in the process.
Do you need to get something off your chest? Submit an I, Anonymous and we’ll illustrate it! Send your unsigned rant, love letter, confession, or accusation to ianonymous@thestranger.com. Please remember to change the names of the innocent and the guilty.
