Country singer Miranda Lambert recently got to the center of attention after she stopped singing in the middle of a concert. She did it to call out “influencers” who were taking selfies instead of enjoying the music, and she sparked a fierce debate all over the internet.
The backstory
While singing “Tin Man” during a recent Las Vegas show, Lambert paused in the middle of the song to call out a few women in the audience for taking selfies.”These girls are worried about their selfie and not listening to the song,” Lambert said, obviously annoyed. “It’s pissing me off a little bit.” The crowd cheered and supported the singer, and she soon went on with the song. It was all recorded, of course, by another cellphone in the audience. Oh, the irony.
An influencer named Adela Calin was the one who was taking selfies with her friends when Lambert asked them to stop. “These are the 2 pictures we were talking when Miranda Lambert stopped her concert and told us to sit down and not take selfies,” she wrote on Instagram.
The reactions
As one might probably expect, the reactions to this little “incident” were mixed. The internet is divided into “Team Adela” and “Team Miranda,” and as per usual, everyone is observing the situation as being either black or white.
“Your second photo doesn’t even have Miranda in it. You were just cheesin’ for the Gram like a couple of high school girls. Grow up,” one person wrote on Adela’s Instagram post. “You paid money to be at the concert and were allowed to take pictures. You did nothing wrong and were disturbing no one,” wrote another. “Miranda Lambert seems to be an entitled diva who should concentrate on singing instead of making sure all eyes are in [sic] her at every moment.” These two comments pretty much sum up how people are reacting to this. There’s no in-between.
Should you take selfies at the concert?
I generally tend to side with musicians in cases like this. I don’t think you can get fully immersed in the concert if you watch it through your screen, or even worse if you watch yourself on that screen the entire time. I think (or at least hope) that’s what Miranda Lambert had in mind when she told the girls not to take selfies. After all, she was polite; some performers even got violent when people took photos (just remember Rob Halford of Judas Priest or Fidlar’s Zac Carper).
Another problem I have with comments that side with Adela is the “you paid to be there, you can do what you want” narrative. Many people take that way too seriously and act like total jerks, disrespecting the band and the rest of the audience to the max. Just because you paid to be there, doesn’t mean you can be a jerk.
Now, does this mean you shouldn’t take a single photo at concerts? And does it mean Adela and her friends were acting like jerks? Absolutely not. Most of us will take a few photos for keepsakes when we attend a concert. People filming the entire show go on my nerves because I don’t want to see the concert through their screens – but a few photos or short clips don’t hurt anyone.
On the other hand, does this make Lambert “narcissistic” and “self-absorbed” like many people described her? I don’t think so. I believe she just wanted people to immerse themselves in music and in real life that’s happening in front of them. I guess it’s similar to Bob Dylan and Adele who are also not fans of smartphones and cameras up in the air instead of clapping hands.
Do you think that Miranda Lambert overreacted, that the girls stepped over the line, or like me, that there were some rights and some wrongs on both sides? Let me know in the comments.
[via CDM]
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