Why Is Everyone Pooping At Concerts?

OK, class, it’s time to have a talk. This conversation will not be comfortable, but it is, apparently, necessary. When did concerts get so sh*tty? I mean literally. What is going on with people pooping at concerts?

I don’t mean taking an ill-timed No. 2 in a packed stadium bathroom. No, I’m talking about the recent trend of people quite literally doing their business on the floor in the audience. On June 26, the Internet was collectively aghast at an “accident” that occurred at Noah Kahan’s show at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. A viral TikTok posted by Kahan fan Chelsea Dubow displayed the aftermath of an incident in which an attendee apparently pooped in her seat, then tracked the excrement across the floor. It was so outrageous, the singer himself addressed it, both on X and onstage at his following show in Toronto, where he asked the audience to “solemnly swear” not to “sh*t their pants.”

Maybe something was in the water that week (actually?), because a similar episode occurred just days earlier at 5 Seconds of Summer’s June 23 show in Fort Worth, Texas. A TikTok showed venue staff mopping up feces, once again spread across the floor during the performance. And not even a week before that, Olivia Rodrigo said she’s noticed the stench of fans wearing diapers in order to secure a front-row spot at her shows.

Look, I am a lactose-intolerant warrior who has braved an ice cream cone at a baseball game — I know that sometimes, nature calls and you simply must pick up the phone, preferably on a toilet. But multiple instances of floor turds in one week feels somewhat troubling. Open defecation, in formal terms, poses such a health risk, that it’s tracked by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. Globally, rates have been on a steady decline, with a low of 4% of the population practicing in 2024 — but international health organizations are not yet tracking poor hygiene at pop performances. Is the social contract simply crumbling? What (the f*ck, honestly) is going on at concerts?

Here’s How Sh*t Went Down

Shannon, who goes by @shannoniscryingagain on TikTok, was sitting behind the offender at Kahan’s show. Just four songs in, between “Staying Still” and “Haircut,” she noticed the person straining in her seat, before shaking the excrement out of her shorts and kicking it beneath the next row of seats.

“It’s clear she just didn’t want to miss the show. That decision ruined the experience for every single person in that section because we had to smell feces the entire night,” Shannon says, annoyed.

Dumbfounded, Shannon ran for a security guard, who told the concertgoer that she needed to go to the bathroom — she responded with an agitated “I know!” — before staff attempted to clean the area using cat litter. The perpetrator never returned to her seat.

Dubow, who shared the viral TikTok, was sitting in the row ahead of the offender. Her husband, unfortunately, stepped in some of the poop. “It was funny at first because I truly couldn’t believe my eyes, but now, I am pretty pissed off,” she says.

Security asked Dubow’s group to return to their seats, but the stench lingered, leaving the group (including Dubow’s seven-months-pregnant sister) to stand off to the side for the remainder of the show.

Another TikTok user, @megan.1397, posted about a similar experience at the 5SOS show. ”It definitely looked like somebody had explosive diarrhea,” she says. “I felt really bad for the workers, because I’m sure that’s not what they signed up for.”

She has empathy for the offending party too. “I hope they’re feeling better,” she says.

Now, two incidents do not a public health crisis make, but to invoke the words of Phineas and Ferb’s Dr. Doofenshmirtz, if I had a nickel for every time somebody sh*t on the floor at a concert recently, “I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.”

In the same vein as blocking the view with your phone the entire show or whipping items at performers on stage, committing to a show to the point of incontinence at the expense of your fellow concertgoers could be a display of radical, unadulterated selfishness, or delusional stan culture gone too far.

Or, to use elementary school terms, maybe it’s just an accident.

The Sh*t Smelled ’Round The Internet

“Obviously, I can feel frustrated and also empathize with the fact that having the entire Internet talk about an embarrassing moment of yours can’t feel too great,” Shannon says.

Because of the crude nature of the incidents, or maybe in spite of it, they’ve been memed quickly. On TikTok, 5SOS’s Ashton Irwin joked that “I ❤️ 5SOS diapers” would be coming soon. Kahan’s TikTok account used the hashtag #wafflestomp. One attendee of Kahan’s Philly show, Alexa Gollnick, even gave Poop-Gate a nod in her Instagram caption, writing “maybe the girl who pooped herself is in the background of these somewhere 😭”

“It was all over my Instagram. It was kind of a moment that I wanted to join in on,” she says. “[Kahan’s] reaction to it was iconic, I feel like it was a good balance of funny and, like, ‘Guys, what the f*ck?’”

Breanna Daughtry, who attended the Fort Worth show, has experienced poor concert etiquette at 5SOS shows before, including pushing and shoving in the pit. This, however, was by far the most extreme example.

“I think 5SOS addressed it the best way they could,” she says. “It’s not every day someone poops their pants at your concert.”