As the spring and summer seasons commence, music festivals across the country begin to pop up. Some of the most popular include Coachella, Stagecoach, Lollapalooza, Rolling Loud, Governors Ball and dozens of others. Like in many other spaces, influencers have inevitably “taken over” these events, bringing along their own fashion flare with them; often to audiences’ disdain. Social media has made fashion the focal point of festivals rather than the actual reason for the event, the music, and both content creators and consumers are to blame.
Festivals before social media influencers used to be much less focused on what people were wearing and more about the person performing on stage. Most of the content coming out of these events now, barely even refers to the music. Now it seems that rather than enjoying the moment, everyone is wrapped up in how Instagram worthy they look. Influencers fuel the fact that people are so critical of what they wear by shoving content of their “outfit of the day” down their audiences’ throats.
While the people attending these events are part of the problem, so are the people watching vicariously through their screens. Many have become so critical and obsessed with how influencers are dressing that they’re forgetting it’s not even the point. It’s tiring to see creators comment sections flooded by people hating on what they wore as if they went to the Met Gala. Maybe not everything someone wore is your cup of tea but at the end of the day there are no specific clothing requirements for festivals besides what people deem fits the right aesthetic.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun to dress up and show people your style. It is a natural human instinct to want to plan an outfit for an upcoming event. Unfortunately, like every nice thing, the activity becomes corrupted by social media as the outfits have become so important that they’re really all anyone cares about anymore. Not to mention 90 percent of the time it’s in a negative light. As more and more music events will happen over the coming months, everyone on social media should turn their attention to the sounds rather than the sights of festivals.
Photo credit: “Coachella Stage” by Steven Miller is licensed under (CC BY 2.0)
