Last Friday, Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival turned fatal as eight people ranging in age from 14 to 27 were killed and dozens more were injured after approximately 50,000 people gathered for the performance, and fans were crushed against railings and trampled to death.
Often, with events as tragic as these, people’s first port-of-call is to place blame - a typical anxiety response that helps people to explain away an event, since tragedies being ruled an accident are terrifying to comprehend. Unfortunately, in the case of Astroworld, some of that blame has been directed at the fans who attended, even the fans who lost their lives as they become scrutinised on social media.
People have taken to Twitter to blame the fans for this tragedy, citing reasons from their young age to the even more bizarre ‘they’re just not like rock fans’ for the events that unfolded.
‘Look all I'm saying what happened at Astroworld wouldn’t happen at metal festivals because everyone has pit etiquette and when you fall, people pick you up’ writes one Twitter user. ‘If you're not physically capable of defending yourself in a mosh pit. Stay on the outskirts and be safe,’ says another. ‘Seams metal heads have been doing it longer and practice it more... Many of these people first time in pit... Many are very young,’ writes another.
There are racist undertones to these accusations - often the rock vs rap debate becomes about race due to the perception that rock fans are predominantly white, and rap fans are expected to be people of colour. While ‘this wouldn’t happen at a rock concert’ is (while untrue) a perhaps flippant statement made without intended malice, it’s loaded with racism and classism.
Some comments, however, are directly racist, classist and abhorrent. “If it wasn’t Astro World. It would’ve been Lazzolopolza, a house party, or a drug den,” writes one Twitter user. “Not surprised - degenerate behaviour. Wouldn’t happen at a punk gig,” writes another.
To suggest that eight people - one as young as fourteen - have been crushed against bars and trampled because they don’t have enough mosh pit experience, or they’re not ‘rock enough’ would be laughable if they hadn’t literally died. To blame the fans after undergoing such a traumatic event, especially with these classist and racist microaggressions, is horrific. Plus, these “rock fans” must be unaware of the deaths which occurred at Woodstock 99, or the nine people who died being trampled to death in a mosh pit during Pearl Jam's performance at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark in 2000.
Whether you’re 12 years old or 50, it’s your first time in a mosh pit or your 30th, concerts shouldn’t be dangerous places. But at the same time, they involve a lot of people in a confined space, alcohol, drugs, and a lot of excitement. When structural issues, a lack of on-site medics and poor planning and organisation (as Astroworld organisers have been accused of) are thrown into the mix, they can become incredibly dangerous environments. It should not need to be said, but the genre of music being consumed has nothing to do with the danger that unfolds at some shows, nor people’s chances of survival.
As one Twitter user put it, ‘The tragedy at Astroworld was that: a tragedy. Let's not be quick to blame. Allow the facts to come out.”
We've been here - in this whirlwind of victim-blaming - before, with the Hillsborough disaster, when football fans were blamed for the actions of the police resulting in a crowd crush that killed 96 people. Going off of the fan footage from the Astroworld festival and the reports - which are still breaking - it's likely the ongoing investigation will reveal similar structural and organisational causes for what occurred at Astroworld. It was not the fans' fault at Hillsborough, at the many rock concerts where fatalities have occurred, and it isn’t Travis Scott’s fans’ fault either.