Why Do People Keep Pooping Themselves At Concerts?

Look, I understand that an hours-long show can be tough on the bladder. We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about the many tricks artists use if they have to “go” mid-performance.

But the fecal fiascos that have taken place in recent concerts are a different beast entirely.

First, Olivia Rodrigo told KISS Radio that she could smell her fans’ nappies from the stage.

“Everyone is wearing diapers… they sit there all day,” she shared. “I think about it kind of often… It’s a real thing.

Noah Kahan, meanwhile, took to X after a woman reportedly defecated near the singer’s stage. “If you have to poop at a show please dear god just go to the bathroom lmao,” he wrote.

At later gigs, he made fans “solemnly swear I will not shit my pants. And if I do, I won’t take it from my pants and put it on the floor”, and beseeched his soiling-inclined fans to “fucking put some diapers on next time”.

On Monday 27 July, meanwhile, a Devilskin metal concert was derailed by an attendee’s baffling and “vomit”-inducing decision to crap in a moshpit.

What, I beg my fellow grown adults, is going on?

I mean, in the case of Rodrigo, there’s at least a vile logic to the odorous decision. “I have been to certain concerts and certain festivals where people wear diapers so that they can be front row of the show,” she explained.

“And that’s been an experience as a performer that I have… smelled.”

It’s not something I think someone who has probably filed their own taxes and may even share an office loo should ever voluntarily do, to be clear.

However, I guess that’s what commitment looks like to some superfans – Noah himself joked(?), “I shit myself onstage in Charlottesville, but that’s because I am dedicated to my craft.”

What “craft” is refined or gig-going fantasy realised by a mid-show floor poop, though?

Please, for the love of music: can we keep that extra fetid “o” out of “pop concerts” going forwards?