Tour Spoilers Flood TikTok as Phoebe Bridgers Bans Phones — SkimNews
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- Olivia Rodrigo kicked off her Unraveled tour last week, with show surprises already dissected online by fans posting videos before later dates.
- Posts using #CharliXCX on TikTok have surged more than 40% since the singer launched her Music, Fashion, Film tour last month, per figures shared with BBC Newsbeat.
- Phoebe Bridgers is banning phones at her shows entirely, requiring attendees to lock devices in pouches with violators escorted out.
- Taylor Swift countered spoilers during her Eras tour with bespoke outfits and surprise songs each night; Sabrina Carpenter switched up her Juno positions and Nonsense outro, and Jay-Z has been changing his set list on his current run.
- Aurélia Collins, a 20-year-old criminology student and One Direction fan, spends weeks tweaking her algorithm and tapping "not interested" to avoid spoilers, and was "gutted" when a Niall Horan spoiler slipped through before her first live show after 16 years as a fan.
- Laura Snapes, the Guardian's deputy music editor, tells fans who want surprise they must "not look at TikTok," but concedes unscripted moments — like Taylor Swift blowing her nose mid-song at an Edinburgh Eras show — still can't be spoiled.
Why it matters: A 40% spike in #CharliXCX TikTok posts since her tour launched shows fan appetite for sharing footage isn't slowing, pushing artists into a reactive arms race: Phoebe Bridgers bans phones outright while Swift, Carpenter, and Jay-Z change sets nightly to keep later dates fresh. For paying attendees like Collins who save for years to attend, a single spoiler slipping past filters can diminish a once-in-a-lifetime moment, splitting fandom between spoiler-hungry "teaser" consumers and surprise-protectors willing to hollow out their feeds.
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