Rihanna being yelled at for dancing is everything that’s wrong with modern concerts

Rihanna has faced backlash for trying to do the most radical thing imaginable at a modern concert: have a good time.

She showed up incognito to Mariah Carey’s Here For It All Holiday Special at Dolby Live in Las Vegas, baseball cap pulled down and without her full glam, clearly intending to blend in with the crowd. 

As Carey worked her way toward We Belong Together, Rihanna did something many people online have ruled as unforgivable: She stood up, danced, and blew kisses toward the stage.

As a result, someone behind her yelled at her to sit down.

The moment, captured by another audience member and now circulating widely online, shows Rihanna visibly startled before lowering herself back into her seat, still moving to the music, of course. 

The internet, predictably, split in two, debating fiercely about proper concert decorum.

On X, @galaxyai__ joked, ‘Imagine being the person who told RIHANNA to sit down at a concert… the confidence is actually impressive 💀’. 

@eyup_io framed it as a mismatch of vibes entirely, writing, ‘Aye, tough crowd in Vegas! Bet that audience member thought they were at a quiet library, not a diva showdown. Where’s the fun in that?’

@dannybennett kept it simple: ‘Standing at a concert is not rude. If you go to a concert and sit, that’s on you.’

But there was a sizeable contingent outraged by Rihanna’s actions. @Queenxrypt asked, ‘But she was obstructing the view.. what will you have the audience do?’ @GuuGod777 echoed the point: ‘Just because she’s a celeb doesn’t mean she gets to block my view.’ 

@CryptoG was blunter still, posting, ‘She should sit down haha there’s people behind her.’

And that question about the view is exactly the problem with modern concertgoers. Because when did concerts become primarily about preserving sightlines? When did live music turn into a seated viewing experience where the greatest social sin is enthusiasm?

This wasn’t a spoken-word event or a theatre performance. Mariah Carey was about to sing We Belong Together, a song that has soundtracked breakups, reunions, weddings, drunk kitchen dancing, and at least two decades of collective emotional release. 

Even @yesitsalonzo, acknowledging the practical concern, admitted, ‘I mean she was about to perform We Belong Together. I’d have to see that too.’ Fair enough. But the fact that seeing is now treated as more important than feeling marks a major cultural shift when it comes to live music. 

Concerts used to be beautifully communal and unifying, and standing wasn’t a statement; it was the default. 

You went to a concert expecting to lose personal space, maybe an earring or your keys, and possibly your voice as strangers leaned into each other, arms went around shoulders, mosh pits broke out, and shorter fans were put on the shoulders of the closest tall person. 

If your view was blocked, it usually meant someone directly in front of you was having the time of their life, which was half the point because their joy heightened yours.

But in a post-COVID world, we have become experts at ignoring each other while simultaneously feeling entitled to intervene the second someone breaks an invisible social rule.

Of course, it’s worth noting that Covid understandably made us wary of bodies, air, and closeness – that’s nobody’s fault. But it also intensified a broader fear of unstructured social interaction, unrelated to safety or health.

At concerts, that fear manifests as hyper-vigilance, meaning everyone guards their own experience while treating everyone else as a potential threat to it, completely forgetting that being with other people is the point of going to concerts.

The result is a concert culture in which joy and movement are treated as disruptive and as bad manners.

So no, Rihanna shouldn’t have sat down. In fact, the more interesting question is why so many people around her were sitting at all. 

A concert where the crowd remains seated, silent, and self-policing has fundamentally misunderstood the point of live music.

Telling Rihanna to sit down wasn’t outrageous because she’s Rihanna (although she is, have some respect for the queen…). It was outrageous because anyone who feels the music should be allowed to show it.

And if even she gets told to shrink herself for the sake of decorum, what chance does anyone else have of enjoying concerts the way they’re meant to be enjoyed?

Yes, your view might be blocked for a moment. Yes, you may have to lean left or right. That is the trade-off for being in a room full of living, breathing people responding to the same song at the same time.

If what you want is a perfectly unobstructed experience, please stay home and stream the concert special from the comfort of your lonely couch.

Next time, leave Rihanna alone. Better yet, stand up with her so that we can all start to remember the point of live music.

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