Everyone has their phone out at gigs now, particularly big pop shows: it’s an unavoidable fact of live music.
But there is something profoundly creepy about Digital Camera Guy, a fixture of most gigs that feature a female performer.
Whether his intentions are sleazy or simply trainspottery, his ceaseless scrutiny feels unsettling for female and gender-nonconforming audience members and musicians.
The inference is that women only exist here to be surveilled, perceived as visual stimuli at best, sex objects at worst.
I’m sure most DCGs are not taking photos to get off to later (you’d have a job, through all the pixels).
The Tension tour Kylie Minogue is currently on is an amazing show. Dancers in strange hats prowl around geometric staircases, giving off a charmingly Pet Shop Boys vibe. A disco ball large enough to enchant every spectator for eternity is present. In a noirish film, Ms. Minogue plays a detective who defeats heartbreak. In her rainy street scene, a billboard asks, “Feeling lonely in Sheffield? Call Kylie ….” And there she is, surrounded by the iconic jagged Kylie heartbeat monitor logo, resplendent in blue PVC, a spangly red jumpsuit, and a kaftan-like item sewn together from what appears to be neon police tape.
As a result of audience demand, Kylie, one of our most generous performers, added The Loco-Motion to the setlist. The song’s youthful silliness contrasted with Dancing, a beautiful disco-country song about mortality. Being compelled to watch the show in part through the digital camera of the man seated next to me made it even more frustrating because of how large it was. He spent the entire performance—I mean, every second of it—training his priapic lens on Kylie using a shaky 10x zoom.
Nowadays, it is an inevitable aspect of live music that everyone has their phone out during performances, especially large pop shows. During the show, it was okay to look down from our side-stall seats and see a glittering of tiny rectangles. Although Kylie’s group is largely middle-aged, teenagers are frequently held responsible for this. I am also not immune; normally, I only take one gig picture to preserve the event in my camera roll, but I may have taken a dozen of the most interesting set pieces.
Digital Camera Guy is a common presence at most performances with a female performer, but there’s something really unsettling about him. I’ve stood beside this man, who is always middle-aged or older, dozens of times. I’ve watched him use his ancient silver Olympus to keep a shakily tight focus on the women on stage, and I’ve wondered what in the world he’s going to do with the pictures and video later. Regardless of whether his motives are shady or just trainspottery, female and gender nonconforming musicians and audience members find his constant scrutiny unnerving.
They are clearly there to be observed as performers in a paid public setting, but feeling watched is not the same as having a reciprocal exchange with a considerate and understanding audience. Women are implied to be here solely for surveillance purposes, to be viewed as sex objects at worst and visual stimuli at best. Knowing that someone is creepily staring at you in public is bad enough—this kind of behavior has been banned on London’s public transportation system since 2022—but I imagine it’s even worse to realize that you’re being closely observed while attempting to put on a performance on your own terms. The performer typically commands the room in this dynamic, but the constantly intrusive lens subverts that authority by reminding them that they are merely a subject to be photographed.
Many female performers, some of whom are distressingly young, have told me they detest DCG but feel unable to criticize him for fear of offending paying fans or coming across as ungrateful, uppity bitches. I’ve also had conversations with a number of my own male friends in their 40s and 50s who are afraid of being branded as perverts who haven’t come to hear the music. They are afraid to go to shows by themselves or to stand close to the front. One of those friends texted me to tell me that he had stood next to a DCG at Wet Leg in London this past weekend and watched in horror as the man continued to shamelessly zoom in on the band’s legs and bums, in case you thought I was exaggerating.
I doubt that the majority of DCGs are taking pictures to save for later (you’d have a job, through all the pixels). In any event, the lack of self-awareness causes a great deal of discomfort for many other people in the crowd, making them wonder about their equal position in this setting. Every time I unintentionally touched the man seated next to me on Friday, I felt repulsed. Even though Kylie’s rapturous encore closer Love at First Sight has been stuck in my head ever since, I still can’t shake the uneasy feeling. DCG: Stop it, please.
