Travis Scott. His negative influence on young people

Is it an idol that saves or destroys lives?

Photo by Rahul Pandit From Pexels

Honored in his city, idolized by thousands of fans, and, according to Complex, considered the most influential person in 2021 for young people in America. All very positive, right?

By this time, we all know the tragedy of last Friday, 4th October, at the "Astroworld Festival," where an unbridled public of approximately 50 thousand fans, known as "ragers," lived the excesses of a concert directed by the famous rapper Travis Scott where regrettable, eight young people die and dozens injured.

Given the impact of the news, physical and digital newspapers have echoed it. But also, in the social networks where we can find hundreds of videos on YouTube, Instagram and Tick-Tock strongly criticizing what happened, placing comments from some of the attendees, and others, talking about comparative theories.

But in this article, we are not going to focus on all those videos of conspiracies; instead, the idea is to give opinions based on what happened, antecedents, and precedents.

Scott. An idol for young people

As we mentioned earlier, Travis has a significant influence on young people. In the 2019 Netflix documentary "Travis Scott-Look Mon I Can Fly," we can see hundreds of young people crowd around Travis's vehicle to try to touch him or have brief words with him.

Many young people identify with the rapper's lyrics, who even tattoo his name, lyrics of his songs, or the title of one of his albums.

Travis makes you feel loved as if there is someone who loves you." "I will never forget his music." "His music makes us family." "He saved my life." "In college, I was very depressed, and he made me feel that he was not alone."

These were exclamations from fans at the end of a concert where the artist was arrested on charges of inciting a riot and violating security protocol. These comments will be documented in Scott's Netflix special.

However, there are also phrases such as: "I thought I would die in there, but it was the best thing I ever experienced," "I'm fine, I managed to survive the concert." Comments allude to how violent his events are, making it clear that young people could be willing to risk their lives to live that experience.

Fanaticism, rebellion, or both?

The fact that young people, many of them minors, are attracted to the artist and openly declare their admiration for him is not necessarily a problem; there has always been fanaticism in the art world. The problem is when that admiration turns into idolatry, to levels of being in a dangerous show because of the large crowd used to be at his concerts.

The adrenaline in these types of shows shoots up to the maximum, causing all kinds of situations. We cannot affirm the use of drugs or illicit substances, but it is easy to doubt that there were not in these types of festivals.

One topic that needs to be seriously discussed and analyzed is fanaticism that causes people to behave recklessly to the level of endangering their life.

Disturbance at concerts

The artist played a song and then started telling fans to step over the barricades," the Chicago Office of Emergency Management said in a statement to WLS at the time. "Thanks to the quick response from security, the situation was resolved immediately, and no fans were injured. The artist fled the scene and was arrested shortly after." - ABC 7 Chicago.

According to "ABC 7 Chicago", Scott is already known for inciting disorder at his concerts. The artist has been arrested at least twice for incidents at his shows.

• During a performance at Lollapalooza in 2015, police stated that Scott asked attendees to step onto the barricades.
• The second concert-related arrest occurred in 2017 after a show in Rogers, Arkansas, where he was charged with inciting a riot, disorderly conduct, and endangering the welfare of a minor.

Scott encouraged people to jump onto the stage and skip safety protocols, leading to injuries. Two of the charges were dropped in 2018, but Scott pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid more than $ 6,800 to two people who said they were injured at his show." - Rogers Police Department.

What happened last 4th November? Chronicle of a Death Foretold?

You all know what you came to do, chase me, let's goI want to make this ground shake. -Travis Scott.

We will not delve into what happened in "The Astroworld Festival 2021" since the news has spread and is known to all. However, it is good to highlight a few points.

Many of the statements of the young people who attended the show and that are circulating in the newspapers and social networks have a similar discourse: "We could not move, we could not breathe, they did not hear the cries for help, we felt that we were going to die it was like being in hell. "

We literally flew here just to go to Astroworld," said Jesse Dahl, who came from Denver with his 9-year-old son to enjoy the show. "I had the tickets for months." - Posted by The New York Times.

This was a massive concert and was expected to be aggressive. Is it wise for a father to take his 9-year-old son to a show of this magnitude? It should have been minimal for those over 18 because everything can get out of hand due to past experiences.

Fifty thousand fans crowded together (without the pandemic has ended), the euphoria of feeling free after almost two years of restrictions, added to the madness promulgated by Travis, are just some of the factors that could have caused the tragedy.

Security staff, ambulances, paramedics, medicines; everything was insufficient due to the number of people affected and how difficult it was to reach them due to the crowds sticking to each other.

It is known that dozens, possibly hundreds of lawsuits will come to the artist, but is Travis Scott fully responsible for what happened? There are many questions that, perhaps, will never be answered, and no one will be able to resurrect the eight fatalities or minimize thousands of people's trauma.

This was not a concert; it was a struggle to survive." Jeffrey Schmidt.- New York Times.

Let's hope that what happened makes the artists, the show organizers, and the fans themselves know how fragile human beings can be and that what can give you "life" can also cause "death."