Please Don’t Be A Gronk And Vape Indoors At Concerts
To vape, or not to vape? I don't care, just don't do it at indoor concerts because I wish not smell mutated strawberry from your lungs.
After attending Sydney’s My Chemical Romance and Florence and the Machine shows, I have emerged to ask, given recent discussions of accessibility and concert etiquette: please don’t vape at indoor live shows.
While Juuls and vapes are banned commercially in Australia, that hasn’t stopped folks from enjoying a cheeky puff. Much has been made of vaping during the state election cycle, with both major parties promising to crack down on the practice.
Me? I believe in bodily autonomy. If grown adults want to suck nicotine-laced car freshener into their lungs, the government knows where they can stick it. However, I am going to need vapers to put it away while inside live music venues.
You might think you’re being slick, having an e-drag and shoving it back in your pocket. Or maybe you think listening to your fave band is a moment that can only be enhanced with a fairy-floss flavoured hit of nicotine. Maybe it’s how you vibe out.
Believe it or not, when I am standing in a mosh pit, already marinating in the hearty fumes of dance-fuelled BO, night breath, farts, and the metallic stench of artificial smoke — I’m not sat there thinking, “You know what would make this better? If a dozen or so people blew genetically mutated strawberry steam from the depths of their lungs into my general face area!”
I get it. You probably think it’s all gravy because at least you’re not smoking a dart. But you’re kinda being a dickhead, honestly.
Much has been written on a lack of concert etiquette post-COVID lockdown, all of which can be boiled down to people forgetting that you’re not the only one trying to have a good time. Unlike, munching on a snack or sipping a beer, the aerosol in of vape smoke makes an enclosed space kinda shitty for those of us with asthma and hay fever.
All I ask is to not go to another indoor gig haunted by the cursed aroma of various vape flavours battling mass mustiness for dominance. Just enjoy your smelly, not really legal paraphernalia outside like someone who was raised to be a considerate human.
Photo credit: Tatiana Chekryzhova, Getty Images