Lice Outbreak at the Alex G Concert in Philly

Submission 1,936

About

Lice Outbreak at the Alex G Concert in Philly refers to an internet hoax that there was a head lice outbreak at an Alex G concert at Philidelphia's Union Transfer. The hoax spread online in late November 2022 after being started by Twitter user @morekissing that month. The hoax inspired memes about the lice at the Alex G show and coaxed several media outlets to clarify that there was no lice outbreak at the Alex G show.

Origin

On November 11th, 2021, Twitter^[1] user @parxtourupdates, the account for the band Waterparks, tweeted that there was a lice outbreak at their October 31st Chicago show, garnering over 400 likes in a year (shown below).

Between November 18th and the 20th, 2022, indie rock musician Alex G played three sold-out shows at Union Transfer in Philadelphia.^[2] On November 20th, Twitter^[3] user @morekissing copy-pasted the @parxtourupdates post, beginning with a trigger warning about lice, writing, "if you were at the Philly Alex G shows (11/18-11/20) we suggest getting checked for lice if you’ve have any sudden itchiness after the shows" (shown below). The tweet gained over 17,900 likes and 2,000 quote-retweets in three days.

Spread

The post inspired memes and discussions about getting lice at an Alex G show over the following days. On November 20th, 2022, Twitter^[4] user @regrownnj posted, "imagine getting lice because you went and saw alex g dude i would be so mad," garnering over 400 likes in three days. On November 21st, TikToker^[5] @superknuckle_ shared the post, gaining over 10,000 views in two days. That day, the official Twitter^[6] account for the Philly venue, Union Transfer, retweeted @morekissing's post, writing, "psa re: lice," garnering over 40 likes in two days (shown below).

That day, the Twitter^[7] account for musician Japanese Breakfast posted, "Yesterday Alex G told me my band was like The Cheesecake Factory and theirs was like Olive Garden. But I think you’re more likely to get lice at a Cheesecake Factory soooooo…" garnering over 20,600 likes in two days (shown below).

On the same day, Twitter^[8] user @blondedmaria posted a video of Alex G dancing on stage, writing, "alex g on stage while his fans in the pit are passing their lice around," garnering over 13,000 likes in two days (shown below). Later that day, Uproxx^[9] published an article by Megan Armstrong about the lice outbreak being a hoax. On November 22nd, Clash^[10] published an article about the hoax.