Steve Lacy Disaster Tour

About

Steve Lacy Disaster Tour is a nickname that refers to various clips, memes and reactions to R&B artist Steve Lacy's 2022 "Give You The World" tour. After a series of viral videos of fans not knowing the lyrics to his most well-known songs spread online, footage emerged of Lacy smashing a fan's disposable camera on stage, among other controversial behavior that some found humorous while others felt was uncalled for. The viral discourse also led to people discussing the effects of indie musicians going mainstream through TikTok and attracting annoying fanbases in the process.

Origin

On June 29th, 2022, Steve Lacy's official YouTube^[1] account uploaded the music video for his song "Bad Habit," gathering over 34 million streams in three months (seen below).

On October 16th, 2022, TikToker @basicallyimonky^[2] posted a video from a concert on the leg of Steve Lacy's 2022 "Give You The World" tour, where he can be seen pointing the mic to the audience and expecting them to finish the lyrics to his song. The audience can be heard failing to sing beyond the chorus, and the video gathered over 2.3 million plays and 600,000 likes in two weeks. The video was then reposted to Twitter^[3] by @jadawadas, where it gathered over 80,000 likes and 7.4 million views in two weeks (seen below).

Spread

Additional videos of Steve Lacy continued spreading online in October 2022, primarily on TikTok. For example, on October 18th, TikToker^[5] @stave__ posted a video of someone saying, "Can you say hi to my mom?" and Lacy replying, "Can you be quiet?" The video gathered over 1 million views and 200,000 likes in a week (seen below).

On October 24th, 2022, a video posted by TikToker^[4] @cesyxo went viral on social media of Steve Lacy smashing a fan’s camera on the stage after they threw it at him as he said, "Don’t throw shit on my fucking stage. Please!” The event occurred in New Orleans, and the video showed the singer stopping his performance of the hit song "Bad Habit," breaking the fan's camera and storming out off the stage. The video gathered 4.3 million views and 793,000 likes in three days.

After the video of the incident went viral, the singer posted a statement on his Instagram^[4] page on October 25th saying he doesn't owe an apology but "maybe I could've reacted better." Lacy continued and said, "Sure … I’m a student of life. but I’m a real person with real feelings and real reactions. I’m not a product or a robot. I am human." The post received 554,000 likes in one day, further sparking discourse surrounding his on-tour behavior.

The viral videos of audiences not knowing the lyrics to Lacy's most famous songs, and the incident with Lacy smashing a fan's camera led to discussions about the "TikTokification" of music, with people noting that Lacy's past prominence as a popular indie artist was supplanted by mainstream fame after his songs went viral on TikTok.

On October 26th, Twitter^[6] user @tunesintern posted a tweet about Lacy's newfound TikTok fame, gathering over 20,000 likes in a day (seen below, left). Also on October 26th, Twitter^[7] user @thoughtfulbae posted a tweet about Lacy, gathering over 70,000 likes in a day (seen below, right).

Also on October 26th, Twitter^[8] user @stymeed posted a meme about Steve Lacy fans, gathering over 60,000 likes in a day (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References