Broadway Bootlegged on TikTok?

I’m in a long-term love-hate relationship with TikTok.

The love part? Passing time on a crowded subway, taking mental breaks, and finding inspiration for NYC restaurants, upstate hikes… and yes, even shark attacks (Please don’t judge).

And better than almost any other relationship I’ve been in, TikTok just gets me.

Finding myself up at 3 a.m. doomscrolling on TikTok's highly addictive algorithm from under my covers? That's the hate part of my tumultuous affair with the app, which is why I play the delete and redownload game every few months. In our latest on-again, I noticed a new genre of content: bootleg Broadway videos! Death Becomes Her, Gypsy, Cabaret, Sunset Boulevard, and others. It's all there!

Why pay hundreds of dollars for the hottest seat in town when apparently you can see it all right on your phone, and not have to pay 14 dollars for a box of peanut M&M's.

We've all seen bootlegged movies and shows on these platforms from time to time. But what makes this different is the intentionality of it. The zooming, the panning, the focus, the suspiciously good sound quality. While I can't prove anything, I am fairly certain that some of these bootlegs are taken by a more sophisticated method than an audience member sneaking a recording through a concealed phone camera. Is the call coming from inside the house? And is the video quality a little too good to not be sus, as the kids say?

I wouldn't put it past creative and PR teams to utilize social media platforms to publicize their own shows by leaking footage or allowing audiences to record without repercussions. After all, the brilliant Jennifer Simard has officially gone viral on social media for a line that has become so ubiquitous, people often record with it without even knowing the source: That was rude... that was really fucking rude.

And if that were the case, are they desecrating a sacred tradition that has existed long before we all had these magical recording devices in our pockets? If bootlegging their own shows is helping to sell tickets and employ an ecosystem of hardworking people from stagehands to actors and ushers, who am I to criticize? I'm someone who paid good money to see their show, that's who.

Call me old-fashioned, but it disheartens me that these producers might play with fire (emojis) so recklessly. Once you allow phone recordings in live theatre, it will be changed forever. There is no going back, because a new precedent has been set for audiences: It's OK to pull out your phone.

I generally dislike going to concerts because you find yourself in a sea of glowing squares — thousands of people who have paid big bucks for seats, only to spend the duration of the concert recording it instead of being in the moment. It has become more important to show people you were at the concert, rather than be at the concert.

What's going to happen when live theatre is plagued by the same? Or maybe technology is the magic potion that live theatre needs in order to appeal to younger generations and stay young forever. As Michelle Williams sings in Death Becomes Her, Siempre Viva. It wouldn't be fair to expect nearly every other aspect of life to be transformed by technology, but leave live theatre to decay in our dust, now would it?