A TikToker filmed and uploaded a video of a man’s ecstatic reaction at a Beyoncé concert.
The upload received over 4.6 million views, prompting an online discussion about filming strangers.
The fan told Insider he was flattered by the attention but understood why others would dislike it.James Silva, a 37-year-old fitness trainer from London, England, was shocked when he turned his phone on after a dentist appointment and was bombarded with notifications.
Initially, he thought people were liking a fitness video he’d posted, but then a friend sent him a link to a TikTok. For a second he thought the guy in the upload looked familiar, and then it hit him.
The man in question could be seen energetically singing and dancing at Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour performance at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, England. It was Silva.
The clip was uploaded by a TikToker who goes by @jade.bartholomew on June 5. “The way he absolutely loses it when Sweet Dreams kicks in” an on-screen caption read, as the man threw his head back and waved his arms as the song intro played.The video blew up, with 4.6 million views and over 4,700 comments as TikTokers celebrated the mysterious man’s moves, but over on Twitter, where the video was reuploaded, the response took a different turn as viewers called out the TikToker and other concert attendees for filming fans without their permission.
Silva, however, has no qualms about going viral — despite it being a surreal experience. He told Insider, “I’m sitting at my dentist chair while the world was having fun and joy with my face and my reaction. Can you believe that?”
The viral fan said he enjoyed the spotlight and the kind comments he received
When the TikToker posted the original video, she added in the on-screen caption that she hoped the video made its way back to the fan — and it worked.
“I was too stunned to understand what was going on,” Silva said of the moment he saw the clip. “The video has currently about 6 million views spread across different platforms and it’s just surreal to believe I’m in it.”The comments beneath the video continued to rack up as viewers wrote how impressed they were with the fan’s moves, and how his “pure” reaction was the correct response to watching Queen Bey live.
“I love him. this is the only way to act at a Beyonce concert,” one viewer wrote in a top comment that received over 19,700 likes.
“Of course, there was that initial shock of ‘being online’ but she was very genuine with her intentions and very sweet,” Silva, who has around 7,000 followers on TikTok, told Insider. “I’m not really mad about it at all. I feel like she was having fun seeing me having fun and that’s actually really flattering.”
In fact, Silva said the whole experience had been a positive one, as the attention and compliments had made him feel “loved and special” and he was “truly grateful” for all the kind words from viewers.Fully enjoying the moment, he posted a duet reaction to the viral clip where he could be seen grinning and dancing in front of the original, which received a further 1.1 million views, but he acknowledged not everyone would respond the same way to being flung into the digital limelight. Viewers were split on the ethics of filming strangers and posting them online
This isn’t the first time a Beyoncé superfan has gone viral during the “Renaissance” tour in recent weeks. Last month, viewers called for an attendee to become an official tour performer after his impressive dance moves were captured from multiple angles and shared on TikTok. While these videos are often positive, not everyone thinks the trend is harmless.
After he’d watched the video on repeat a few times and the initial shock had worn off, Silva decided to post his own comment to reveal he was the fan in question, and told the uploader she could have just shown him the video at the time because he loved it, and thanked her for posting.
In response, the TikToker wrote that she’d tried to find Silva on AirDrop, a method of sharing files to different devices, but she knew TikTok would work its magic instead, in a comment that received 1,400 likes from viewers who appeared to think this was reasonable.
On Twitter, however, one user wrote it was intrusive to film someone without their permission, while another asked people to stop recording strangers, and a further user vented how they hated this had seemingly become normal behavior.
“I do see that other people might not be comfortable with this type of thing, no matter the intentions behind and that’s where respect comes into play,” Silva told Insider. “I think that if you do a recording of someone and post it online, firstly, don’t it to shame or embarrass anyone — that’s not cool at all. And secondly, if you’re asked to remove or delete, don’t think twice and be kind enough to understand and do it.”
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider’s Digital Culture team here.
Source: insider
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