If you’re a movie lover on social media, you’ve probably noticed an unsettling trend: audiences treating theatres like their personal living rooms. The release of Wicked seems to have amplified this, with a viral post of someone snapping a photo of the title card and encouraging others to do it, and other people even singing along during the film. At the same time all this was happening during Wicked, I was watching fight scenes in the coliseum during Gladiator II while someone played Candy Crush on their phone a few rows down from me.  If that’s not bad enough, celebrities like Cynthia Erivo and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have encouraged disruptive behaviour during movies, blurring the lines of what’s acceptable at the theatre. It feels like people no longer know how to behave in crowds, and this problem is particularly pronounced in movie theatres. While Broadway offers sing-along performances to cater to audience participation, they also set clear boundaries for regular showings. Similarly, some movie theatres have hosted designated sing-along screenings, yet disruptions still occur during non-sing-along showings. So why does this happen when we’re simply trying to enjoy a movie on the big screen? Before we get into this more deeply, I’m going to state my bias up front. I speak for everyone at Screen Love Affair when I say that we firmly believe that using your phone or talking (let alone singing) in the theatre is completely unacceptable.  Watching a movie in a theatre is a communal experience, shared by every person in the theatre watching the movie with you. The moment you start using your phone or talking loudly during a movie, you’re negatively impacting every other person in the theatre with you. Whether it’s having to listen to somebody’s conversation drown out the audio from the movie or being distracted by the bright light of a phone that even people in the back row can see, these distractions make it hard to focus on the reason we’re here in the first place: to watch a movie on the big screen, in a dark room, and free from the distractions of the outside world. Because going to the movies is a communal experience, we have to have a mutual respect for each other, and what I’ve seen lately on social media demonstrates that that respect is nowhere to be found.  When Did Theatre Etiquette Go Off Script? Theatre etiquette issues are nothing new. As long as movie theatres have existed, people have been talking in them. But things weren’t always this bad. Decades ago, watching a movie was akin to attending a live performance. Audiences were expected to sit silently, immersing themselves in the story on screen. Whispering was frowned upon, and the thought of opening a bag of candy during a quiet scene—risking even the slightest noise—was almost unthinkable. I first noticed a major change when I was younger and watched Marvel movies in theatres. These films brought something different to theatres, offering a new kind of experience on the big screen. Martin Scorsese famously likened superhero movies to “theme park rides,” and it’s easy to see why. Attending a Marvel movie during opening weekend can feel like a communal celebration as fans show up in costumes, cheer, and even scream at pivotal moments. These movies are designed to amplify that energy, with perfectly timed applause breaks built in for those “epic” scenes. It’s almost impossible not to get caught up in the enthusiasm during a screening like that. Anyone who grew up with these films will remember how electric the opening weekend of Avengers: Endgame was, and the sheer excitement it inspired. Beyond Marvel, concert movies have also blown up more recently, with Taylor Swift and Beyoncé being two of the biggest examples that come to mind. These things existing aren’t the problem, but it demonstrates that, like everything over time, the theatre-going experience is changing.  The real issue is that we’ve had a generation of moviegoers that have grown up with these kinds of movies and think this is the way that all movies are meant to be experienced. After all, if people are screaming and cheering the whole time, what’s a quick glance at your phone or chat with your friend?  These days, bad theatre etiquette is rampant and inescapable, even when you’re watching a more traditional kind of film. For example, I went to see Gladiator II in IMAX recently with some friends and it was an incredibly frustrating experience. Seated behind us were a group of friends that were leaning over each other and talking loudly and consistently throughout the movie. If that wasn’t bad enough, someone near the front of the theatre pulled their phone out regularly with the brightness incredibly high to play games on their phone. Someone else was constantly pulling their phone out to seemingly check the time, while another person near the front was recording certain moments of the movie.  What can we do in situations like this? Well I turned around to politely request the people behind us not talk during the movie. I had to turn around two more times (growing less polite with each turn) until they finally stopped. But there was nothing I could do about the phones. I was seated too far away to say anything without disrupting other people. To do anything, I would have had to move past 20 other people on either side of me as I was seated in the middle of a row, and then walk around talking to each individual person, or leave to go get a theatre employee. Is it fair to me or any other paying customer to have to do that, though? Absolutely not.  It’s not just one bad experience, either. I constantly see phones at nearly every movie I watch in theatres, hear people talking as if they’re the only ones there, and I even sat near more than one person who actually answered a phone call in the middle