Cinema Etiquette is Dead, but What Killed it?, by Katie Whitehead

Summer 2026 was a generational run for cinema.

With movies such as Backrooms grossing over 301 million at the box office and Obsession being ranked in the top 10 most popular films of 2026, local cinemas have been packed with eager moviegoers excited to see their most anticipated movie releases. 

I had the displeasure of attending these cinema showings. My displeasure has nothing to do with the movies themselves, but rather the lack of cinema etiquette in the theater.

My showing of Backrooms had small children with IPads running around the Drive-In like it was recess. To make matters worse, my follow up showing of Obsession at the same Drive-In had a grown woman texting on her phone with full brightness for the whole movie. Clearly people don’t grow out of this. 

My showing of The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act had individuals loudly talking to each other throughout the movie and reacting every 5 seconds as if they were participating in a directors cut. In my showing of Spiderman: Brand New Day, you could hear the couple next to me passionately kissing each other during the most tense scene (anyone who has seen the movie knows what scene I’m talking about). 

It was baffling to me how little people cared about giving the people around them a pleasant movie theater experience. Back in 2019, you wouldn’t hear a peep in the cinema when a movie was playing. Whether the movie was Avengers Endgame or The Emoji Movie, the minute that “Be quiet during the movie” video would start playing, people's conversations came to an immediate halt.

During my online search for answers, I found that I am not the only one with grievances regarding their cinema experience. Users of TikTok have also partaken in complaining about people in their cinemas, saying that people around them were vaping, actively talking on their phones and having full on conversations during the movie. Users have even started name dropping theaters to publicly shame these disrespectful moviegoers online.

It seems like the internet and I agree.  Movie theater etiquette is dead.

So, what happened? 

We know cinema etiquette is dead, but what killed it? What is the reason behind this sudden lack of basic manners and respect?

It isn’t screen time. It isn’t a result of the pandemic. 

It’s because the movie theater we once knew no longer exists.

In 2020, the Covid 19 pandemic drastically impacted the Hollywood box office. All movie theaters were forced by the government to close due to lockdown, leading to majorly anticipated movies such as Wonder Woman 1984 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker to become delayed. 

This left eagerly awaiting fans enraged. A worldwide global pandemic had effectively ruined their chance to watch the movie they had been waiting years for.

In response to the outrage, many studios such as Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and Amazon Prime began releasing their movies to major streaming platforms. HBO Max was the first studio to make this change, announcing that they would be releasing Wonder Woman 1984 to their streaming service on Christmas Day. 

Disney+ was next to hop on the movie streaming trend, releasing the Hamilton movie a year and a half before it was scheduled to hit theaters to their streaming service. In addition to Hamilton, Disney+ also announced that they would be releasing Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Artemis Foul and Mulan (2020) to the streaming service with a $30 fee to watch them.

With all of the major streaming services buying the rights to release these films, it seemed like streaming movies from home would be the future of film. 75% of American adults have reported that they prefer streaming films from home instead of watching them at movie theaters. Many adults find watching movies on streaming services to be more convenient and less costly. Only 16% of Americans said that they have watched a movie at the theaters at least once a month.

Because of this lack of customer attendance, in addition to inflation rising, movie theaters have been forced to charge customers more money per ticket in order to keep their businesses afloat. 

In 2026, the average price of a single standing movie ticket costs a national average of $16.30. At major movie theater chains like AMC and Regal Cinemas, tickets range from $14-18 depending on the time you attend and the number of people in your party.

There is no denying that movie theaters today are becoming costly. However, although home streaming may not cost individuals any money, it costs them a community. When individuals give up community, they lose out on the only tool human beings can use to understand the people around them.

Human beings are communal creatures. Throughout the anthroposcene, we have found instances of mankind where man is drawn not to individualistic material goods, but to the people and places around them. Citizens in Ancient Rome gathered in local spaces like bars, bath houses, and marketplaces to indulge in relaxation with members of their town. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. created “The Beloved Community”, a space where individuals could come together and discuss racism, poverty, and militarism in a supportive space.  Events such as The Olympics and groups such as the United Nations have created spaces for the world to come together as one and create a community with a variety of people of different races, backgrounds, and cultures. When one nation has a crisis, other nations send out money and resources to provide help. 

We need community to thrive as human beings, and with this individualistic route society is heading towards, spaces of community have been collapsing. We are losing the only way to understand individuals who are different from us and learn what society views as right and wrong. 

Instead, we are learning how to be human from a series of social media algorithms and it’s stripping us of our humanity.

These algorithms are teaching us that true humanity stems from what you see on a screen rather than what you see in person. 

We cannot be human on a screen.

Screens cannot understand the beauty of sitting in the cinema, and when you study how human beings act on screens, you start to understand that on screen human behavior does not translate to society’s standard of good cinema etiquette.

During 2020, the rise of the streamer began overtaking online platforms such as Twitch and Youtube. Streamers such as Ninja, Caseoh, Moistcritical, IShowSpeed, and the Dream SMP have blown up for their entertaining demeanor, viral moments with the online chat, and humorous personalities. Many people find their live gameplay and interactive content extremely entertaining. There’s a high chance that you’ve met someone today that’s a fan of a streamer. I personally love watching some old Caseoh streams to fall asleep! While streamers can serve as a fun option to watch when you have downtime, acting like a streamer in a public space is inherently anti human.

The goal of the streamer is to broadcast themselves narrating their experience playing a game or watching a show to the audience to entertain them. The streamer must read and respond to all messages flooding their live chat in a timely manner or else they will lose the attention span of their audience. When the streamer is not narrating their experience playing or interacting with their piece of media, their audience goes out of their way to try to find a way to make them react. The steamer as a person isn’t what’s entertaining to viewers. The streamer as a reaction is what's entertaining.  

When you grow up in a hyperindividualistic society, your understanding of humanity is only found through the content you consume of humans online. Psychologists today have found that humans, especially young children, are losing the ability to think in their head. Roughly 25% of people today have an inner monologue and do not need to talk through tasks out loud in order to successfully complete them. When you look at the lack of community today as well as the popularity of streamers, it seems as though human beings are learning how to be human through these online streamers. When young children see the streamers narrating their tasks throughout the stream, they begin to see that narrating your actions out loud is normal and will gain you popularity with your peers around you. Teachers are starting to see this behavior arise in the classroom and are trying to sound the alarm to parents. 

People are not only learning how to be human through streamers: they are also learning how to be human through viral online trends.

Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour movie opened the door to a new type of movie theater experience: the concert movie.

Following The Eras Tour movie grossing over $92.8 million in the box office, other artists such as Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Beyonce, Stray Kids, KATSEYE, and Elton John also decided to make a movie dedicated to their concert. With the sudden increase in concert ticket costs, this option was the perfect way for fans who had been unable to attend the concert to have a way to experience the concert in person. 

Although people’s attitude towards concert movies was positive in the beginning, people’s attitudes began to shift once people started noticing that other individuals in their theater treated the movie as if it was the actual concert. TikTok users reported that their theaters were singing, dancing, turning their flashlight on, jumping and screaming during showings as if they were in the audience. This sparked debate on whether or not concert movies should be treated like a concert or like a movie. The concert movie debate soon enough sparked more controversy regarding movie theater etiquette and trends.

In 2022, TikTok users decided it would be a fun prank to wear formal attire to the Minions: The Rise of Gru movie. Showings of Minions: The Rise of Gru soon became full of people in suits and dresses taking pictures and bringing bananas. Users doing this trend began calling themselves “Gentleminions.” As the “Gentleminions” trend grew, it caught the attention of Illuminations Entertainment, who adored the trend and encouraged millions of online “Gentleminions” to continue dressing their Sunday best at the theaters. While the “Gentleminions” trend was funny and wholesome at first, theaters began reporting that individuals were being disruptive during showings of the movie, pulling the fire alarm and throwing bananas at the screen during the film. Individuals even began filming themselves and others getting kicked out of the theater in their suits for being disruptive. It got to the point where movie theaters were starting to ban people in formal attire from seeing The Rise of Gru. 

Following the attention the “Gentleminions” had received online, people began noticing that the lack of respect in cinemas had been increasing. Individuals had gone online to TikTok to discuss the decreasing movie theater etiquette that they’ve been noticing during their showings. 

In 2025, another trend similar to the “Gentleminions” trend had been circulating around social media. Only this trend was resulting in property damage, disorderly conduct and harassment towards movie theater employees.

It’s time to talk about the Minecraft Movie.

In 2022, Warner Brothers Production officially announced that they would be creating a Minecraft movie with the assistance of Mojang, the Minecraft developers. They announced the premise of the movie as well as the cast, which included acting icons Jack Black and Jason Momoa playing the principal characters. Users online were very excited for this, as most of Gen Z grew up playing Minecraft during childhood. 

In early 2025, the Minecraft Movie officially dropped its first trailer and online Youtube users began pointing out that the movie looked absolutely terrible. Individuals were claiming in the comment section that the trailer was a disservice to the franchise and that they would not be seeing the movie. 

TikTok users had very different reactions to the trailer. Tiktok users decided that they were going to see the movie in theaters and laugh at it because of how bad it was. This plan soon turned from a movie theater laughing session to a full on nuisance. 

During showings of The Minecraft Movie, individuals screamed and talked loudly throughout the movie, threw food and popcorn all over the place as the line “chicken jockey” was being said, and caused physical fights. 

The longer the movie was showing, the more the disruptive behavior began to escalate. The screaming was getting louder, more food was being thrown, and property started getting destroyed due to fights. Several showings were interrupted because of someone pulling the fire alarm. One showing in particular had someone in the theater pull out an actual real life chicken and lift it up during the “chicken jockey” line. 

While this trend was funny to people online, it was not funny to movie theater workers. Movie theater workers began going online and begging people to have respect and decency inside of the theater. The workers soon started kicking disruptive people out one by one and management started to increase the number of workers patrolling a Minecraft Movie showing.

While Warner Brothers and Mojang themselves never officially responded to the trend, they re-released the movie into theaters a month later and called it the Block Party Edition. In the Block Party Edition, individuals were permitted to sing, dance and throw food as much as they wanted. However, no one showed up to the Block Party Edition showings as many online users claimed that the company officially ruined the joke. 

In 2027, Warner Brothers are releasing a Minecraft Movie sequel called A Minecraft Movie Squared. Online users are unsure whether or not this movie will cause the same trend to occur. Users online have even joked about cinema workers quitting their jobs the minute this sequel was announced.

It seems that the Minecraft Movie brought with it a disturbing new trend in movie theater etiquette. Everyone is now living to follow a trend. They are living to make themselves the “most viral” and “most well liked” person on the internet.

Until we understand that algorithms cannot replicate human community, cinema etiquette will stay dead and buried.