Swifties starting a mosh pit in a movie theater might seem unusual to you, but it’s only one of a series of special moments in the life of a downtrodden cinema worker.
TikTok user Elora (@costcodumplings) put together a slide show of images showing what she called “moments while working at a theater that have altered my brain chemistry.” Based on the slide show, it appears to be Cineplex Cinemas Vaughan, a theatre in Ontario, Canada. The post has received more than 1.5 million views since going up on Thursday.
In the post, the creator reveals that she’s nearing her one-year anniversary of working at the theatre, which judging from the slide show, has been rich in unusual experiences.
The first photograph from the collection is of a torn screen. There is also text overlay which reads, “Someone came in the theatre, slashed the screen, and pulled the alarm.” Elora also notes of the scary incident, “He was wearing a ski mask and everything.”
She then shows a couple—the woman in a pink, floor-length dress and the man in a powder-blue suit. “People slow dancing in the lobby,” Elora explains in the text overlay, also adding, “There was no music.”
The next few images present some more moments she’s encountered working at the theater, including, “Guy gets arrested for trying to tear gas the theatre,” “mysterious stains” on chairs, and “people filming a documentary of our theatre,” among others.
In one slide she shows herself coloring a picture of “The Little Mermaid,” titling the picture, “minimum wage, minimum effort.” In another, she shows off a stack of Pokemon cards (about $80 worth), that she says a kid randomly gifted her.
Elora also includes an anecdote of when one customer threatened “to sue the theater because it was too dark.”
The slide show, soundtracked by Taylor Swift’s “Cardigan,” ends with a blurry picture of what appears to be several people standing in the area right in front of the screen with their phone flashlights on. The creator explains the scene as “Taylor Swift fans starting a mosh pit.”
Elora documents yet another way Swifties are changing the experience of going to a concert movie. The Daily Dot previously reported that “Swift is not the first artist to release a concert film, but she was clear in her instructions about how this film would be different.”
The article continues, “On Instagram, [Swift] wrote, “Eras attire, friendship bracelets, singing and dancing encouraged,” indicating that the film would attempt to replicate the tour experience. Swift’s initial prescription generated many questions. Concerned parties wrote theater etiquette guides, and one fan conducted a thorough investigation into what kind of behavior theaters allow.”
The reporter writes of her own experience at a screening. “Shortly after the film started, a group of fans ran to the front of the theater to dance and jump up and down, returning to their seats when the slower sets (evermore and folklore) began. Behind me sat two young girls with glowsticks, who stood up to wave them around intermittently during the show’s 2-hour and 45-minute runtime.”
Several commenters weighed in on the utter insanity of working at the chain theater complex, with one remarking, “Working at Cineplex was a fever dream.”
“The slow dancing is killing me do you know what movie they saw,” asked another.
“I wanna work at cineplex but they’re never hiring when I apply,” wrote someone else. Elora suggested that they might have better luck reapplying around Christmas time.
One commenter corrected the theater worker on one detail in her slide show—as that person was actually featured in it.
Laughing about recognizing himself, he noted, “That’s me on the 8th slide – we were not filming a doc about the theatre..it was for a news story about a film.”
“I thought it was a documentary of a Bollywood movie,” she replied. “That’s sick tho.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to the creator via TikTok comment and to Cineplex Cinemas via email.