The Warped Tour was a rite of passage for many Tumblr-era scene kids back in the day, but its history is disturbing, to say the least. In a new viral video, which has amassed just under 1 million views, user Heaven (@k1dneytheft) emphasized that the founder Kevin Lyman’s claims that Warped ended because of a “lack of community” weren’t exactly true.
In the clip, she described how Warped Tour’s core audience was within the 14 to 25 age bracket, meaning that a lot of minors attended these shows.
“When you create a music festival, featuring a lot of smaller punk bands just getting their first shine, who haven’t really gotten a lot of attention yet, and then all the attendees are mostly minors who are idolizing these men, there should be some kind of screening process to make sure that these men are allowed to be around children,” she said. “But there wasn’t.”
She then explained that after posting a recent video about the Warped Tour, a person who previously worked at the music festival got in touch with her and described some of the “terrible” encounters she’d witnessed between minors and these bands. As Heaven pointed out, numerous musicians involved with the Warped Tour had allegations levied against them.
Examples Heaven cited include Pierce the Veil Mike Fuentes’ alleged relationship with a 15-year old, Jonny Craig from Dance Gavin Dance’s domestic violence arrest as well as alleged assault, and Front Porch Step’s Jake McElfresh’s numerous alleged relationships with underage girls. Heaven also made reference to unverified rumors against now-deceased We Came As Romans’ vocalist Kyle Pavone.
As Heaven pointed out, the allegations against McElfresh were so worrisome that thousands signed an online petition for him to be removed from the 2015 Warped Tour—but this seemingly wasn’t enough for Lyman to remove him from the event. Ultimately, according to Heaven, it was Lyman’s disastrous 2017 interview with Billboard—during which he said the allegations surrounding Warped Tour were “part of the culture”—ended up being the final nail in the event’s coffin.
“Overall, I fully believe that the reason they actually shut down [Warped] was because they weren’t making any money considering all of the lawsuits they had against them, as well as the fact that the #Metoo movement was gaining traction in 2017,” Heaven concluded. “I think [Lyman] could tell that it was unsafe for this to continue, or he simply didn’t want to put up with it anymore.”
Heaven didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment via a TikTok comment. The Daily Dot reached out to a representative for Lyman via email.
In the comments section, there seemed to be a consensus among the viewers of this video: Disappointed, but not surprised.
@k1dneytheft *allegedly* #fyp #fypシ #fypage #fypシ゚viral #trend #trending #alt #alttiktok #warpedtour #kevinlyman #vanswarpedtour #xyzabc #story #music #musicfestival #punk #punkmusic #ptv #piercetheveil #emomusic #emo #allegations #warpedtourallegations ♬ original sound – Heaven
Several viewers shared their own stories about their experiences during the Warped Tour while underage, with even some alleged former event workers claiming they’ve “seen some things.”
This renewed publicity around sexual misconduct cases in the entertainment industry comes following the release of Quiet On Set, a documentary series that looks at the culture of abuse on the set of numerous Nickelodeon, child-star-led TV shows.
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