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Influencers Have Turned Everything Into Content. At the U.S. Open, Even the Tennis Had to Wait

By Ola Oloro, on September 3, 2026

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For a few moments Monday night, Naomi Osaka’s U.S. Open match had an absurd problem: the tennis was getting in the way of somebody’s photoshoot.

Late in the fourth game of the second set, with Osaka preparing to serve at deuce, chair umpire Kader Nouni stopped her. His attention was on the hospitality area behind him, where guests were on their feet taking pictures and a bright light had become impossible to ignore. “Guys, please,” Nouni said over the stadium speakers, asking them to sit down. Elsewhere during the match, another spectator filmed a separate attendee posing while someone held up a bright light for the shot.

The incident was funny because it was ridiculous. It was infuriating because it wasn’t unfamiliar. Somewhere along the way, going somewhere became less important than producing evidence that you went.

Real life keeps becoming somebody’s set

You see it at restaurants, where dinner waits while somebody photographs the table. You see it at concerts, where the person in front of you holds a phone above their head for half the show. You see it at gyms, tourist attractions, airports and sidewalks — ordinary people suddenly finding themselves in the background of a stranger’s production.

Taking pictures is not new. Neither is wanting people to know you were somewhere interesting. What feels different now is the expectation that everybody else should accommodate the production. Move aside. Wait before eating. Stay out of the frame. Let me redo that entrance. Hold the light. Walk past again.

Influencer culture did something far more significant than create a new profession. It taught millions of people to think about ordinary experiences as material. A meal can become a post. A concert can become a reel. A vacation can become a week’s worth of content.

You don’t have to make money from any of it. You just have to start seeing the experience partly through the question of how it will look online.

That is why the U.S. Open incident hit differently.

There was already an obvious main event inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. One of the best tennis players of her generation was standing at the baseline, ready to serve. And the match still had to wait.

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@katticuspfinch Tennis etiquette is that you don’t even GET UP IN THE MIDDLE OF A POINT but now at @US Open apparently it’s ring lights and photo shoots everywhere in the MIDDLE OF A POINT. Listen, I love bringing new people to the open and I’m all for getting more people into tennis because it’s such a fun sport to watch but if you’re going to disrespect the players, you shouldn’t come to the match. And I LOVE content creators bringing tennis to everyone on social media but if you’re not going to be respectful of the game being played thats NOT OKAY. Yyou can see ring lights from all over the stadium and the umpire and players made it very clear that it’s a HUGE DISTRACTION and it’s now impacting the players ability to play the game we are all here to see. And apparently the us open and USTA are just fine with it because their staff is helping it happen. @influencersinthewild @Tennis Channel #nyccontentcreator #naomiosaka #usopen #tennistiktok #usopentennis ♬ original sound – There I Ruined It

We built this world on purpose

It would be convenient to blame influencers entirely, except businesses spent years begging for exactly this.

Restaurants design photogenic interiors. Hotels sell views made for Instagram. Brands invite creators to events because a single post can reach people traditional advertising cannot. Sports have enthusiastically joined in.

According to Front Office Sports, the U.S. Open went from 54 credentialed creators last year to close to 100 this year. The USTA says the 2025 group generated more than 5.5 million social engagements.

That is valuable attention. Of course organizers want more of it. And the people involved in the Osaka disruption were not attending on official U.S. Open creator credentials, according to the tournament. That distinction matters. But so does what happened anyway.

This culture no longer requires an invitation. People already know the script.

Get the shot. Get the video. Show everyone where you are.

Maybe everything doesn’t need to become content

This is not an argument for confiscating every phone at the door. Nobody is ruining the U.S. Open by taking a picture from their seat. A parent recording a child’s first concert is not destroying civilization. But shared spaces require some understanding that other people did not agree to participate in your production.

At some point, the meal gets eaten. The person behind you gets to see the stage. The stranger at the gym gets to exercise without becoming your background. And when Naomi Osaka is standing at the baseline preparing to serve at the U.S. Open, perhaps the photoshoot can wait.

Because there is something bleak about reaching a point where experiences increasingly seem designed not simply to be lived, but displayed. Thousands of people had gathered inside one of the most famous tennis stadiums in the world to watch the U.S. Open.

For a moment, the U.S. Open had to stop so somebody could show the internet that they were there.

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