On Sept. 6, 2025, popular teen influencer, Salish Matter, hosted an event at American Dream Mall in New Jersey. This was to help promote her new skincare brand, Sincerely Yours. The event then launched into chaos. Salish and her father, Jordan Matter, expected a couple thousand fans to be there, but they were met with 87,000 fans who showed up that day.
Salish and Jordan Matter are well known for their YouTube videos. During the pandemic, they would create challenge videos for their audience of children. As Salish got older, so did her audience, and her videos evolved into the teenage style you see on TikTok today.
Tickets went on sale for the Salish Matter: Sincerely Yours event about a month in advance. Matter sold a few thousand tickets. Yet, when the event began, a supposed 87,000 people were crowding outside the mall. Nobody was checking tickets. People were going in as they pleased, whether they had permission or not.
Accessed via Salish Matter’s Instagram.
What was happening inside the mall may have been an accident, but it was very dangerous. People were standing on escalators, hanging over railings, packed into stores, pushed up against the stage, and even more. Safety experts say that with ease, this could have resulted in a crowd crush. This is when too many people crowd into one space, and the pressure from being pushed up against one another makes it hard to breathe.
Jordan Matter said that they were forced to shut down the event early, and wouldn’t allow him or his daughter to go out and see the crowd. They stayed backstage for a while, before being forced to stop the event by safety officials.
Many fans were angry with the turnout of the event, especially the ones that paid money for tickets to be there. Salish had promised time for a few fans to meet with them backstage, who then lost the opportunity. However, Salish and Jordan Matter made up for it by scheduling another time to meet up with those fans.
Salish and Jordan Matter are still making apologies to fans due to this event. Even after the things they did to make up for it, many fans are still criticizing them for the failure of the first event due to disorganization and chaos.
Salish, being only fifteen years old, was affected mentally by the event. She said the event event was the scariest day of her life. Even after all the chaos, Salish and her father are still dealing with angry fans. One parent on Instagram recently said, “You and your team should be ashamed of themselves. Simple as that.” Another parent, on TikTok, said, “Got there at 5:45 am, was stupid packed already. Once we got inside it was even worse. All for the Salish girl to cancel the event. The things I do for my kid.”
Salish and Jordan will probably be dealing with angry people for a while. Most of the comment sections on their videos are filled with negative responses about the event. Extra precautions are now being taken by other influencers to make sure more problems such as this don’t happen, Salish and Jordan included. While they hope to move forward from this, this event will remain in everyone’s mind when thinking about influencer meetups.
