The Mob Mentality

Last night I went to my first concert.  Ok, my first "small-venue concert packed with people in a kinda sketch part of town".  One of those kinds of concerts.  It was an intriguing experience.

As it turns out, I'm rather claustrophobic.  Not horribly, fit-throwingly, mental break-down-y claustrophobic, but apparently emotional and stress-out claustrophobic.  There was a girl standing in front of us in the crowd who also seemed to have a hard time with the cramped quarters.  She took enough space for two people.  I didn't begrudge her a little breathing room...or at least I wouldn't have had she granted me the same.  However, at the slightest touch she would suddenly push back against you as though you were trying to strip her of her acreage, and at one point I was literally being smooshed between her jutting backside and the hip/groin/stomach area of the tall gentleman behind me (who generally didn't react when I was shoved into him, but at this point was pushing back on me I can only assume to let people across the room pass through the crowd).  The only feasible option to access my hands was to remove my arm from my body at the shoulder and withdraw it vertically.  It was this moment that I suffered the most intense attack of claustrophobia.  To my horror I discovered that my instinctive reaction to being pancaked between two complete strangers is to burst into tears.  This was not an acceptable response however, so I quickly began to cast my mind about to find some way to calm myself.

As my mother likes to point out, my traditional method of coping with emotions which are beyond my control is to dissociate and become analytical and academic.  She likes to imply that this is a defect in my personality, but I was deeply grateful to the habit in that moment.  After that initial burst of stress, I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths and allowed my rational brain to step in.  Suddenly, instead of focusing on the sharp hip pressing into my own, demanding ever more of the personal space I did not have to give, I was considering the concert-going experience (and thence mob-mentality) as a whole and that hip was data I could incorporate into an overall analysis.

First I considered the general "formula" of the modern-day concert.  The performers that night were Guggenheim Grotto and Ingrid Michaelson.  You wouldn't really call either of them hardcore or anything.  They both have heavy folk influences, though Ingrid balances those with only slightly less pop influence.  The point is, most of their music is fairly acoustic and mellow.  And yet even in a show like this it was absolutely expected that there would be something beyond simply the music.  Flashing lights, cloaks, SOMETHING.  Not to mention the sheer volume.  Several times I admit that I covered my ears.

As I examined my surroundings I became more and more bemused by them.  Why has this formula evolved?  I simply couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer.  I mean, ostensibly, the purpose of a concert is to hear the music, right?  But all the lights distract you, and the amps have been turned up to the point where they're actually obscuring the sound rather than improving it.  In every way, the spectacle on stage is actually detracting from the music to which you're listening to.

Not to mention the phenomenon that got me thinking about this in the first place.  There are hundreds and hundreds of people smashed into a very small space all to only kind of listen to some music.  Why do we do this?  But as I looked at the people around me--the friend I'd come with, the guy she knew that we ran into, that same girl with the sharp hips, Mr. Tall--all of them had huge grins on their faces.  Every one in the room was cheering and singing and loving every minute of this experience that should, technically, have been miserable.  We'd all been standing for hours, we were cramped and smelly, and our ears were being damaged by excessive sound.  But everyone around me was having a blast.  That was the answer.

The purpose of a concert is not, actually, to listen to music.  It is, rather, an exercise in voluntarily submitting, even striving for, the "mob mentality".  The flashing lights, the high volume, all of this over-abundance of stimuli are simply tricks that have evolved to make the process easier.  Essentially, a concert serves as an excuse and a means of filtration.  Ingrid Michaelson is playing?  Oh, well I'll go to that because I like her music--as do a bunch of other people.  In the enjoyment of her music we share a bond (be it ever so tenuous) and that is enough for me to join you for an experiment in community.  People at a concert are, for those two hours, forming a great writhing community that eventually gains independent existence of its own.  Once you become a part of such an organism the varying moods and tones of the crowd take the place of your own emotional response.

Don't mistake me, I don't actually think this is a bad thing.  At least, not in the context of a concert or Harry Potter release party or midnight movie showing.  I think forming random temporary bonds like that with complete strangers is likely quite beneficial if for no other reason than that it teaches us that anyone really can get along.  Feeling as though you have ties to your community and the people around you is what being civilized is all about really.

So then what about me?  Here I was, surrounded on all sides by this web of connected humans and I was all alone squished between them.  I can't even really say that I isolated myself as a coping mechanism for my claustrophobia.  Rather, I think I was anxious and full of anxiety because I was already feeling isolated mentally whilst simultaneously being lost physically in the pulsating masses.  It occurred to me at that moment that I almost never feel that "mob-mentality" bond.  Not on any level.  Not when I was a little girl and my group of friends would become possessed of the spirit of mischief and get carried away doing silly things or talking about boys, or whatever.  I remember myself as constantly standing in the back offering the ever-ignored voice of reason.  And not now either, when I'm at a concert or chilling with my friends.  I almost never get lost in the moment.

As I stood there and thought about all of this I felt a wistful sense of longing.  I wanted to join in...or rather, I wanted to want to join in.  I wanted to surrender control of myself to the group and feel connected to everyone in that room.  I wanted to be a part of a whole.  I couldn't figure out why I'm so disconnected from such experiences.  I still don't really know.  But now, looking back on that evening I'm ok with it.  I'm not entirely incapable of some version of this experience as one or two of my friends can attest to.  And in the end, if I'm not a participant I can be an observer, which is a role I've always preferred.  Because I didn't get involved I was able to see it all from a completely different perspective than most of the other people there, and that is not an invaluable thing.

Eventually my musings calmed me enough to endure the remainder of the concert, despite Bony Hip Girl and Mr. Tall.  Nonetheless, as I snuck out of the crowd early to snag a t-shirt for my band I couldn't restrain what probably appeared to be a rather seizure-like spasm as I finally passed into open air.  The liberty to move my limbs freely was truly a sweet one and I simply waved my arms about for a few minutes relishing it.