People forgot how to act in public
22/8/2023, 11:19
Why concertgoers keep throwing things at celebrities and no one can shut up at the movies.
By Alex Abad-Santosalex@vox.com Aug 21, 2023, 7:00am
[size=10]Pink, performing on stage in London, where a fan handed her their mother’s ashes. Burak Cingi/Redferns
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at the Atlantic.
Some people shouldn’t be out in public right now.
Movie theaters have become a lawless land where some moviegoers have no reservations about using their phones after films have started. Sometimes it’s not just a glance at the time, but full-on social media scrolls and posting. In New York City, Broadway audiences are drunk, rowdy, and apparently leaving feces in the aisles of theaters. This summer at various concerts, Albanian [url=https://people.com/bebe-rexha-requires-stitches-hit-in-face-with-phone-mid-show-man-arrested-7549468#:~:text=Bebe Rexha was struck in,Pier 17 in lower Manhattan.]pop star Bebe Rexha[/url] was beaned in the face, fellow pop princess Ava Max was slapped by a stage rusher, aerial-enthusiast Pink was handed someone’s mother’s ashes, fans interrupted country singer Miranda Lambert’s intimate show with an impromptu photo shoot, and a “fan” threw water on rapper Cardi B. (Cardi responded by chucking her microphone at her water-flinger.)
Large-scale, in-person events are down bad.
According to experts I spoke to, this rash of bad behavior can probably be traced to the pandemic shutdowns of 2020. During the lockdowns, we didn’t have large-scale social events and, no doubt, some people have sort of forgotten how to act now that they’re back.
But there’s also something deeper here, reflected in our protectiveness over these spaces and what they mean to us. Going to an in-person entertainment event is about more than just the movie, play, or pop star on display. These events are times when we experience important social connections, a phenomenon that happens so naturally that we don’t think about what these events mean to us — until someone really screws them up.
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It might seem obvious why acting out in public is deeply annoying, but it’s important to understand how much these large social events mean to humans. When someone makes a scene in public at a group event, we’re disturbed in large part because these gatherings are extremely important to our intellectual and emotional selves.
Humans are incredibly social creatures, and these events are moments of highly pleasurable social connections — what Shira Gabriel, a psychology professor at the University at Buffalo, calls “collective effervescence.” When we buy a ticket to a Broadway musical, or Barbie, or a Carly Rae Jepsen show, we’re purchasing the performance but we’re also buying that electric feeling of a crowd of humans appreciating the same thing.
[size=27]“WHEN WE’RE ALL FOCUSED ON A CONCERT OR A PLAY OR A MOVIE, WE FEEL A SENSE OF SOCIAL CONNECTION AND IT MAKES US FEEL REALLY GOOD”[/size]
“Collective effervescence is the way we feel connected when we’re in a crowd of other people, even if we don’t know them. When we’re all focused on a concert or a play or a movie, we feel a sense of social connection and it makes us feel really good,” Gabriel, who studies social behavior, told Vox.
Gabriel explained that the strength or weakness of social connections — the relationships we have with friends, romantic partners, acquaintances, and family — are one of the greatest predictors of depression, anxiety, suicide when it comes to our mental health, and wellness when it comes to physical health too.
By Alex Abad-Santosalex@vox.com Aug 21, 2023, 7:00am
[size=10]Pink, performing on stage in London, where a fan handed her their mother’s ashes. Burak Cingi/Redferns
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at the Atlantic.
Some people shouldn’t be out in public right now.
Movie theaters have become a lawless land where some moviegoers have no reservations about using their phones after films have started. Sometimes it’s not just a glance at the time, but full-on social media scrolls and posting. In New York City, Broadway audiences are drunk, rowdy, and apparently leaving feces in the aisles of theaters. This summer at various concerts, Albanian [url=https://people.com/bebe-rexha-requires-stitches-hit-in-face-with-phone-mid-show-man-arrested-7549468#:~:text=Bebe Rexha was struck in,Pier 17 in lower Manhattan.]pop star Bebe Rexha[/url] was beaned in the face, fellow pop princess Ava Max was slapped by a stage rusher, aerial-enthusiast Pink was handed someone’s mother’s ashes, fans interrupted country singer Miranda Lambert’s intimate show with an impromptu photo shoot, and a “fan” threw water on rapper Cardi B. (Cardi responded by chucking her microphone at her water-flinger.)
Large-scale, in-person events are down bad.
According to experts I spoke to, this rash of bad behavior can probably be traced to the pandemic shutdowns of 2020. During the lockdowns, we didn’t have large-scale social events and, no doubt, some people have sort of forgotten how to act now that they’re back.
But there’s also something deeper here, reflected in our protectiveness over these spaces and what they mean to us. Going to an in-person entertainment event is about more than just the movie, play, or pop star on display. These events are times when we experience important social connections, a phenomenon that happens so naturally that we don’t think about what these events mean to us — until someone really screws them up.
[/size]
The “collective effervescence” of live events is something humans crave, whether they know it or not
It might seem obvious why acting out in public is deeply annoying, but it’s important to understand how much these large social events mean to humans. When someone makes a scene in public at a group event, we’re disturbed in large part because these gatherings are extremely important to our intellectual and emotional selves.
Humans are incredibly social creatures, and these events are moments of highly pleasurable social connections — what Shira Gabriel, a psychology professor at the University at Buffalo, calls “collective effervescence.” When we buy a ticket to a Broadway musical, or Barbie, or a Carly Rae Jepsen show, we’re purchasing the performance but we’re also buying that electric feeling of a crowd of humans appreciating the same thing.
[size=27]“WHEN WE’RE ALL FOCUSED ON A CONCERT OR A PLAY OR A MOVIE, WE FEEL A SENSE OF SOCIAL CONNECTION AND IT MAKES US FEEL REALLY GOOD”[/size]
“Collective effervescence is the way we feel connected when we’re in a crowd of other people, even if we don’t know them. When we’re all focused on a concert or a play or a movie, we feel a sense of social connection and it makes us feel really good,” Gabriel, who studies social behavior, told Vox.
Gabriel explained that the strength or weakness of social connections — the relationships we have with friends, romantic partners, acquaintances, and family — are one of the greatest predictors of depression, anxiety, suicide when it comes to our mental health, and wellness when it comes to physical health too.
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