Mob mentality

[thealigator]

I am re-watching a TV Special by someone named Derren Brown. He is not a magician but he is someone who can mentally alter peoples perceptions and thoughts by using his mind and implying certain things.

In the special I am watching he is addressing the idea of Mob Mentality. In the show he is using a person and multiple other people as puppets. To do this he gathers many people, puts them into a studio and offers them two choices, to do a bad thing or to do a good thing (for example spilling a drink over the person or him getting a free drink), then they get to vote on which choice to make and it would appear that the audience mainly want the bad thing to happen, for the majority of the evening the audience choose to do the bad thing and be nasty to border line cruel.

I remember the first time I watched it thinking "this is not funny to me, why are people laughing? You are ruining this man for your own amusement", this is not me trying to sound self righteous it just happens to be true.

We see mob mentality on almost a daily basis, in work, in war zones, in politics and at times (though not so much anymore thankfully) football games here in the UK. Where people think it is okay to be nasty or cruel because others are. I do not share this philosophy. Am I perfect? Certainly not but I know if I see something wrong and walk away.

What is your take on this though? I am not looking for confessions and please do not judge others, it is simply something I am quite interested in.

 

[Hilander]

When it comes to a show like that often I think it is somewhat at least staged. However mob mentality does exist and it often raises its ugly head when people's concerns aren't being addressed especially when it comes to the political arena.

 

[NewGamePlus]

Of course it exists. This is a messageboard for cryin' out loud. Heck... forget messageboards.......

IT'S THE INTERNET...... FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!!!

People don't want to think for themselves and would rather fall back on any negative that exists than anything.

For example, look at how big of an ordeal people made about the idea of me coming back here in 2013. I just wanted to play the arcade because for some reason Generalforum's version of Helicopter was a tad slower than the common versions that are online everywhere, allowing me to approach a higher score for a stunt (which I still want to do) where I need my time to outlast the changing musical tracks I set up so that I could go on superimposing stuff at the end when I exhaust them (thereby taking advantage of the natural green/black screen that the game gives me for visual art purposes).

According to Echoes, it was really heatly discussed and ultimately, I wasn't allowed back then when my idea was still hot. And this is all for some old mod's ban (probably not even here anymore) who is basically a known "PMS-er", as I would call him and probably had no business being one.

So just the mere fact that it took a "grand convening of the tribunal geniousess" in order to discuss it, and then wait until 2014 when this place is sorta low activity in order to allow it is a perfect example of mob mentality. People are self-centered in general, they only want to see what is (A) around themselves, and (B) the most negative OF what's around them, and then gather together and react to only that.

I could be wrong on some details here, but that's the gyst of it. And also a part (minor, but still) of the reason why I didn't take up the offer until a whole unnecessary year passed in 2015. Now it's just convenience to me. I have a downtime period going on now anyways while waiting for certain stuff going on around here.

So.... perfect example.