Naturally Forming Dance Party
Since I saw it I’ve been meaning to link to this crazy video showing a dance party naturally developing. It’s a fascinating look at the crowd mind. Today Jonah Lehrer picked it up on his blog, explaining:
This dance worked the same way. At a certain point, the group of awkward dancers becomes undeniable – they can no longer be ignored. And that is when the contagion begins. Once we start to wonder whether the dance is fun – or what that cluster of people is looking at – then it’s only a matter of time before we too start to dance. Jane Jacobs, in other words, was right: “Life attracts life”.
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There must be something else going on here to explain the volume of people who rushed to the scene so quickly… I wonder if there was a camera man who decided to make a subject of the lone dancer- or the initial pair. If this scene in its infancy was broadcast onto one of those huge jumbo-tron screens at concerts, its easy to see how so many would rush to be part of it. You see that behavior at sporting events constantly. People want to be on camera.
Gladwell wrote about this – it all has to do with crowd mentality and people’s propensity to do something. Like clapping. Everyone knows they should do it, but usually there’s one person who’s threshold is zero, then someone else who’s willing to be #2, etc… Here they’re supposed to dance, there’s music playing. But only one guy had the balls to be first, which compelled someone else to be #2, etc..