People Are Strange.

People are strange. We all know the odd things we do when no one's around -- singing, dancing, talking to yourself. Someone walking in on you, and you are shocked reveals how it is weird. More or less, though, people understand that we are all individually pretty odd beings, but technology has somehow allowed this oddness to be collectivized into group acts of the bizarre.

As people enter into group activities through the cover of anonymity that technology provides, they are able to at last in public be that weird person who will make strange faces at himself in the mirror when no one is around.

This idea has been floating ahead in my head for the past month or so, especially after going to our college May Ball. (May Balls are these über extravagant balls that the Cambridge colleges put on in June at the end of term, and are worth a post of their own sometime...) Anyway, one of the big rooms of the college was turned into a silent disco for the night. If you haven't heard of silent disco, it's a clubbing concept where all of the people wear headphones tuned to the same frequency of what the dj is playing. The room then is utterly silent, except for the heavy breathing of the dancers, their feet hitting the floor, and of course, the collective off key singing for a hit track.

Usually there are two dj's playing different styles, and you can change between the two channels leading to the amusing situation of half the room singing a remixed oldie, while the rest goes crazy on a hot techno track.

Needless to say I was weirded out.

I only spent about 10 minutes in the May Ball's silent disco room before having to remove myself for feeling uncomfortable while everyone else was loving it. I took a great video, but I found this one on youtube of some other silent disco which is even better, and I think is especially funny because of the awkward silence that occurs when the folks stop singing the refrain from Nirvana's "Lithium":

Just as Kurt Cobain would have wanted it.

While poking around youtube looking at other awkward "hip" teenagers and young twentysomethings dancing to the latest fad in silence, I found more instances of collective weirdness, and perhaps the most interesting thus far:

Flash mobs.

Flash mobs are basically coordinated events where strangers gather at a specified time and place to do something weird in coordination to the bewilderment of the pedestrians around. Usually arranged through the internet shortly ahead of time, they come as a complete surprise.

I had first heard about them from my oldest brother a couple years back, and in March, I saw a flash public pillow fight in Leicester Square in London, but this video was the first one I saw online. It takes place in a supermarket in Manchester, where 50 people suddenly become frozen leading to a very creepy effect:

Manchester supermarket.

The confusion of the people walking through the aisles as everyone is frozen is priceless. There is something truly strange when the monotony and what we consider ordinary becomes suddenly broken, and we are left out of the loop. People watching videos of these flash mobs on the internet are in an odd liminal position of being both spectators and participants. We too are observers of the people doing the strange behavior, but at the same time are "in on it" to a certain extent.

At first while watching with amazement, my initial thought was, oh those crazy Europeans... But then as I kept looking for more videos, I found the most impressive one, and it took place in the U.S.

Hundreds of strangers gathered in Grand Central Station in New York, when at the same second they became frozen for a couple minutes as people stared at them, and then suddenly came back to life on cue as if nothing had happened.

En masse.

The group that arranged the Grand Central flash mob is famous in the flash mob scene. Improv Everywhere has organized all sorts of weird spontaneous groups. From people showing up to a random Little League game and becoming crazy fans as if it was the World Series, folks moving in slow motion in a Home Depot, all red heads showing up to one car in a subway, people bringing in full sized PC's to connect to the internet at Starbucks, to fifty men all walking in shirtless and browsing the collection at a popular Abercrombie & Fitch shop, they all border on the strange.

These are all things that if done in singularity would be socially unacceptable. Unless you're Borat, Tom Green, or Ashton Kutcher, and have your own recognized tv show, it is uncomfortable for one person to go out and be weird.

If they do, they are are just crazy or annoying.

Somehow, though, when a group synchronizes and acts as a whole, their actions are legitimized. At the end of the Grand Central clip, the people not in on the flash mob applaud genuinely afterward. If it had been one person, you just would have walked around them.

From silent discos to flash mobs, we are seeing how technology is allowing people to put themselves and all of their weirdness in the public sphere. The strangeness, though, is validated by other people welcoming and approving it as a group action. The individual in modern society at last has an outlet to let his strangeness flourish before others, while remaining anonymous.

So you no longer have to make those funny faces in the mirror in private by yourself. As long as you have others with you.