Journal Entry #4

2/21/13

Journal Entry #4

Power of the situation

In another instance when I was on the West Coast, I was attending my fourth rock concert out of five for that trip. My friends and I were already at the venue. The opening band had finished, and the crowd was all watching with eager as the tech crew set up for the main show. We were all sitting with anticipation, waiting for that first blasting chord, and then there it was. Something didn’t feel right though, the music was playing, the lights were scanning the crowd, but everyone was still sitting. Was there something this crowd knew that we didn’t? No, I had seen three shows of this same band in the past few days, I knew how this was supposed to go. After a few moments the band came on stage and yet seemingly the entire audience was still sitting down. What was wrong with these people? It’s a rock concert; you stand up for the band you bought tickets for. If you’re not excited to be here, it obviously was not worth the money.

My group and the entire section continued to sit for the entirety of the first two songs. I was definitely feeling the pressure to stay seated from everyone around me. I was conforming to what I guess was the “typical” audience member for this city. It just felt really weird to be sitting at a rock show. It was as if none of this was actually real; as if we were merely watching a video of the concert and it wasn’t really taking place in front of us. From the seat, my band felt boring, an adjective I never imagined using to describe them.

When the third song came on, I was sick of everyone’s attitudes. I tapped my friends on the shoulders and told them, “I don’t care anymore, I’m standing. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.” It was one of my favorite songs, and I wasn’t going to ruin it for myself just because no one else in the audience seemed to want to be there. The five of us got up and all decided to rock out along with the band members. We had a really good time despite the extremely disgruntled audience members behind us. My friend next to me heard them cursing and complaining that they couldn’t see. Clearly, the task of looking bored was way too difficult to do standing, so no one stood up behind us. That was alright though; they could do whatever they pleased so long as they didn’t try to make us sit down with them.

My choice to not conform was influenced by my strong desire to enjoy the experience I came for.  The power of the social situation was close to interrupting that exciting experience. I guess the gravity of the situation has an effect on how able a person within the situation is able to break social code. The situation my friends and I faced was not nearly as grave as something like “The Stanford Prison Experiment”.

http://www.prisonexp.org/

In the participants’ situation, there was a risk for serious consequences if they did not conform to their social roles. Each person adopted the role they thought was appropriate for a prisoner or guard. In such a small group, to not conform may make an individual feel like an outcast. Each individual cared about what the others thought of them.

My case was not nearly so extreme, but had a few parallels. In the stadium, I only cared about my groups’ welfare and my own. I was in a city where no one else knew me except for those in my group. I owed no loyalties to anyone else, so I did not care about breaking the social codes for that city. On the flip side, I wonder if there were so many people sitting down in the theater because they thought that’s what everyone else is supposed to do. They may also have been pressured by their friends to conform. Not wanting to be left out from the group in the future, they did what everyone else did, to fit in and maintain relationships with the people they knew.  

I am simply glad to not have had this negative conformity issue within my group of friends. We all had fun despite the dispirited crowd, and I’m really happy about that.