Thread by @Foz89107323

Zoomers can't go to concerts anymore without treating everything like a joke.

Death Grips recently ended a concert because the audience was throwing glow sticks onto the stage.

Here's why NPCs are ruining public gatherings.

THREAD 🧵

@robertlasagna1 has a great substack piece on NPC psychology - I think it applies here to concertgoers

Zoomers can't tell the difference between social media and reality because they try to live out their private lives in a public setting (which doesn't work, and leads to this):

@robertlasagna1 Somebody who makes a movie reference in conversation, or dresses up in some outfit they found on Reddit for a concert, is trying to escape the social tension of being in a public setting by alluding to something they discovered in a private setting.

@robertlasagna1 The more vulgar or weird the reference/costume is the better.

Why?

The source of the anxiety is rooted in the social expectations of others.

Shatter those social expectations with some obscure internet meme that nobody gets, and you dilute the social anxiety.

@robertlasagna1 Virtual existence is entirely private and immersive.

We are safe scrolling through our phones in the comfort of our own homes.

Nothing is expected of us when we are alone and behind a screen.

It's only in public that we have to focus on the "other" and how they see us.

@robertlasagna1 Zoomers have terrible social anxiety

In truth, though, we all do

The reason behind this is that, in public, we are all bound by a set of unwritten rules, social expectations, and decorum

In order to follow these rules we must perform and objectify ourselves for others.

@robertlasagna1 When you enter a public space, you are constantly judging and being judged.

It is expected of you, therefore, that the behavior you exhibit privately is not going to be the same behavior you express publicly.

This is what we are taught as kids.

@robertlasagna1 As children, we are taught how to be polite because politeness enables us to see ourselves from an outside perspective.

To be 'self-aware' means having the ability to step outside yourself so that you can read the room.

If you are chronically online, this is difficult.

@robertlasagna1 Zoomers feel most authentically themselves when they're alone because it's more familiar.

They are in a habitual, repetitious rut.

This is the net result of a long effort to sever the individual from the natural world of community.

The West has succeeded in doing this.

@robertlasagna1 When you're with another person you're out of yourself because the other person is flowing into you and you are flowing into them.

There are surprises, you're a little out of control.

Many zoomers assume, that because of this lack of control, they are being inauthentic.

@robertlasagna1 The sense of anxiety you feel around others, however, is the community acting through you

Human beings live in mutual accountability, each answerable to the other and each the object of judgment.

This mutual accountability only comes to life in the presence of others.

@robertlasagna1 As Roger Scruton said:

"The eyes of others address us with an unavoidable question, the question “why?” On this fact is built the edifice of rights and duties. And this, in the end, is what our freedom consists in — the responsibility to account for what we do."

@robertlasagna1 It may seem like 'society' is forcing you to be somebody other than who you are, but this is only because a certain bureaucratization of the spirit is necessary in a public setting.

All those rules of behavior you follow in public have a rich, invisible history.

@robertlasagna1 If everybody's emotional problems were dealt with utilizing the same level of seriousness and attention in public, that we give to friends and family in private, or online, nothing would never get done.

Social performance is a necessity in any complex society.

@robertlasagna1 As Irivin Koffman writes:

"As human beings, we are presumably creatures of variable impulse with moods and energies that change from one moment to the next. As characters put on for an audience, however, we must not be subject to ups and downs."

@robertlasagna1 Everybody is startled when a person gets angry in public and starts a fight, or when somebody cries hysterically in a store, not because society is a repressive force that suppresses our deepest emotions, but because public behavior is subject to a set of unwritten rules.

@robertlasagna1 The mask you put on to follow those unwritten rules is more real, far more noble, than the person behind the mask.

Why?

In public, all those animalistic habits you use behind closed doors are transmuted by conscience into loyalties and duties, and become a "mask".

@robertlasagna1 Why have Zoomers lost this ability to recognize those unwritten rules?

Social Media traps you in a digital hall of mirrors - it induces main-character syndrome.

Why?

Humans were built to only associate with 150 people - Dunbar's number.

Social media distorts this number.

@robertlasagna1 When your follower account grows on Instagram or TikTok, past Dunbar's number, you lose the ability to see every 'friend' as an individual.

As a result of this, all your followers become one 'homogenous block' — a singular imaginary audience.

@robertlasagna1 Since you are no longer relating to individuals, but rather one audience—which is like an imaginary crowd in your own head—you develop the notion that you are the main character in your own social media story

You imagine that everybody cares about your private thoughts/feelings

@robertlasagna1 The irony of this is that 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 thinks they're the main character in their own social media story, even if they don't have a lot of followers

But because we can only access our own accounts, we're never really forced to confront the solipsism of this way of thinking

@robertlasagna1 So how does this main character syndrome affect our public lives?

If you are constantly on social media, over time you start performing for that imaginary audience instead of the flesh-and-blood audience that only exists in the public world.

You lose the ability to be present.

@robertlasagna1 Suddenly, all public gatherings become gatherings of individuals who are wrapped up in their own heads, & whose purpose in going out isn't to be present, to step outside themselves, but rather to go viral, or to find somebody from their niche internet group.

@robertlasagna1 It's not surprising to hear that many of these chronically online Zoomers congregate at Death Grips concerts.

Death Grips grew in popularity thanks to meme culture and the internet.

But Death Grips, like any other band, takes their performances seriously.

@robertlasagna1 Zoomers disrespected them at a concert recently, throwing glow sticks onto the stage, because everything is a joke when you can't be present.

They were unable to see a performance for what it really was because they themselves were performing for an imaginary audience in public.

@robertlasagna1 Concerts used to be a place where we could experience moments of "collective effervescence" — complete immersion and oneness with a crowd of people.

But because Zoomers are way too comfortable being alone, when they feel the most in control, they rarely experience these moments.

@robertlasagna1 In public, Zoomers are always on their phones, listening to music with their headphones on, or Snapchatting their friends.

They fear the unpredictability of interacting with strangers.

Because of this, they lose the ability to spiritually transcend personal boundaries.

@robertlasagna1 Every form of contact with the "other", which takes them out of their comfort zone, has become an attack.

Words become microaggressions.

A hand around a woman's waist becomes sexual assault.

Silence becomes violence.

@robertlasagna1 We need to be more comfortable with our public personas, with the masks we show around other people.

Even though these masks are 'unreal' in the sense that they are an act, they are as perfect as the hero of a novel, or as a portrait or a bust.

@robertlasagna1 I saw Death Grips live in Boston back in September.

It was a visceral experience.

The music was loud, abrasive, and intense.

It's unfortunate that Zoomers have to hide behind multiple layers of irony in order to see them.

END.