WEBVTT - Crowds 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:09.400 As a musician. Tour is my favorite and least favorite 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:13.000 part of the job. You've got long drives, gas station sandwiches, 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.920 shared hotel bathrooms, but on the good nights you also 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:24.200 get them Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people collected into 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.640 one room feeling the same way at the same time. 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.120 Sometimes you feel like an entertainer, but sometimes it feels 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:36.080 like a rally, or like you're at church. I'm not 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.680 a religious or a spiritual person, but that simultaneity of 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.199 shared experience, it's a communion. Everybody lit up by the 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:47.120 music and by one another. My name is Dessa. The 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.120 name of the podcast you're attending is deeply human, and 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.479 today we're asking why did crowds move you? Let the 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.160 show begin. The first act on the bill is a 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.160 master of crowd control and not too modest to tell 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:02.560 you all about it. Hi, my name is cybers Sounds. 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.280 I'm very famous in New York. Cifa is a live 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.720 DJ in a stand up comic and it's like cent 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:13.840 in New York. Listen. I'm an expert name dropper. My 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.640 first big gig ever was with Little Kimp. I worked 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:21.280 with everybody uh DJ Wise ninety seven, Wise jay z 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.959 I broke Rihanna, I broke Rick Ross, very instrumental and breaking. 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.960 Sean Paul Cipher's Instagram page is chock full of vintage 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.080 picks of him cheessing with Kanye and Dave Chappelle, t 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:35.880 I and Snoop Dogg. He's been in the game a 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.520 long time. When you perform as a DJ live, can 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:44.440 you explain what crowd control is? I have this knack 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.440 to read the crowd. It's definitely my gift. I go 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.080 into like this trance where I see the crowd as 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:56.320 like colors and pockets of movement, and I'll be DJ 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:58.120 for a thousand people and I'll look over to the 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:00.400 left and I'll see like a group of twenty not 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.680 really dancing for whatever reason, and my my honing skills 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.160 tune into that part because that twenty people not dancing 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.480 could turn into a virus and spread and make the 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.280 crowd not you know, they could make the whole party flop. 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.000 So when you talk about room reading, you know, and 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:19.800 so you're looking for motion, can you give me some 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.720 of the other indicators, Like, um, if you see blue faces, 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:24.800 that means people are looking at their screens, you know 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:26.680 what I mean, Which means that they're maybe not attending 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.360 to the show. What else are you looking for besides movement? 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:35.120 This movement? There's body language, there's facial expression. There's a 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.720 thing where like the quick look at the booth. So 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.359 you're playing a couple of songs and then you play 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.440 a song that people don't like, and you will see 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:44.560 some girls that quickly look at the booth like what 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:46.000 do you? What is this? You know what I mean? 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.720 And that hurts. But Sifa is a consummate pro who 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.960 knows exactly what to spin to start the party. He 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.480 can calculate the average age of the crowd and then 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.840 consult the spreadsheet in his head of the song that 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.320 would have been chart top during their high school years. 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.080 Nostalgia tracks are strong medicine, and he gets on the 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.160 mic himself to lure the first bodies to the dance floor. 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:14.639 There's usually like some girls that are ready to party 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:16.920 and they're like starting to move early, and I and 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.080 I even say, hey, you are his shirt, like I 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:22.120 got you, you know what I mean, I feel your vibe. 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.040 I'm doing this for you. And then they feel special 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:29.240 and they start opening up and I'm like, tell your 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:31.200 friends to come out, and they come on come out, 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:32.960 you know, And they come out and they start there, 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:34.760 and then then a group of other people are like, yo, 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.200 don't let them have all the fun, and the other 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.280 people start coming. You'll see it, like the floor start 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:45.120 to get filled up. As a comic, Piper's home base 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.840 is at the Comedy Seller in Manhattan. It's a world 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.320 famous joint, this little dim basement room that does three 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.440 or four shows a night. Tickets are cheap, beers are expensive, 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:56.560 and people line up down the block to get in. 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.520 Our guys, Sip usually plays the role of the host, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.880 reading the audience and doing little bits in between sets. 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.640 So I'm the first guy, you see, and I have 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:10.240 ten minutes to get that crowd ready for the show. Comedians, 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:11.960 as soon as they walk in the building, the first 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:15.200 question is like, how's the crowd? How's the crowd? Always, 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.400 you know, there's a feeling that's gestalt bigger than the 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:22.160 individual people at individual tables, and Cypher's job is to 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:26.000 prime the crowd. When he delivers, these people perfectly prepared 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.839 to be entertained. Comics know it and appreciate it, and 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.520 they'll give me a look like, oh this is this. 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.800 You got this crowd right? So what makes a good 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.600 crowd good? Let's pass the mic to Ann Templeton, a 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:42.800 lecturer and social psychology at the University of Edinburgh in 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.840 the UK. She researches what she calls a psychological crowd, 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.719 a massive people who have more in common than just 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:54.240 sharing the same physical space. So that is where you 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.800 have a crowd of people who have a sense of 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.160 connection to each other. They feel like the part of 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:02.320 the same group, like a concert where everybody knows all 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.359 the words, or protest where everyone is marching for the 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:09.039 same cause. We're more likely to provide help to people 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:10.920 we see as being in the same group as as 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.640 we feel closer to them. Are more likely to share resources, 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:19.440 whether that's water or bottle of alcohol or food with 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.680 people who are in our group. Multiple psychological crowds can 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.800 often exist within a single physical one. I think of 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.960 a sports game where some sections are racking the home 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.279 team jerseys and others are rooting for the visitors. And 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.599 says that feeling connected to the people in a psychological 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.720 crowd changes our behavior, can even change the way we 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.160 Locomo I did a series of study start my PhD. 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.480 We essentially found that when people are in a psychological 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.919 crowd compared to physical crowd, the state in closer proximity 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.640 with one another and larger subgroups within the crowd. So 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.600 what seems to be happening is that group members or 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.360 try to stay together with other group members, and they'll 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.520 even reduce their speed and kind of walk further in 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:11.520 order to stay together. To research really vast assemblies of people, 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.520 and has studied the Hajj, the trip to Mecca, the 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.400 practicing Muslims are expected to make at least once in 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:22.480 their lives. The hash is one of the most densely 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.720 populated crowds I've ever seen pilgrims. They're really kind of 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.679 packed together, and they can be up to twelve people 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.719 per square meter, which is so dense that you're actually 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.800 like lifted up by the crowd. They found that the 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.279 more people felt like they were part of a group, 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.560 the safer they felt in the crowd, and that actually 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:49.040 increased in more dense areas. For people who had lower 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.960 identification with the crowds, so who didn't feel as much 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.080 part of the group with the others, we see the 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.080 opposite effect. So the more dense area was, the less 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.600 safe they actually felt. You know what, The out stands 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:02.920 for you know what the norms are, what the kind 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.760 of values are of that crowd, and you act within them. 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.920 So when people are with fellow group members, they feel 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:15.160 more empowered to act certain waysted Wi anyway, So what 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.560 does that mean exactly? What does it look like to 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.680 be empowered to do something bold? Electrified by the crowd. 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.520 Let's queue up our next cameo, Hey, I'm Gonzia and 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:28.000 I make stuff, and I make what some people referred 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.960 to as art. Ganzer is a street artist who grew 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:35.000 up in Cairo, Egypt. He does large scale murals, sometimes 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.960 several stories high, and most of it is overtly political. 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.800 He gained international attention during the Arab Spring in two 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:45.040 thousand eleven. Ganzer was at a friend's house one day 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.600 when his Twitter feed blew up with news of a 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.320 protest on the streets, and one post in particular grabbed 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.120 his attention. A friend was live broadcasting video from what 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.680 looked like a very big march headed towards the rear square. 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.520 I just left it out to see what was up, 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.080 and I just so happened to arrive at exactly that 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.560 that moment when kind of that big march, those protesters 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.720 arrived to the square, and the square was really blocked 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.200 off by so much right please. The square was lined 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.720 with people watching, waiting to find out what would happen 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.600 when such a surge of marchers met the police lines. 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.679 A lot of people weren't intending on participating in protest, 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.280 myself included. And then when the protesters did in fact 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:31.200 arrive without kind of words being exchanged or anything, is 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.240 just like, okay, they want to make it through, and 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.640 so they just kept on marching. And then the police 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:39.800 of their reaction was to use their sticks and batons 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.600 and whatever to hit the protesters. And seeing that, witnessing 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.199 that so so up close, just prompted people to kind 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.240 of go crazy, like this is unacceptable. That's when the 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:56.199 crowd got big. There was a billboard in the middle 0:08:56.240 --> 0:09:00.000 of the Tiger Square that advertised the main political part 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.040 Preaty that has been in power for a long time, 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.880 or wasn't power up until that point, which is Mubarak's 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:09.240 U political party in two thousand eleven, who's named Mubarak 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.120 had been in power for thirty years, heading a regime 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.480 that many Egyptians were decrying as corrupt and repressive. I 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:19.240 felt like, okay, so eventually they're going to crack down 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.559 on this protest and there will be no sign of it, 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:23.559 you know. So I had a spray paint in my backpack. 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.400 I climbed the billboard and spray painted on the back 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:30.160 of it, basically what what everyone was chanting, which was 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.920 down with mbaruk. When they saw me climbed the billboard, 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.160 they started like shouting at me, telling me like to 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.520 come down, and there was definitely the sense of everyone 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:44.400 wanted it was very very keen on the protest being peaceful. 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:47.240 So people started chatting at me and I just sort 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.640 of gestured with my hands tell everyone to calm down. 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.200 It's not what you think. And then I pulled out 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.880 the spray paint from the backpack and then as soon 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.560 as they saw that then they kind of started like 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:02.960 encouraged me, like oh okay, yeah, spray something. And before 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.839 I had even completed the sentence, everyone started to really 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.400 cheer quite loudly on clap and you could hear it 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.800 going throughout the square. Do you think that this is 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:14.640 something that you would have ever done if you weren't 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:18.240 in a crowd. No, it was a crowd based right, 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.720 It's like myself being moved by the crowd and and 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:26.439 literally my arms just being told to write what they 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.560 were saying. You know what I mean. That's like would 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:31.920 never have happened without being in that crowd, for sure. 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:36.400 The voices embodies around him gave Ganzier the nerve to 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.160 act on a brave impulse. He'd been critical of the 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:43.040 government before, but in that square, in that moment, he 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.440 became the mouthpiece of the crowd in a way that 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.200 he had never previously anticipated or experienced. He had this 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.040 feeling of total connection, and other people in the crowd 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.760 seemed to feel it too. People were banding together, helping 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.760 one another. Police forces, in an attempt to dissolve the assembly, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.120 fired tear gas into the crowd. Ginzer had never seen 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.600 tear gas before, and after the boom of the shot, 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:10.559 he says, there was a moment of stillness, then panic, 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.840 but momentarily the canister was flying back towards the police. 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.360 Someone must have picked it up and thrown it by hand. 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.320 It did feel quite magical in a sense. I think 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:27.240 there was just this feeling of complete non existence of 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:31.160 the ego of the self, and it was it was 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:36.760 really the collective us individually, like each person is different, 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.840 you know, each person has different interests, different concerns, different jobs. 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.520 But then in that moment, in that space, everyone there 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.120 was a feeling that like, none of that, none of 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.840 that is really important without dealing with this other thing 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:57.079 first for everyone, you know, and I remember just being 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:00.840 moved by the various actions that every one was doing. 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:05.400 Selflessness was really just contagious, and it was just sort 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.760 of echoing off of each and every single person in 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:13.000 the square in that moment. Ganzer eventually left Cairo and 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.800 moved to the US, in part because he was being 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.280 singled out by Egyptian media outlets sympathetic to the government. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.839 In print, online, and on TV. The protesters at to 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:28.880 Rear Square were described as thugs, rioters, and outlaws. In 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.240 the press, images of big crowds are often accompanied by 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.880 messages of concern. Big congregations of people are sometimes portrayed 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:43.200 as fundamentally criminal or particularly susceptible to base animalistic impulses, 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.880 and Templeton are crowd expert says that there's a very 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:52.280 specific reason for those associations. Generally, I get the sense 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.000 that you think that crowds got a bad rap, but 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.680 like there's been a lot of heterism on crowds. Well, 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.040 do a quick walkdown history ly so one of the 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.920 original kind of crowd theorists was Gustave Lebon, and he 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:12.120 was advocating how terrible crowds were during the Paris community. 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.720 For those of you feeling a little rusty and nineteenth 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.400 century Parisian history, the Paris Commune was a short lived 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.280 revolutionary government led by common people. It was the product 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.320 of a working class insurrection in the city, masses of 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:29.920 people revolting against French federal rule. And this character, Gustave 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.320 Lebon was not a fan of democracy. He was really 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:38.040 promoting this idea that crowds are these irrational, spineless masses. 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.120 It just needs to be controlled by a good leader. 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.280 And says, a lot of our modern ideas about crowds 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.440 stem from Lebon's not so thinly veiled classism. He kind 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.920 of popularized this notional crowds and that persisted and persisted, 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.480 and you look at media coverage even now, you see 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:59.440 things like stampedes. You see about the irrational mobs and 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:03.559 talk about mentality, so they really do get a bad rap. 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.240 Would he still consider a group of people at the 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.680 opera a crowd. So Christ in the upper early they 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.480 were absolutely fine. But the working classes here were revolting. No, no, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:19.280 they were irrational, they were mindless. Sometimes violence does erupt 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.120 within a crowd, but Ann says that the majority of 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.440 people don't exhibit disregard, let alone malice for one another, 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.840 even in desperate circumstances. If you look at the Manchester 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.840 Arena attack from the Ariana Grande concert, we saw great 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.880 examples of people going back in and helping one another. 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.200 In two thousand seventeen, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.160 at a concert in Manchester, England, right after the singer 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.040 Ariana Grande finished her last song. There were over fourteen 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.480 thousand people at that show and twenty two of them 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.440 died amid the fear and the confusion right after the blast. 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.520 Crowd members were there for one another. They're performing for 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.360 us to aid to each other. They were giving emotionals, support, 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.080 they were sharing Walter all before emergency services were able 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.280 to get into the building, the cards were already performing 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:11.200 amazing coordination to support one another, to match up children 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.920 with their families, for parents to look after kids, and 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.880 recommends that authorities and emergency personnel work with the crowd 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.280 instead of focusing on gaining control of it. The crowd 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:32.920 is often pretty good at taking care of itself. Did 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.280 you know that in the UK they call an intermission 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:39.120 an interval? I just found out myself two countries separated 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:43.240 by a common language. Man, Okay, this is radio, so 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.200 we gotta be quick about this. You've got, let's say, 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.320 eight seconds to visit the bathroom, get a refreshment, and 0:15:48.360 --> 0:16:01.480 return to your seat, and we're all settled back in fantastic. 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.440 From up here on stage, you can see little ripples 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.200 of motion moving across an audience. Having been a performer 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.359 myself for most of my adult life, it's still fascinating 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.040 to me to watch all the varied ways that crowds move. 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.880 For example, I recently finished it tour opening for a 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:23.000 band called Thievery Corporation. Their stuff has big drumbeats, sitar, 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.160 kind of groovy vocals, and during our set, the motion 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.280 of their audience is so different than what I'm used 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:30.920 to seeing at my own gigs that at first it 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.240 was downright disorienting. Like is a hip hop artist, I'm 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:38.280 accustomed to staccato gestures fans with one arm up, beating 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.400 in time to the music, whereas this thievery crowd was 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:46.120 way way looser. After our first show together, my bandmate 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:49.880 Joshua described it as a kelp forest, This vast sea 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:54.920 of fluid, undulating bodies cipher sounds the very famous in 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.040 New York crowd whisperer sees the same thing when he's 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.800 up there in the DJ. Depending the type of music 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.920 and the type of party, you will see like like 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:09.280 ocean waves, Synchronized dancing or swaying is usually a great 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.960 sign for a performer, an indicator that the audience is 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:16.440 swept up in the same feeling. But sometimes movements sweeping 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.960 through a crowd can be dangerous. Let's welcome our next 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.000 guest to center stage. Will you introduce yourself to me 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.280 as you would have at a party? Oh? Right, at 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:30.800 a party, I would say, hi, a Marianna, I do physics, 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.600 and you would say, oh, physics. Oh I was so 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:40.720 bad in physics, buz no. But that's what everyone says 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.480 without realizing I also was very, very budding in physics. 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:49.880 Ariana Batanelli is an editor of the journal Communications Physics. 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.760 She's also an applied mathematician with a background in theoretical 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.840 physics and a passion for crowd movement and behavior. Under 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.840 certain conditions, the physical forces are crowd movement can overwhelm 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:03.840 the people in it. So if you have a little 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:05.880 bit of space in front of you and you all 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.320 want to get to the festivals as soon as possible, 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.000 as long as someone takes some little step forward, you 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.240 will take another step forward. And so at some point 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.040 the pressure builds up from the back to the front, 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.040 and in the front you see people basically start to 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.000 bobbling left and right. So there starts being some sort 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.359 of waves into the crowd where people can't really do 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.959 anything and being transport by the wave. And then in 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.280 that condition it can happen that like maybe two waves 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.320 crush or you get smashed into a wall and something 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.199 like that. And yeah, so that's pretty ugly. Okay, So 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:44.840 you focused a lot on crowd density and like high 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.919 density crowds, how many people and how tightly packed you 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.359 have to be to be identity. So there is six 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.920 seven people per square meters, six or seven people for 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:55.760 square met Okay, So for those of us who don't 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.760 think in meters, how far away am I from the 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.760 other people? Here's super squeezed by these people, Like you 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.879 wouldn't be able to fit seven person in a square 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:10.160 meter unless you have a box around the square meter, 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:12.960 like I'm tight, Like I can smell other people's wine 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.560 and stuff, like I'm I'm being touched. My body is touched. 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:20.560 H Yeah, definitely, the forces at play in these high 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.879 density crowds can get intense enough to seriously hurt people. 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.520 The disaster at the Astro World Festival in Houston, Texas 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.200 was a tragic case. And point and Templeton you might remember, 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.359 mentioned that at the Hajje, densities can reach a dozen 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.360 people per square meter. At the two fifteen pilgrimage, more 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.080 than two thousand people were killed in what's often called 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:46.199 a crowd crush. A crowd crush is basically when the 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:50.600 density it's so high that people can't move freely anymore. 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.160 Like sometimes those pressures are so high that people basically well, 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.720 they are compressed by the crowd until near lungs can't 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.959 expand anymore and you and you choke to death in 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:10.720 the middle of the crowd. It's it's quite horrible. Even 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.359 if nobody is pushing, nobody's trying to harm anybody. The 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.439 pressure can build. It's just a byproduct of the crowd 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:20.760 itself compressed way, way too tightly. The point is one 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:25.320 it's to dents. It's too late. These super tightly packed 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:29.199 crowds also increase risk of trampling. To try to avoid 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.920 these dangers, people like Ariana study the mechanics of dense crowds, 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.840 striving to understand the precise manner in which human bodies 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.280 crammed together. As it turns out, some of the answers 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:44.680 to their questions might be found in green silos. Let 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:49.359 me explain, Farmers, after harvesting their grain, store it in silos. 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:54.240 Retrieving this grain later, however, sometimes proves hazardous. Like if 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.120 you open the silo from the bottom trying to take 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:02.600 out those grains, then you have those like large scale reactions. 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.320 The grain and the silos can shift, compact and create 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.480 pressure waves that get crazy intense, and it can create 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:14.080 so much pressure that it basically breaks. The silo blows 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.080 my mind. I had no idea. So in some way, 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.960 it's like filling a stadium with people was compared to 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:22.679 filling a silo with grain. To make sure that we 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:28.960 don't smash the people or explode the silo A Researchers 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:33.439 have also discovered some useful mathematical parallels in studying coffee beans. 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:38.000 For example, in answering questions about evacuation planning, what is 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:41.240 the optimal size of a door in order for the 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:45.880 evacuation to be fast as possible, because like as with 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.720 coffee beans, like they can clog and people can clog. 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.520 And they found out that you can have an ob 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.240 stockhold if you put an obstacle in the right place 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:58.920 in front of the door. Actually, people have our force 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:03.760 to alternate. Counterintuitively, placing a carefully designed impediment in the 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.320 path of a crowd can keep foot traffic flowing, preventing 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.880 people from clogging exits. And even if you're not designing 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:13.520 evacuation routes, here's a bit of news you can use 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.320 from a high density crowd researcher. Think about how difficult 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:19.880 it can be to move through a pack concert, trying 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:21.520 to get out of the throng in the center of 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:23.600 the floor to go to the bathroom or make your 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.680 way to coat check. It involves a lot of mumbled apologies, 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.320 the risk of slashing beer on somebody's new kicks, and 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.040 a lot of low key body checking. But there is 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.840 a solution. If everyone is facing the stage, for example, 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:38.720 and you want to get out, you want to move 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:43.399 diagonally towards the stage to extract yourself from the crowd, 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.439 make your way towards one of the sidewalls while also 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:50.280 moving forward towards the stage a bit boom. First in 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:52.080 line at the restaurant. Look at you, Look at you. 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.240 Even though much of Ariana's research has focused on crowd 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:03.200 worst case scenarios, let the record show she's not always 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.240 all serious. I've been in a few more spits. Yeah, okay. 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:10.639 She also talks real casually about some concert phenomenon called 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:13.840 the Wall of Death. Like it's people running around because 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:16.919 at some point they decide that it's cool to run around, 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:19.760 or the wall of death. You ever seen any Excuse me, 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:21.239 I have no idea what you're talking about. At some 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:25.280 point someone screams the world death or whatever, and the 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:30.320 crowd separates into hols, and it's like then it becomes 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:33.880 like a medieval movie where they start running towards each 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:36.840 other and then they crash in the middle, like just smashing, 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:41.399 like two walls smashing through. Does everybody sorry, producers in 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:43.120 the room, do you guys know what this is. Everybody 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:45.879 knows what this is. I am not metal enough to 0:23:45.920 --> 0:23:51.360 have witnessed a wall of death, but I do absolutely 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:53.920