Mob Mentality.

I’m not much for hanging out in groups. Even in high school, my friends were ‘cool’ but I was not. I would mostly sit in the background and watch the going-ons around me. When I go to festivals, car shows, music shows, I tend to watch from the side to see the show itself and also to see the crowd at the show.

At protests, the emotion of the mob collectively builds, along with the aggressions. The police with their shields grow more and more brutal as they outdo each other with their batons and pepper sprays. Is it the need to impress? Is it to show loyalty to the group or to the idea? Or is it the buildup of strong emotions that filter into surrounding bodies?

As a lynch mob begins to gather and grumble, they may have some valid reasons. They may have some noble reasons. Certainly, they believe, there must be justice. They must avenge in order to put things right and to show shit won’t be tolerated. For sure. In those times, it was to ‘protect’ the white women and to show that the sexual prowess of a black man does not intimidate the white man (much).

Thus, in defiance of the law, this mob collects in the streets and rumble toward where the perceived criminals are to engulf them and hang them to make examples for all to see. The mob grows, the anger expands, and the indignant fury rises. More people walk in step with the mob, and the wrath of the mob catches onto each newcomer.

Different mobs have different stories, but the effects seem nearly the same. Attitudes change. Individuals do what they normally wouldn’t do if they haven’t been vacuumed into the mob mentality. Things are said and done to impress the big’uns. Friendships are often left behind for something else that engulfs their individuality. The individual becomes one with the mob, and lost into that, the mob gets a little stronger.

But I wonder: can the individual think for him or herself anymore after that? Do they now have to censor their own thoughts and actions, in fear of being humiliated and broken down in front of the rest of the mob? Isn’t it so that the once-upon-a-time friend becomes scathing and copies the mob’s own technique of hazing, in order to be accepted?

Obviously, this is seen online, but I’ve seen it many times in my personal life, too, and all around me in history and in present times. My question is, is it worth it to lose your individuality to be accepted? What kind of progression can be wrought from that?