Even Introverts Need Crowds
What links Taylor Swift, a Solar Eclipse and Watford Football Club?
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We want need to be together. Humans are social creatures.
We get energy from each other, we feel protected within a group and we enjoy the feeling of being in a crowd.
But these experiences are becoming less common and humans are poorer for it. In fact, it could be pushing us towards seeking these experiences from more extreme sources.
The truth is we feel connected with others when we experience something together. The recent solar eclipse in North America is a great example. Watching from the UK it was amazing to see people coming together in football stadiums, shopping malls and other public spaces to enjoy the show. It was a shared experience. Young alongside old, rich alongside poor. One experience.
But it wasn’t the solar eclipse itself that I tuned in to see
There are millions of pictures of a solar eclipse online that I can view if I really want to. The thing that captivated me was the reactions of the people experiencing it in real time. The anticipation was obvious. People were there with friends, family and strangers too. But, as the sky grew darker the joy and amazement that gripped people’s faces was incredible to see.
From 1,000 miles away you could feel the energy of the crowd.
I am a massive advocate of ensuring you have some peaceful time alone. After all, I’m a devoted introvert. I love time alone to think. I love long walks where I can muse on ideas and let thoughts churn and mature. But, experiencing something as a group isn’t about thinking.
This is about belonging - it goes to the core of what it is to be human.
Of course, our ancestors needed to survive in a world where we simply couldn’t on our own. Not being in a group or tribe would mean death. We needed people. We needed connection.
Now of course, people still need to survive but it’s just a little more removed from our daily lives. Who ensures a clean supply of water to your house, ensures there’s food in the shops and that medicines are well stocked in the local supermarket? Probably not you. And even if you are a pharmacist, you wont be growing food for your community or sorting out the piping of water to your town.
We all need other people.
In fact, there are thousands of people working to keep you alive.
So the need to gather in groups is there. But, we’re not talking about the functioning of communities here. Were’re talking about the emotional need to gather in groups and experience something together.
Let’s take a few examples to illustrate the point
I’ve mentioned the eclipse above so we will go to another recent example to kick us off.
1. Taylor Swift and her fantastic Eras Tour
I have two daughters so naturally we have now watched the Disney re-run of the tour about ten times already. Again, we see a fantastic musician in full flow but it’s the crowd that brings the energy. You can see the joy of those people experiencing that together.
2. Watford’s dramatic later winner
Please indulge me this one and take a moment to watch this video - even if you’re not a football fan. This obviously means a lot to me because I’m a life long Watford fan but also because I was THERE! I’ll take the memory of that with me forever.
From the despair of conceding a late penalty to the joy of not only saving it but going straight up the other end seconds later and banging in the winner. The pure energy of the crowd that day was incredible. The outpouring of relief, followed by shared joy made a hundred times better by a crowd all willing for the same thing.
A true shared experience.
3. Comedy - Peter Kay: The Tour That Didn’t Tour Tour
Live comedy is another one of those shared experiences. A good comedian will hold an audience in their hands and take them to different places. The key thing here is they are all coming along for the ride together. They want to be entertained of course but its the shared experience of laughing along with the comedian that makes it magical.
For those of you who haven’t seen Peter Kay before - watch this! Absolute genius.
We want to experience things together so we should seek out experiences such as these to satisfy our thirst for human contact.
Of course, the flip slide of the human need is that we can be pushed into darker activities. It’s the same drive that pushes many young men into gangs, seek people who we agree with online and join political parties that make us feel wanted.
Let’s encourage the good stuff.
How do you satisfy your human urge to be with other people in crowds?
Do you get energy from this?
Whats the greatest thing you experienced while in a crowd?
Feel free to drop a comment below.
Two Recommendations - what to consume this week
1. Scott Galloway’s Predictions 2024
So much to digest here from Scott Galloway including what the big thing of 2024 is going to be, where AI might take us and what could happen to TikTok.
2. Packy McCormick - How To Publish Your Best Ideas Online
If you write online you really should be subscribing to this podcast - How I Write. This episode is packed full of great tips.
Top 3 articles of the week
Finding great articles on Substack can be difficult. Fear not, I have been digging deep into the discovery areas of the platform so you don’t have to.
Here are my top three posts to read this week:
Desk of Amy Suto: This is the Last Time… by
The Kindness (And How To Kill People With It) by
What to read next
Consistency is more than just showing up
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Thank you for reading and see you next week!
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I'm glad you felt so energized watching the eclipse in a crowd. I don't believe these commonly held ideas about needing people apply to everyone, whatever science or Brené Brown says. We all need other people to survive, but we don't necessarily need to be in a crowd to feel we belong. Most autistic people prefer to be alone, for example. Please don't apply neurotypical expectations to everyone. I feel energized and connected by being with one or two people and on sensory overload in a crowd.
Humans are an incredibly social animal... as most animals actually are! A Lone Wolf isn't an rugged individualist in the wild. They are a sick or problematic animal that the pack has rejected. Same for humans. We all need healthy social intereaction.
Something that really bothered me during COVID were the, and I don't say this lightly, pathological introverts who took to social media positively ecstatic that they now had an excuse to 'not people' and hide in the rooms.
That opens another odd things I've seen with some types of introverts who seem to feel that extroverts are 'stealing' their energy like a vampire sucking blood. I can say, that as an extrovert, nothing, literally nothing, is more draining than an introvert who keeps throwing that in my face. I don't need a crowd to get energy but we all do need personal engagement to be healthy.
Not trying to dog on introverts here, but we are social creatures and it feels like there's a trend, specifically online, for introverts to celebrate anti-social behavior.
We need that social intereaction and that engagement from beyond our keyboards to help keep societies together.