There is an aphorism about 'never underestimating the power of stupid people in large groups'. I would like to change that to never 'underestimating the unimaginativeness of bored people in large groups'. One of the reasons the Beatles stopped playing live was the concert at Shea Stadium. They couldn't hear themselves over the mob of teens, apparently most of them females in full-bore pre-orgasmic screech whose parents had welcomed the opportunity to get them out of the house... Though what they had to deal with when the sweaty ittle t'ings made it back to the land of carpeting and doileys, I don't know...

Of course, there were those in responsible Amurrican society, particularly in politics and the media and polidia who wondered why those in responsible Britich society, particularly in politics, the media, and meditics, hadn't put a stop to the whole thing in the first place, instead of letting it spread like a stain across the world, even unto the antipodes. And the really astute among the Britich intelligentsia and intelliladysia had the sense to remind the Amurricans who would listen that there would have been no Mersey Beat without all those 'race' records and 'R&B' records that the Amurricans had been indiscriminately selling to Britich sailors so that they could return home and infect the bored, poor, and disgusted youths of the housing councils and other slums.
No so-called 'disturbing phenomenon' ever pops up unassisted. The social climate for inane behaviour by an entire social, ethnic, or gender-based group, involving hundreds, even thousands, at the same time, sometimes in the same place, was instituted by sports extravaganzas, Olympic games, rock concerts, religious gatherings (Mecca or a Billy Graham crusade, anyone?), large university campuses, suburban commuting into the business hub of any city, World War I, The Million Man March, the French Revolution, and 'the feeding of the five thousand'...

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TonsilRevenge

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