Focus on the people in the video the presenter is showing.

Watching this video, I was reminded how basic tendency to follow dictates human actions so greatly. We are only animals working with the biological constructs that kept alive those that came before us. The way the people in this video acted is no different than birds that fly in complex arrangements in apparent synchrony, or fireflies that match their lights to each other (thought to be a myth before modern observation). 

This tendency to follow plays in to, but is much larger than, the idea of herd mentality and people as “sheep”. It completely dominates our lives. Next time you are out in a public place, listen and watch for mimicking patterns. Listen for one person’s cough or cleared throat to follow another’s. Public transit is a great place to look for these patterns. You will even find yourself playing into them, for example when you see another person who seems very interested in something a distance away. In that situation do you not find yourself unnaturally compelled to also look in the direction of the other looker? Perhaps for most people the compulsion is not “unnatural”, as it is simply as they would do, and have always done. And indeed at least one person on most of the buses I have ridden do turn to look when when another’s attention is caught by something, whether in or out of the bus. Once two or three people are looking, forget it, there’s no stopping at least half of the bus from following suit.

The network of interaction between people is vast. Chance meetings can result in mimicked behaviors that can alter the course of a person’s life (behaviors, learned skills, “taste” in fashion and more can be attributed to mimicry). I won’t yet go into factors that determine whether or not a behavior is mimicked (as obviously not every action or behavior is adapted by every observer nor is every action suitable for mimicry in light of the pool of other collected perceptions an individual carries), though suffice it to say there are factors to be explored that will be explored at some point on this blog.