How Crowds Work

If you’ve ever been out of your house you’ve probably been in a crowd before. They can be as mundane as an elevator full of people or as consequential as a mass of protesters. But did you know there’s psychology to crowds? And they follow fluid dynamics? See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:04Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:14Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry. And you squeeze us together in a one meter square space. We're still doing pretty good on Stuff You Should Know.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  You know, it's funny, as I was reading, and we'll get to it, but when things start to become problematic as far as people per square meter. And I started to panic.

• 1:38Josh Clark?

  Oh, really? Yeah. That, that didn't get me, but it occurred to me that some people listening to this are going to feel that way, too.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, because we're talking about crowds. And if even the discussion of being in very close proximity to someone else triggers you, then consider this your warning.

• 1:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Great, great job, Chuck.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:58Josh Clark?

  So we are talking crowds today, Chuck. You spoiled the entire episode by mentioning that.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:05Josh Clark?

  I'm just kidding, buddy. And generally, you think of this huge mass of people, say, like at a concert or something like that, or a show if you're into indie bands. But it can be any assemblage of people, any group of people. I'm guessing more than two, if that old adage is correct, about three being a crowd. But it can be anything from a bunch of people in an elevator to a bunch of people going to Mecca, flocking to Mecca for the Hajj on any given year.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think like technically just any grouping. Who put this one together, by the way, initially?

• 2:39Josh Clark?

  This was a Julia joint, and thank you for reminding me. Before we go further, Kimberly from the Prison Labor Listener Mail is the person who got this one going. So thanks, Kimberly.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, thanks, big time, because I thought this was super interesting. But yeah, yeah, I mean, Julia did some research and basically came back with this. A crowd is any group of people temporarily gathered in the same physical space relatively close to each other.

• 3:06Josh Clark?

  Elevators.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:09Josh Clark?

  I mean, it's a little surprising if you think about it. For some reason, I got hooked on the elevator thing, but there's a lot of different reasons those people could be together. They're all going to different floors in the same building, say, if they happen to be on an elevator. Or they could all have a shared interest. They're all at a gun show. Or they have a shared goal. They're trying to overthrow their regime, their ruling regime. There's all sorts of different reasons people come together in crowds. Sometimes it's on purpose. Sometimes it's not planned by that person, but it just happens. And one of the cool things is, we've been studying crowds through all sorts of different lenses. And we've kind of whittled down to the fact that humans are essentially innately

• 3:54Josh Clark?

  good at navigating crowds for the most part.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, some of the stuff Julia came back with was fairly like you might be a little scared of crowds. But it is good to know that that is sort of outdated thinking. And while we will talk about bad things that can happen in crowds. The the modern understanding of crowds, you're right, is that people are generally pretty orderly. Even in the face of disaster.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  And the things that make a crowd go bad, a lot of times it's not the crowd's fault.

• 4:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they get blamed by authorities very frequently in retrospect. And then in further retrospect, it turns out like, no, actually, the authorities are probably at fault in this case.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's almost as if sometimes a peaceful protest can turn bad. When an armed military shows up.

• 4:48Josh Clark?

  Right, just the presence of that.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Just the presence and then other things that happen after.

• 4:53Josh Clark?

  Right. So, yes, and we'll talk about that for sure, because there is a huge role for law enforcement and dealing with crowds like. It's part of their job.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 5:02Josh Clark?

  Crowd, crowd, they say crowd control, but that's apparently an outdated term as well. But dealing with crowds, managing crowds. So that's part of their job. That's not going to go away. We don't really want it to go away. Instead, we want law enforcement to do it in the using the best practices that have been proven over and over again. That cut down the chance of a crowd turning ugly by huge percentages.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you know, one thing is for sure, like, people behave differently in crowds, and sometimes it's great.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  You know, I never, I never danced like this, man, but I'm at Burning Man and and look at me all of a sudden. Or it can turn bad and we're gonna, we're gonna cover all angles.

• 5:45Josh Clark?

  Well, let's talk about some of the bad ones, because there are some famous ones. This happens, you don't want to say a lot, but it's one of those things like a plane crash where it seems like it will happen all the time. Because it's just so shocking.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:59Josh Clark?

  Details of it, whenever it does happen, it seems like it happens way, way more frequently. That's just not the case. But when it does happen, like I said, it can be pretty bad.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, because people can get trampled, people can be squashed by force. Like in a, in a crowd rush, pressure can reach a thousand pounds of force, which is a lot.

• 6:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  That can lead to loss of life, notably, like you said, we're going to mention a handful, but the Astroworld Festival in Houston, very sadly, in 2021, the Travis Scott performance, 10 people lost their lives and many more were injured.

• 6:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there was one I hadn't heard of that was pretty bad, quite bad. It happened at the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II in Moscow in 1896.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:41Josh Clark?

  There was a crowd of half a million people who were all there for the coronation and they knew that they were giving out free souvenirs, essentially. I saw half a pound of sausage, bags of nuts, souvenir cup. And apparently they had enough for everybody, but a rumor spread in the crowd that they didn't have enough for everybody. And so the people in the back started pushing, the stampede broke out and 1,300 people died.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, feels like concerts and sporting events, it can be dozens of people, which is all incredibly sad, but when people in the order of thousands are dying.

• 7:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  From, from an event, that's pretty striking.

• 7:16Josh Clark?

  And that really follows the model, it seems like, for loss of life in crowd crushes. There's some sort of bottleneck toward the front and it's wider in back, so people in back start pushing and the people in front can't go forward, so they get crushed. That seems to be like the case. That's what happened in Astroworld, that's what happened in Moscow, that's what happened in Duisburg, Germany, at the world's largest techno festival, the Love Parade.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember that, 2010, 21 people died and there was a, it was a tunnel in that case.

• 7:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it also happened, I mentioned the Hajj and 2,000 people, 2,000 people died.

• 7:59Josh Clark?

  At the Hajj, as part of that annual pilgrimage to Mecca, that all Muslims are required to do at least once in their lifetime. Well, they have like on the order of one and a half million people, up to 2 million people every year do this thing. And in 2015, 2,000 people died because there was a bottleneck, people pushed from the back. And that actually broke the previous record of the most people killed in a crowd crush. That was also at the Hajj, this time in 1990.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, super, super sad. Because of all these tragedies, people have been studying how people move through crowds, crowd dynamics. It's, you know, they use a lot of different sciences. Physics definitely is one, and we're going to talk about all these, but also physiology, psychology certainly. And what they're looking at is human behavior, how people behave when they get in a crowd. Because it changes once you have sort of a veil of anonymity going on. And again, it can be good or bad. But they use this in all kinds of modeling, whether it's, you know, in city planning or certainly event preparation, disaster management, crowd management, all kinds of people. Like, we'll pay people a lot of money to study and give their findings.

• 9:16Josh Clark?

  And you mentioned applying the principles of physics to studying this. I think that started in the 50s. And it's not like tit for tat, but the movement and the formation of crowds resembles it so much that you can basically use physics terms like orbital motion or oscillators to basically describe how people behave in a crowd and how crowds behave themselves. One of the ways of looking at it is systems theory. And complex adapted systems are what crowds do. It's chaotic at first, but then they start to move together as a whole. Lines of communication develop. Without speech, it's just you kind of like, the crowd learns through feedback.

• 9:58Josh Clark?

  And it just starts, it becomes a cohesive whole, rather than just a bunch of people together in a space.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, certainly fluid dynamics is a factor. And they kind of use some of that terminology as well when talking about crowds. Because if you're fluid... Uh, like, let's say you're a liquid or even a gas. Uh, the particles are really tightly packed, but they're never actually colliding because they have electrons repelling each other.

• 10:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  We do a similar thing, but it's called this, what's known as social force. Uh, it's that, that thing when you're in a crowd and you just unconsciously, instinctively navigate without like constantly bumping into other people. Um, at least if, if you're doing it right.

• 10:43Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Uh, I've been in crowds where people are a little more unaware and there may be reasons for that. Uh, so I'm not like casting aspersions, but uh, generally speaking, your body is just automatically adjusting. Cause you want that path of least resistance. You don't want to be banging into people all around you. And even in great crowds, like a huge excited stadium, uh, uh, after a big sports win or after a big energetic concert or something. Um, you still find your way out of there. Generally, you know, not making contact with other people, maybe slight, you know, bumps here and there, but uh, unless someone really has their head up their butt or they're super drunk. Or there may be other, you know, some genuine factor they can't help.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  They're not just banging right into people constantly.

• 11:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah. That made me wonder if it's electrons repelling each other that keeps liquids from bumping into one another. I wonder if the collective group of electrons in our bodies are what makes us inherently, makes us inherently avoid it and almost have a sixth sense for that kind of thing.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  I like that idea.

• 11:50Josh Clark?

  It's like the quantum explanation of swerving.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little hippie dippy.

• 11:54Josh Clark?

  So there are a couple of things that we figured out about crowds that, um, that the way that they behave is, again, this is spontaneous. I don't even know if we've said it, so maybe not again. It's spontaneous, it's unconscious typically, and it's collective, right? So we're actually moving cooperatively with other people, whether we realize it or not. We think we're just trying to make it to the exit. Cause we want to get to our car first, so we can get the heck out of the parking lot as soon as possible. But we're actually unconsciously moving in conjunction with other people. One of the really great ways that that, um, expresses itself is in lane formation, which is, well, it's exactly what it sounds like, right?

• 12:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's people kind of gathering and moving in one direction together, forming a lane.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  It's no one's taking the lead and seeing, saying, everyone, this is the United States. So we generally walk down the right side of the hallway or the corridor and other people on the left. That is something when I've traveled abroad, I had to get used to because I didn't realize the rules of the road typically apply to moving around the world as well. So I didn't know that until I went over to England for the first time and was bumping into people constantly. But yeah, here in the United States is generally right side, left side. But I guess it doesn't explain it well, but you move along the right side of a hallway.

• 13:18Josh Clark?

  Sure. And that's just a difference in the electron spin of people in Europe and the people in the US.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 13:25Josh Clark?

  I also mentioned orbital motion too, right? So apparently in a crowd, people moving in the same direction. Or if you're in a crowd that's just basically in one place, I think they studied the festival of the running of the bulls in Pamplona to get this information. You basically, you move in a circle, in an orbit is what they call it. And you complete this orbit in about 18 seconds. And when I was reading this, I'm like, that's just not true. And then I went and watched video of this study. And yes, people just move around in a tight circle.

• 14:01Josh Clark?

  Basically, you're moving because other people are moving, but you're ultimately, you're keeping your same space, this one orbital circle, which is pretty awesome.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  I mean, to be clear, because that sounded slightly confusing. People are not walking in a tight circle. You're just moving your body within a circular space.

• 14:21Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  Like maybe raising your elbow to scratch your head or something like that.

• 14:26Josh Clark?

  Right, so imagine. Imagine the person in front of you. Imagine the person in front of you is backing up, so you back up and then you maybe move to the right and then they move this way and you kind of come forward to your left and then you kind of back up a little bit to your left and then you back up center like that. So you're facing the same way the whole time, but you're just shuffling your feet and the way that you're doing this, you're ultimately creating an orbit.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think that also applies to just taking up your personal space with general body movement.

• 14:56Josh Clark?

  Yes, the electrons.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  So this, this works out pretty great, this idea of social force. It, it seems to work pretty well and even in big crowds.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  When it starts to get a little more highly dense is when it's a problem and this is where you might get triggered like I was, and I don't even mind crowds, but when it started talking and getting like denser and denser, I just found myself getting a little, you know, my breathing sort of increased.

• 15:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  So at two people per square meter, a crowd moves a little slower because they're still trying to, you know, get that distance between you and the, and your friend next to you. Four people, you're going to start to bump around a little bit. At six people, things get truly difficult and at 10 people per square meter, and I measured that out on the floor, that, that made me panic a little bit. That means individual movement is basically impossible and the likelihood of like in a big crowd that's, that's that dense, something bad is, is likely to happen.

• 15:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, this is the point where you can't raise your arms, they're at your side. If a crush starts to happen, you can't breathe. So they're like, you can die of asphyxiation. There is a very famous tragedy in 2022 in Seoul, the Taewon tragedy where kids in their twenties, healthy kids in their twenties died of heart attacks because they asphyxiated and their heart stopped because of a crowd crush.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, and if you're wondering what this all looks like, we didn't do Big Macs, should have done Big Macs, but six people per square meter where, you know, it's not tragic, but movement is difficult, that's about 1,700 people packed onto a tennis court.

• 16:40Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  So that's a lot.

• 16:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and that was at six, we're talking 10 is when you can really be in trouble. Now, that is not guaranteed that something's going to go wrong.

• 16:53Josh Clark?

  In Ateawan, there were like this, this situation was going on for an hour or so before it turned problematic. So as long as the people in the back are doing good and not pushing, as long as somebody in the center doesn't faint and fall over or trip and fall down, this can work. It's not inherently going to be deadly, but the chances of it becoming dead, it's just sitting there balancing on the razor's edge at that point. It's a really dangerous place to be.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's that one triggering incident is when it can really go south there.

• 17:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Scary. Shall we take a break?

• 17:30Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be right back with more crowds.

• 17:48Josh Clark?

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• 20:59Speaker 02

  All right, so we covered, partially covered physics. We should talk a little bit about psychology because crowds have their own distinct psychology around them as well. And people can behave in ways that they don't normally behave in a crowd, just because of that psychology. And early on, the explanation for that was like, if there's a violent crowd, then it was just full of violent people.

• 21:24Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  And there was a French psychologist named Gustave Le Bon in 1895, who wrote the literal book on this, like, the first one, called The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. And it was very influential, but this is one of those that's a little outdated in a lot of ways.

• 21:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's right in some ways, but his whole thing was like, you have any crowd together, they're inherently mindless, they form a collective mind, they become capable of anything, they're very suggestible, they're gonna kill everybody in their path.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:59Josh Clark?

  And like, there are crowds that have done that before.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 22:03Josh Clark?

  But that's not the inherent, I guess, trait of crowds. Like, crowds are actually the opposite. They're actually way more peaceful and pro-social than that. But Le Bon essentially set the view of crowds that's still persistent today in a lot of quarters. And he did, yeah, he just had a huge impact on this.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. If you look at the different explanations over the years of like, this collective behavior, because collective behavior is definitely happening.

• 22:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  There are a few different theories. One is the contagion theory, and that was put forth by Le Bon himself, which is that this irrational behavior that happened in a crowd spreads like a virus.

• 22:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  That can happen, and it also can't. So that, I'm sort of 50/50 on that one.

• 22:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Again, like, all of this stuff makes sense, it's just not, like, this is the most salacious, rare version of crowds, right?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:02Josh Clark?

  You can also make the case, like, good, positive behavior can be contagious in a crowd as well. Because, like you said, people behave differently in crowds, that's just a fact.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, like that dancing at Burning Man.

• 23:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly. There's also convergence theory, which also makes a bit of sense. That explains why crowds have a collective mind. And it just basically says that's because crowds are made up of similar people. Like, usually, there's not a lot of crowd-like, mindless, say, behavior on an elevator, because everybody there didn't come together on the elevator to protest something. But if you have a protest, there's way more potential for collective mind behavior, because there's people who are there for the same reason. So they're sharing kind of a wavelength already when they get there.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're at that concert together, you're there because you're, you want to see Bob Dylan in person.

• 23:57Josh Clark?

  All right.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  For the same reason.

• 23:58Josh Clark?

  Sure. Or you want to hear David Crosby harangue you.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Oh, man, he will too, or he would have, he did.

• 24:05Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. Okay, so that's convergence. There's also group mind theory, just a little on the nose. It's basically saying like, you lose your individual identity, and it's replaced as a part, a cog of this larger group's identity.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, again, like this is, yeah, it's not, it's not totally off. Social identity theory seems to be the prevalent dominant view of, of, I guess, kind of de-individuation in crowds.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's where you just, you're acting like everyone else is acting because you just want to fit in.

• 24:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you can't really put it better than that.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  So, how do you become a crowd member? There are a few key concepts there.

• 24:48Josh Clark?

  First, you have to get training, go to school.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Got to go to crowd school.

• 24:53Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  And the first thing you need in crowd school is a lot of people in a very tight spot. It's called panic school.

• 25:02Josh Clark?

  How are you feeling right now, by the way?

• 25:04Speaker 02

  I'm okay, and it's weird because I don't have like, what's it called, claustrophobia necessarily? I think it's more for me, just like, I can't wait to get out of that crowd because I just want to have a little space. Maybe I do have a little claustrophobia.

• 25:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it, but I think everybody does to a degree. It's just a threshold, you know?

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I've never, you know, I can accept hugs, and I was never one of those kids like under the dog pile that was like freaking out or anything like that.

• 25:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, I did not like that.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you have a little claustrophobia, right?

• 25:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  A touch?

• 25:39Josh Clark?

  I've kind of outgrown it a lot, but yeah. If you put me in like a sewer culvert or, or hearing about like a caving accident.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 25:49Josh Clark?

  I mean, I'll start. Yeah, I can't handle that.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Well, maybe you have a fear of dying.

• 25:54Josh Clark?

  That could be it.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  That might be what's going on.

• 25:57Josh Clark?

  It could be it, which is rational.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Uh, but what, what are we talking about? We're talking about the three key concepts, uh, for, um, that are, that form these foundations of collected behavior and they are de, oh, man, de-individuation.

• 26:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Emotional contagion. And suggestibility. And that first one, de-individuation is, uh, basically like kind of what you were hinting at earlier is there's this new social identity and your individual identity is taking a break.

• 26:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and this is a good example of how this stuff can kind of make sense, but it's also like you really just paid attention to the worst part of it.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:37Josh Clark?

  And this came from Philip Zombardo. Remember him from the Stanford Prison Experiment?

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:43Josh Clark?

  It was all about de-individuation. So he focused some work on crowds and essentially what he said is that, yeah, you just basically leave your own identity at the door. You take on a new identity of crowd member.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:57Josh Clark?

  Group member. And basically whatever the group's up for, you're up for too. You feel anonymous, you feel unidentified, you also feel connected to those other people. And so if those other people start, you know, looting or something like that, you would probably never loot by yourself.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:16Josh Clark?

  But since you're in that group, you've lost your individual identity that would prevent you from looting. Now it's like, well, yeah, I mean, I'm part of this group and we're looting, so let's get to it.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  I think that's fascinating and I think that is so true and happens all the time. Uh, and we've seen it in all, all across, like, I feel like in recent years, especially with various protests and. You know, things that people might call riots, things that people might call insurrections, where people that normally wouldn't behave in a certain way, like, hey, I was going down to the Capitol Building to voice my opinion about how this country is being run. And next thing you know, I'm beating a cop down with a flagpole. And normally, I would not do something like that.

• 28:00Josh Clark?

  Exactly. And that's a great example of that. On the other side of it, you might never dance with your shirt out, wearing nothing but a loincloth.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Burning man.

• 28:10Josh Clark?

  Yes. But in a different situation, you could be having just one of the greatest moments of your life.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 28:17Josh Clark?

  And that's not just the ecstasy speaking, friend. That is you being a part of a crowd and feeling that kind of exhilaration of being part or connected to something larger than yourself. So it's the same thing.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 28:30Josh Clark?

  In a sense, you're de-individuated, one way or another. It's just, how is it going? Is it going positive? Is it going negative? Or is it even neutral?

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. I think this is all just very fascinating. The second one we mentioned was emotional contagion. And that is just the fact that, you know, emotions in a crowd are heightened anyway. If you're there at that concert or that protest, you're highly emotional, probably for whatever reason you're there.

• 28:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Or if your team just won the big game and you're leaving in a big crowd. So you're aware of the people around you. But that, like, one person, like, and you've seen it before, in any of those circumstances, where one person, again, triggers something, because they're extra emo, and all of a sudden, everyone rises to meet that level of emotion.

• 29:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah. One thing I saw, though, I think it's part of social identity theory, is that that depends on the mood of the group or the norms of the group. So if it's like a group that is generally saying, like, we're a peaceful protest, somebody can come up and throw a Molotov cocktail, and everybody else in the group's gonna look at them like, what the heck are you doing?

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 29:38Josh Clark?

  They will isolate that person, ostracize that person, and continue on with their peaceful protest. But if the norm of the group is like, yeah, we're being, like, repressed here, and somebody throws a Molotov cocktail, there's a good chance that that crowd will change its norms to include throwing Molotov cocktails, and more people will join in.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, you used to hang out in a mosh pit or two back in the day, I'm sure, right?

• 30:02Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Here and there? The mosh pit, I mean, I think they could be, and they probably have been studied within the crowd dynamics because it's sort of just a microcosm. But I remember in those days, and I wasn't like, oh, man, I can't wait to get in that mosh pit. But if one broke out around me, I would find myself in it like having a good time.

• 30:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  And the same thing would happen. I was in mosh pits where there was one jerk throwing elbows.

• 30:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  And everyone's like, get out of here, dude.

• 30:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  And then I've been in others where all of a sudden that one dude triggered another dude. And then all of a sudden it got a little scary in there. And that's when Chuck took a walk.

• 30:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's a good idea.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:39Josh Clark?

  And then also, there's, there's often that jerk that's like not even in the pit. He just pushes people in who weren't planning on joining.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that should be a choice.

• 30:48Josh Clark?

  That guy needs to soak his head.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had a quick story here about the first, or not the first Lollapalooza, the one with the Beastie Boys. And at Lakewood Amphitheater, big outdoor amphitheater on the lawn.

• 31:01Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  The mosh pit behind us, I wasn't in this one, but it got so big.

• 31:06Josh Clark?

  How big was it?

• 31:07Speaker 02

  It was about a third of the size of an amphitheater lawn.

• 31:10Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  And it was swirling in the circle. And people started throwing up their, their cups and stuff and their, the trash around them. And that stuff formed a, a whirlpool, a tunnel of, of trash.

• 31:24Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  Like as if a tornado was taking it up.

• 31:27Josh Clark?

  That's amazing.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Or at least, that's what I saw.

• 31:31Josh Clark?

  That's a

• 31:32Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 31:32Josh Clark?

  That's a world-class mosh pit right there.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  It was, I've never seen anything like it. And I've been around a lot of big shows like that. And I'd never seen anything like that.

• 31:40Josh Clark?

  That's like that part from American Beauty where the kid sees the plastic bag caught up in the little whirlwind. He's like, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  I used to think that was the best movie ever. I don't think it's aged well.

• 31:52Josh Clark?

  I'll bet it hasn't.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Not just because it's spacey. The whole thing is kind of corny to me now, when I think about it.

• 31:57Josh Clark?

  Well, I'm not going to watch it again then.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:00Josh Clark?

  Uh, okay. There's one more, um, I guess key aspect that you mentioned too, which is suggestibility.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 32:07Josh Clark?

  And this was, I think, another Le Bon thing, who, by the way, as far as I can tell, is not related to Simon Le Bon.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Hmm. God, that'd be great.

• 32:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Um, but Le Bon basically was like, they're de-individuated. They, um, are basically capable of anything. And if there's, if like, you could tell them whatever and they'll go do it.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:27Josh Clark?

  Definitely. I mean, just from recent experience, like, like this can happen, but it requires typically a central leader or organizer that people are looking to, a charismatic speaker, somebody who can actually tap into that collective mind and push it one direction or another. That is possible, but again, that is fairly rare when that, when something like that happens. But it, again, it is possible. It does happen sometimes.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I don't think we mentioned earlier, uh, Hitler and Mussolini both studied the works of Le Bon.

• 33:02Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. And, and I mean, like, they mobilized it to their own ends. They used it to generate nationalism and xenophobia.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:10Josh Clark?

  Essentially create like their own fascist states because it does work if you do it right. And you have a, a crowd in the right mindset.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 33:20Josh Clark?

  That's nuts, dude.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Uh, should we break or keep going?

• 33:25Josh Clark?

  I say we.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  All right, we can break. You have my permission?

• 33:47Josh Clark?

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• 33:57Speaker 02

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• 34:10Josh Clark?

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• 34:26Speaker 02

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• 34:50Speaker 02

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• 34:57Josh Clark?

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• 35:11Speaker 02

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• 35:16Josh Clark?

  And of course, Bombas has socks. Not just any socks, socks for every type of weather, every type of occasion, because fall can be fickle, and Bombas makes socks that can handle it all. And the best part about Bombas, for every item you purchase, they donate an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity. One purchased equals one donated, with over 200 million donations and counting.

• 35:38Speaker 02

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• 35:57Josh Clark?

  You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next unless something starts to feel off, because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.

• 36:13Speaker 02

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• 36:41Josh Clark?

  Through personal stories and expert insight, listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect, and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 37:12Josh Clark?

  So one of the great things, Chuck, about studying crowds is that you can figure out what makes crowds do what. And they have in a lot of ways, not just how they behave like physics or what the psychology is behind crowds, but like what triggers crowds to, say, change their mood. Because remember I said, like, depending on the norms, like, they may or may not behave violently or unlawfully, and that can change with the same crowd depending on the circumstances. And one of the, like, a good example of that is that if you have been, if you're a law enforcement officer, and you're there and you, basically, your whole squad is like, it's a protest, so of course they're going to turn violent, and they're going to throw rocks at us and stuff like that.

• 37:57Josh Clark?

  Just being primed to believe that actually makes it more likely that the crowd will behave that way. It's not like we have it reversed. And so, like, you said, just the presence of a law enforcement, like, group or force in riot gear makes it more likely that a crowd will turn violent.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. They have this new, I don't know how widespread it is yet, but one of the newer developments in this kind of quote unquote crowd control is something called the dialogue team.

• 38:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  And that's when you you get your nicest cop, I guess.

• 38:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  And make them the the public facing face of that unit and they put them out in the lead and they communicate their purpose there, their presence there, how they'd like things to go. And it's it's and apparently it works a lot better than just showing up and standing there, beating that billy club into your hand and staring down at people. And all your heavy gear apparently that has a quite a great calming effect on crowds. And can even see the police presence as a little more benevolent. Uh, and cause the crowd to maybe self police a little more.

• 39:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah. So the chances of the crowd turning ugly is way decreased when you have that kind of that, like you said, public facing kind of law enforcement.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:21Josh Clark?

  Like you still have the riot gear. You may even still have a line of guys with assault rifles with rubber bullets and there's like the the MRAP like off in the distance, but it's not, that's not what you have up against the crowd. You have friendly officers that are explaining that they're there to protect your First Amendment rights, but also keep you safe. And yeah, like you said, self policing, getting a crowd to police itself.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:47Josh Clark?

  Is, I mean, that's just the pinnacle of crowd control.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 39:51Josh Clark?

  And it isn't very widespread here, but it's a model that Europe as a whole has adopted since the early 2000s, the aughts.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:59Josh Clark?

  And so it's starting to spread over here, but it feels like it's more being it's it's being handed over from Europe to the academics in America who are trying to give it to law enforcement in America to take and run with.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. And the key to any, you know, regardless of the dialogue team out in front, the key to any sort of peaceful situation in a protest and dealing with cops is these cops have to be trained. Like, super trained. Training is the key to every officer interaction that they they take. And most of these big tragedies that you can point to, and not just in protests, but just any kind of these like crushing tragedies.

• 40:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  Is the result of untrained officers, in a lot of cases.

• 40:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, sometimes even the people who are in charge of all of the police there might not be trained in what they're doing. Like, the Sheffield tragedy, in, I think, 1989, the police were blamed for that, although the police initially blamed soccer hooligans. And it was like, no, the cops who were in charge of this had no reason to be in charge of this. They had no training whatsoever. So that is a huge one, for sure.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  A couple of sociologists came along to do a lot of the sort of official refutation of Lebanon in the 20th century. And was it, was the Italian guy you mentioned, this guy?

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Enrico?

• 41:29Josh Clark?

  I didn't, did I mention an Italian guy?

• 41:31Speaker 02

  I thought you mentioned an Italian guy. But regardless, whether he's showing up for the first time or the second.

• 41:36Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  A guy named Enrico Quarantelli, he looked at a lot of emergency evacuations and studied them. And he basically came to the conclusion that usually people flee from these things, obviously because it's the sensible thing to do, but it's not necessarily a panicked, irrational group of people. They do so generally in an orderly fashion.

• 41:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, let's talk about that. Let's talk about emergency identity. Because one of the things, one of the ways that that crowds kind of create, like, a different, a different way of thinking, is, let's say you have a group of people on a subway, and the subway, like, is running normally. They are just a group of strangers, trying not to make eye contact with one another on their way home, on their way to work, on their way wherever. They have no affiliation with one another, aside from the fact that they're currently sharing space with one another. If that subway breaks down... Those strangers become a group almost instantly. Once they realize, okay, we're stuck. The, the human tendency that recent scholarship has found is to come together as a group,

• 42:43Josh Clark?

  help one another, start to actually care what happens to every other member of the group.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:49Josh Clark?

  Trust one another, treat one another with respect. Uh, and that that happens in disaster after disaster after disaster. Or subway breakdown after subway breakdown. There was another sociologist, I don't have his name. Um, but he studied like a hundred and eighty different peacetime disasters and basically found, yeah, there's jerks in every crowd, but for the most part, they are the, the vast majority of people act prosocially and positively to come together as a group, um, in the face of a disaster.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was Charles Fritz. Uh, and I couldn't help but think of Elaine Benes. The second you mentioned the subway stopping.

• 43:29Josh Clark?

  Oh, I don't remember that one.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Oh, it was the great Seinfeld episode where Elaine was stuck on a out of work subway.

• 43:35Josh Clark?

  Oh, man.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  A malfunctioning subway. It was pretty great.

• 43:38Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  I had a great, uh, experience in New York years ago, and I might've told this one before, but where, uh, there was a guy kind of stomping up and down the subway, um, platform, saying he was gonna shove someone.

• 43:50Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Onto the oncoming train and just instinctively, a group of twenty, uh, New Yorkers and me, um, went and gathered together in a group with a, uh, a mother and her baby at the center of that, uh, atom.

• 44:07Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  At the nucleus and it wasn't, no one said, all right, everyone, let's get together here. We all just stood together, um, got just wandered closer to one another and probably all making our way toward that woman and her baby. And before you know it, there was a, a big group of us standing in a circle. And, uh, I, that's the one where I went and, um, met the cops upstairs. And led them to the guy.

• 44:32Josh Clark?

  Awesome, dude.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  I was pretty obvious who it was, but I was like, hey, he's down here and boy, New York City's finest. They acted with intention. That's all I'll say.

• 44:43Josh Clark?

  I see.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:45Josh Clark?

  So what you just said, that story undermines a very famous misguided idea about crowds, the bystander effect, which we talked about at great length in our episode on Kitty Genovasi.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 45:00Josh Clark?

  But one study I saw recently found that they were studying all sorts of fights that were caught on like, like, security cameras or whatever. And I think 90% of these fights, at least one person intervened, most of the time, more than one person intervened. And so the bystander effect says the more people there are, the less likely anyone is to act to help. They found the opposite was true. The more people there were, the more people helped intervene in this violent fight. So that whole idea that people just don't do that is actually untrue. It's based on misreporting by a New York Times article.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 45:40Josh Clark?

  But there are, there's evidence that there are other reasons people might not necessarily not render aid, but say not speak up or share their opinions because they're in a group too, right?

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, that's sort of like, if you're in a, in a classroom and the teacher asks if anyone has any, anything else to say or whatever, or has any questions?

• 46:03Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  And nobody says anything, even though they might have questions.

• 46:08Josh Clark?

  I remember doing that.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 46:10Josh Clark?

  I, it was like-

• 46:11Speaker 02

  I still do that.

• 46:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'm sure I would too, in a classroom setting. But I, I would, I would just assume like I was the only one who didn't get it. Or I and probably a lot of other people were just ready to leave.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Well, in, in a classroom, I don't think that factors in, but as an adult, I think you're right on the money. I've been in situations where it's a- Oh, I don't know. If you're in a, a, a public meeting for something, or if you're on the board of a local garden or whatever, and you can get the sense that everyone wants to go home.

• 46:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  You don't want to be that person that's like, well, I have another point at the end of it.

• 46:50Josh Clark?

  Right. Well, there's a difference between asking a question and liking to hear yourself talk.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  Well, very, very good point.

• 46:57Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, that's called pluralistic ignorance, where you feel like, even though your opinions differ, you are making an assumption about the rest of the group that you, that they feel this way. So you don't want to make waves when it turns out that most of the group probably feels the same way you do.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I did want to follow up with a stat that you found.

• 47:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  I want to follow up with your information, because when you were talking about Fritz, I think this idea that, you know, if, if you watch the news, you, you might think every protest leads to violence, or, you know, the, the summer of violence with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter and stuff like that, or pro Palestinian campus protests. There are stats on this stuff, like there's raw numbers. And of the 553 pro Palestine campus protests between April and April 18th and May 3rd, 2024, 97% were what was classified as overwhelmingly peaceful. And the same with Black Lives Matter. There were 2,400 demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  And I think it was 93% of them remained entirely peaceful. There were less than 220 out of the 2,400 that had any kind of violence whatsoever.

• 48:09Josh Clark?

  Right. So, yes.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  That's good news.

• 48:11Josh Clark?

  I mean, yeah, that's great news. And I think that the Black Lives Matter, George Floyd protests were one of the things that really kind of changed a lot of scholarship, or gave a lot of weight to some of the emerging scholarship that, that crowds actually aren't, aren't bad necessarily. And they can be beneficial socially, too.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, because they don't, the news doesn't cover 2,400 peaceful protests.

• 48:33Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  They cover the ones, you know, and I guess I get it because it's the news. And if it's...

• 48:41Speaker 02

  I guess I get it, is all I'm saying.

• 48:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I want to do an episode on how the news affects the world and how it has so far. Because I think it's done a lot of damage.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree.

• 48:53Josh Clark?

  There's one other thing, too. We mentioned, like, say, the presence of police in riot gear can actually trigger violence that otherwise might not have taken place in a crowd. That's not the only thing. If there are weapons of whoever has the weapons, that can change things. And then another really big one that cannot be overlooked is the presence of a lot of people on alcohol.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:18Josh Clark?

  That has caused a lot of riots. It just has. Like, you're not going to set a couch on fire in the street normally. But if you're drunk and you're part of a crowd that whose basketball team just lost in the final four, there's a good chance you're gonna do something like that. And alcohol fuels a lot of the problematic unlawful crowds that turn ugly.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, those, the, it's a lot of times it's the winning team. And that just, it's always very frustrating to see the news after a city has won a big, important championship.

• 49:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Important to the fans. And then there's a big group of people, like, I've been among those parties. I remember in Athens, when the Braves won their first World Series back in the day.

• 50:00Josh Clark?

  Oh, that was such a great night.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  The streets flooded, and it was amazing.

• 50:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  But, you know, we've seen that same thing. All of a sudden, people are flipping over cop cars.

• 50:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's setting them on fire. It's like, I'm so happy that I'm gonna set this car on fire.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that's a shame. It's like ruining it for the best, for the rest of us, and the best of us.

• 50:21Josh Clark?

  I saw that that same kind of thing ruined the Keen Pumpkin Festival years back.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  Oh, I think we talked about that.

• 50:28Josh Clark?

  Did we?

• 50:30Speaker 02

  I think years ago, we definitely mentioned that. Otherwise, I don't see how I would have known.

• 50:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I don't remember it at all, but I'll go with your interpretation.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it might have been during our early Pumpkin Chunkin' coverage days.

• 50:43Josh Clark?

  Didn't we do a whole episode on Pumpkin Chunkin'?

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. We worked for Discovery Channel.

• 50:47Josh Clark?

  We sure did.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  They made it so.

• 50:49Josh Clark?

  Yes. You got anything else?

• 50:53Speaker 02

  I got nothing else. I thought that was super interesting. I'm glad you picked that one.

• 50:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, thank Kimberly.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, thanks, Kimberly. But it was interesting, Chuck, and thanks for doing that. And I'll thank myself from you as well.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 51:06Josh Clark?

  Since I just thanked myself on behalf of Chuck, I think it's time for listener mail.

• 51:13Speaker 02

  That's right. I was thinking, by the way, and you diverted that to Kimberly.

• 51:17Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  You deflected. Hey, guys, I was listening to the short stuff about color psychology, and I gotta say, I was a little disappointed. There was no mention of drunk tank pink. Didn't know this. If it's not obvious, it gets its name from being the go-to color of choice for drunk tanks.

• 51:32Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Because of the noticeable calming effect it has on belligerent people. I was so intrigued by this that I painted my bathroom drunk tank pink. This is Hannah. Hannah sent in a picture, too. I didn't ask Hannah why she felt the need to do this, but she did it.

• 51:45Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  There's a book called Drunk Tank Pink by author Adam Alter that dives into the psychology behind it. And I think you would both find this super interesting.

• 51:54Josh Clark?

  Man, I'm sorry we missed that, because that is awesome.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  I agree. And by the way, Hannah got tickets to our show in Akron, Ohio as a birthday present for her partner.

• 52:03Josh Clark?

  Awesome.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  Who had been listening since he was 15 years old.

• 52:07Josh Clark?

  Wow. And he's now 72.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  That's right. And asked if we could give an onstage shout out. And Hannah, sadly, we don't do that because we get a lot of requests and it's no fun sitting around as an audience member for 10 minutes while we read people's names.

• 52:21Josh Clark?

  Really isn't.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  So we're gonna do it right here and wish a very future happy birthday to Isaac Keneese.

• 52:28Josh Clark?

  Nice. Happy birthday, Isaac. That was quite magnanimous of you, Chuck.

• 52:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, because we usually don't do it on the episode either. But since Drunk Tank Pink was such a great email, Hannah, we want to say happy, happy birthday to Isaac. And we hope you both have a great time in Akron.

• 52:44Josh Clark?

  Yes. Yeah, we'll see you guys there. Make sure you stand up and go drunk tank pink in the middle of the show.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  Oh, no, don't.

• 52:51Josh Clark?

  If you want to be like Hannah, you can send us an email, too. Say whatever you like in it, and we will love it. Just send it off to [email protected].

• 53:04Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, MyHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 53:20Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 53:50Speaker 06

  Do you ever feel like your computer is tracking you? Well, it's not. It's your browser following you. But not if you come back to Firefox. Firefox blocks the trackers automatically, doesn't follow you from site to site, and supports the ad blockers other browsers dropped. Plus, you can switch AI on or off when its intelligence is acting too artificial. And switching? Totally painless. Your bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history come right with you. Come back to Firefox. Visit firefox.com.

• 54:21Josh Clark?

  Introducing Voices of Vivgard. Vivgard is also known as its generic name, Fgard Tigamod Alpha Fcab. And this new show features firsthand stories from people living with a rare disease. Hosted by Andrew Stratton, these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of Vivgard. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.