Mob Mentality

The term “mob mentality” is used to refer to unique behavioral characteristics which emerge when people are in large groups. 

The first time I came across this in text is in 10th standard when i read the play excerpt of Julius Cesar by Shakespeare. Caesar is killed by Brutus and et al, they are now conspiring to convince the Romans that Caesar was indeed the bad guy and had to be killed. At this point Antony enters.Seeing the body of Ceasar is shocked and now wants a chance to speak at the funeral of Caesar. Brutus accepts the humble request(BIG mistake Big guy) though Cassius puts in his concerns. After all Antony was going to speak after Brutus finishing his speech. Brutus was confident in swaying the people in his favor;he does it - with ease.

The scene starts with Brutus convincing the citizens about why Caesar must not live. Citizens agree completely with Brutus and they even praise him. But then comes Antony starts off with the epic lines -Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; Then spins the web of words which not only make the citizens against Brutus but they also start to praise Caesar for his greatness.
In a span of 30 min the minds of the citizens waver about the ideologies of Brutus and Antony. My ma'am then said Antony played with the "Mob Mentality" of the Romans thus etching Caesar as a great figure in their minds and defeating Brutus and co.
You can read the play here.

Nowadays too I see such "Mob Mentality" still. The main platforms where I notice an impact is Twitter and the electronic media. Twitter has this nice feature called 'Trending Topics' which shows the most tweeted words by the users. Most of the time it will be very useful ones - #goldenglobes ,#oscars, Sachin Tendulkar, etc... But sometimes Twitter is taken over by some small topic which is very irrelevant and most users don't care about it. Then why does it trend? Because there are too many people asking why it is trending ? I know it sounds stupid and people who are involved as dumb but it happens quite often these days. Though Trending Topics itself fuels the users to act like a 'Mob'. Just because it is on the trending topic more users tweet about it.  I had this day when Maple Syrup was trending and I was clueless why would so many users think about something like that simultaneously. Just because some 16 year old ( viz Bieber) wants to have Maple syrup for breakfast it doesn't mean everyone should re-tweet it to show their support (come on everyone isn't eating maple syrup for breakfast!! ).
Such blind following also happens in India too often. There are some people who support organizations/ideologies because some-other person is also following it. (I am not talking about my friend Rohit ). Today Chandrababu naidu says "No Telangana" you shout a "Jai" for him day after he says "Jai for Telangana" again you shout a "Jai" for him. Isn't it time for us to stand for what we believe rather than rally behind so-called politicians.
The media (usually the television) also does this. I observe that for some cases the media gives a lot of (unwanted)attention. I really can't say whether it is intentional or not. We give too much importance to the TV channel reports too. When they have an expose about something then everyone point the finger at the accused and make him almost a criminal. No facts verified,no experts consulted, none. I can say about the Talwars in "Arushi" case. Even without the CBI filing the report "sources" told every news channel that the father was closest to become the criminal until they closed the case. Actually the Arushi's father was even the first to be arrested. At that time every on-looker was pretty convinced he was the killer but later he was released on lack of evidence.

This kind of judgement on our part is very wrong. We  must wait on the facts, weigh the balance and then make a stand. It isn't very nice of you to make the fastest allegation on your opponent but making the right statement counts.