We should really form a blue ribbon panel and break this down - Zapruder style.
From my frame by frame observation, they all show some real shock and disbelief and then they turn and look at white shirt girl and register that she is actually crying. You’ll notice an arm come in to the right and down…to the right…and down…pointing at white shirt girl. (The girl in the blue shirt is absolutely delighted by this btw. ) After inital amusement, they all take a few seconds to register that white shirt girl is getting real. Its at this point they begin to act demonstratively, but much more deliberately.
The girl in the softball shirt flails her arms ridiculously, a poor simulacrum of authentic distress. The orange shirt girl, while looking striken initally, never actually starts crying and instead yells “F American idol!” …“F”?
My theory (and make no mistake, many great theories and scholarship are sure to result from this video) is that the exaggerated anguish shown thoughout the rest of the video is more a result of the girls trying to match or exceed white tshirt girl’s actual emotion.
Slate posted a story explaining this behavior, (in this case to explain why things were reliably ugly at McCain rallys.)
[Why] like-minded groups polarize has more to do with how we see ourselves. We are constantly comparing our beliefs and opinions to those of the group. There are advantages to being slightly more extreme than the group average. It’s a way to stand out, to ensure others will see us as righteous group members.
“It’s an image-maintenance kind of thing,” explained social psychologist Robert Baron. Everybody wants to be a member in good standing, and though it sounds counterintuitive, the safest way to conform is to be slightly more extreme than the average of the group.
“One way to make sure you aren’t mistaken for one of those ‘other people’ is to be slightly ahead of the pack in terms of your Republican-ness,” Baron said. “It’s hard to be a moderate Republican or a moderate Democrat, in other words, because you’re afraid that other people will call you whatever. In racial terms, you’d be called an Oreo if you were black.” At a John McCain rally, if you say Barack Obama is a “decent family man,” you are booed … even if you’re John McCain.
Slate was just talking about political party identification, which pales in comparison to the intense ferocity and regimentation of pre-teenage girls affection for sexless homo crooners.
