You’re walking down the street alone. As you walk past people what do you do? Avoid eye contact? Smile? Stare at them to try to give off a positive vibe that says you’re not one of those people that ignore human existence completely? It’s simply one of those awkward moments in day-to-day life that we’ve just learnt to accept as normal. But what about when you walk towards someone and you both veer to the same side to pass then try to dodge to the other, resulting in a kind of strange bobbing movement as if trying to guard the basketball ne. Today, this happened to me on maybe 6 different occasions. So, if it happened to me so many times in one day, but on an average day it probably wouldn’t even once, this must mean it ‘addictive’ in a sense, therefore contagious right? And another person is involved meaning they would then spread this ‘awkward dodge’ around for the rest of the day too?! An example of this is shown in ‘The Tipping Point’ when Malcolm Gladwell talks about yawning. By just seeing the word ‘yawn’ written in the book it encourages you to do it whether you like it or not, despite the fact you’re probably not even tired. Like a virus, these things spread and spread, resulting in an epidemic. I wonder if those people I ‘dodged’ today ‘dodged’ others again and again, like me. Could I have started an epidemic in Dundee City Centre? Or, was I simply one of the spreaders of the ‘Stickiness’ that causes these epidemics in the first place?
I can just imagine every single shopper bobbing oddly around the town, Primark bags whirling…
No comments:
Post a Comment