Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we Do what we do. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do Mini. I am
Speaker 1: your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are
Speaker 1: a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans
Speaker 1: and non human animals do. And this is a mini
Speaker 1: which means it's short, which means we're gonna do a
Speaker 1: quick discussion about a thing and then it'll be over
Speaker 1: and you'll be like.
Speaker 2: Hey, that was quick, and then yeah, that's what's happening.
Speaker 3: Yep, that's how it goes. That's usual what minis do.
Speaker 1: Maybe, yes, that's what we aim to do. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: run a little long. But today we are talking about
Speaker 1: something very silly and fun and whimsical and hopefully that
Speaker 1: leaves you feeling fun and silly and whimsical too.
Speaker 4: Yes, today we're talking about mosh pits, yeah, which is
Speaker 4: something that I have been exposed to more than half
Speaker 4: my life.
Speaker 1: I have some questions for you about your experiences here,
Speaker 1: but before we jump into this, I would like to
Speaker 1: tell all of you listeners that if you are joining
Speaker 1: us for the first time, then welcome. We hope you
Speaker 1: like what you hear in this discussion. And if you're
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Speaker 1: I'll talk more about that at the end of this discussion,
Speaker 1: but this is a mini so we need to jump
Speaker 1: into it. So topic du jour mosh pits. Many people,
Speaker 1: possibly probably many listeners of this podcast. We'll have some
Speaker 1: fond memories of going to rock concerts and then going
Speaker 1: crazy in the moshpit also just called a pit, yeah,
Speaker 1: or the pit. And for those of you who are
Speaker 1: uninitiated who may be not clear on what we're saying
Speaker 1: when we describe a mosh pit, this is a in
Speaker 1: a concert like area where you have usually a band playing,
Speaker 1: they're this sort of dancing area in the middle quote
Speaker 1: unquote dancing and this is a place in the crowd
Speaker 1: where people are sort of aggressively throwing their bodies around
Speaker 1: at each other with the music. Its directly corresponds with
Speaker 1: the music and usually the vibe of the music at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 4: Yes, so unfortunately, in some situations can be very dangerous
Speaker 4: depending on the band, the location, the people in the moshpit.
Speaker 4: There's lots of factors that play in a role in here,
Speaker 4: but we're going to unpack the history and evolution of
Speaker 4: moshpits and kind of where it started, which is going.
Speaker 3: To be a lot of fun. I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think we're ready to dive in. Unless there's
Speaker 1: anything that I'm missing or you'd.
Speaker 2: Like to add, no, we can.
Speaker 3: I think we can do it.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So, although we are going to describe some of the
Speaker 1: dangers in general, I think we have some fond feelings
Speaker 1: about these. So please don't interpret our naysaying as naysaying.
Speaker 1: It's just being comprehensive in our analysis here. Now, moshpitz
Speaker 1: started to emerge as slam dancing in the late nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies early nineteen eighties. That's at least what people sort
Speaker 1: of think is probably the timeline there, and this was largely,
Speaker 1: if not exclusively, performed during live music performances, most often
Speaker 1: by punk, metal and hardcore or hard rock music groups.
Speaker 4: Yes, some believe it started in LA and the US,
Speaker 4: specificly Los Angeles, but quickly spread across the country and
Speaker 4: then internationally within a year or two. The word mash
Speaker 4: likely comes from people calling it mashing, it turned into
Speaker 4: mash over time. Some credit this changed the DC based
Speaker 4: hardcore band Scream, whose singer Pete Stall called on people
Speaker 4: to mash but maybe was sometimes unclear and whatnot. Also
Speaker 4: fun fact about Scream, their drummer went on to play
Speaker 4: drums in a very famous band called Nirvana.
Speaker 2: Oh that's fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Dave Grohl was their drummer. Dave Grole quit Scream
Speaker 4: to join Nirvana.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, yeah, see, I mean we've talked about in
Speaker 1: our English accents how a common way to hear an
Speaker 1: a sound sometimes is an awe sound. So if they
Speaker 1: said mash, but what people heard was mash and it
Speaker 1: turned into mash, at least some people believe that's that
Speaker 1: where the term morphed. It could also be that just
Speaker 1: sort of changed over time from mash to mosh because
Speaker 1: that just sounded fun. Yeah yeah, who knows, but that's
Speaker 1: where the name sort of comes from. The first quote
Speaker 1: unquote dance move associated with moshpits is called the pogo,
Speaker 1: which I saw largely credited to said Vicious. But this
Speaker 1: is simply jumping up and down as if on a
Speaker 1: pogo stick. I imagine people have been doing this long before
Speaker 1: said vicious, And I'm not sure that this exactly falls
Speaker 1: in line with what I would think of as a
Speaker 1: mosh pit, but that's where a lot of people describing
Speaker 1: mosh pits start is with this dance move where you're
Speaker 1: sort of bouncing up and down. Most people think of
Speaker 1: physical contact with others as sort of the defining feature
Speaker 1: of a mosh pit.
Speaker 2: You're sort of pushing up against each other.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are some great clips from there's a movie
Speaker 4: called The Decline of Western Civilization and there's some really
Speaker 4: great clips of like punks in La describing slam dancing
Speaker 4: and the different moves and whatnot. It's really great, like
Speaker 4: tutorial fun for this, and it's just really funny because
Speaker 4: you're like it captures such a particular time, which, for
Speaker 4: those of you don't know, the reason this is likely
Speaker 4: the reason it likely started in La this is kind
Speaker 4: of slam dancing is because the La punk scene was
Speaker 4: incredibly violent, Like it was people were getting hurt all
Speaker 4: the time. They were also fighting all the cops because
Speaker 4: the cops were like rating all their shows for no reason. Like,
Speaker 4: it was an incredibly violent scene in the late seventies
Speaker 4: and early nineties. So mashing makes sense as a byproduct
Speaker 4: of La punk.
Speaker 2: At the time, So yeah, I gotcha.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a whole thing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: In a pit, people will generally slam their bodies into
Speaker 4: each other in a kind of jumping pushing motion, but
Speaker 4: they aren't usually trying to go anywhere. Instead, it's just
Speaker 4: kind of a centralized area of the crowd full of writhing,
Speaker 4: pushing people. That usually takes somewhat of a circular form.
Speaker 4: It kind of opens up and like there's like a
Speaker 4: circle in the middle of the floor and people are
Speaker 4: kind of bumping into each other and pushing into each
Speaker 4: other in that space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And to that end, mosh pits tend to have
Speaker 1: two main forms. There are actually many different like forms
Speaker 1: of mashing, but you sort of have either a circle
Speaker 1: pit or a wall of death as sort of how
Speaker 1: these are off and described. The circle pit usually involves
Speaker 1: people pushing and jumping against each other in a way
Speaker 1: that a large circle in the audience sort of is
Speaker 1: rotating in a clockwise direction. So to help illustrate that,
Speaker 1: if you are like far away from the stage and
Speaker 1: then you enter the circle pit, eventually as you're moving
Speaker 1: around sort of the perimeter of the pit you'll get
Speaker 1: closer to the stage, and as you keep moving, you'll
Speaker 1: be further away from the stage. Again, you just are
Speaker 1: going sort of moving in. You're not spinning in circles
Speaker 1: in place. You're like following a large crowd that's rotating
Speaker 1: in a circle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, usually counterclockwise.
Speaker 4: Yes, there was a study that just came out that
Speaker 4: said that circle pits almost never go clockwise. They almost
Speaker 4: always go counterclockwise.
Speaker 2: Something about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they almost always go counterclockwise for whatever reason. And
Speaker 1: then in the middle of the circle pit, that's usually
Speaker 1: kind of open. There's usually only a few people in there.
Speaker 1: It's not a lot of act of actual bodies in
Speaker 1: the very middle. They're kind of all around the perimeter
Speaker 1: pushing around in sort of a circular counterclockwise motion.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there is usually somebody in the middle. They're holding
Speaker 4: up a sign with an ad on it.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're back. We've been describing the circle pit as
Speaker 1: a version of this. There's like different types of moves
Speaker 1: and ways of this can exist, but sort of broad categories.
Speaker 1: You have circle pit and wall of death, and we
Speaker 1: just talked about the circle pit, which means.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you go in a circle, right, it was just fun. Now,
Speaker 4: the wall of death is a lot of fun. Where
Speaker 4: people will line up against either the left side or
Speaker 4: the right side of the crowd. They'll face each other
Speaker 4: and their perpendicular to the stage, the middle is very open,
Speaker 4: and then what they'll do is they'll rush at each
Speaker 4: other like soldiers at battle and collide in the middle
Speaker 4: and push and shove and do those kinds of things.
Speaker 4: Knocked Loose does this at every one of their shows,
Speaker 4: so you can see clips of like, Yeah, you can
Speaker 4: see clips of like Knock Loose setting up walls of
Speaker 4: death in their shows and then watching people run on
Speaker 4: each other and you might be going, well, why, And
Speaker 4: that's just part of the fun it is.
Speaker 1: And we'll kind of get to that as we go.
Speaker 1: There is also a more extreme version of washing that
Speaker 1: you might see at shows, particularly of like hardcore bands,
Speaker 1: and these sort of quote unquote dance moves are called
Speaker 1: crowd killing. Yeah, and these are a lot more intense.
Speaker 1: These are people throwing actual karate kicks and punches. They're
Speaker 1: doing arm swings, kicking, stomping, flailing, and sometimes downright acrobatic
Speaker 1: moves such as backflips. These look very aggressive, like you
Speaker 1: do not want to get close to someone who is
Speaker 1: doing this, because it's intended to be aggressive, Like they're
Speaker 1: creating a sort of perimeter of space around them that
Speaker 1: like if you get within that space, you're likely to
Speaker 1: get punched or kicked. And not that they're directing anyone,
Speaker 1: they're just throwing these moves about all over the place.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I have been the person rendering first aid to people
Speaker 4: being struck by some of these folks on more than
Speaker 4: one occasion. Yeah, you know, for a long time, I
Speaker 4: kept the first aid kit in my card, not because
Speaker 4: I work in behavior analysis, but because I go to
Speaker 4: hardcore shows. It's not my favorite thing. I don't like it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we're gonna say too, like I think it's just like
Speaker 4: one of those things I don't I just like it.
Speaker 4: But like having been a hardcore kid for a long time,
Speaker 4: like that was something that was just we see it
Speaker 4: all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's kind of fun to watch.
Speaker 1: I mean, not someone get hit, but like someone just
Speaker 1: like throwing these kicks and punches can be a little
Speaker 1: bit entertaining. And like I also you kind of feel
Speaker 1: for as we're going to get into this, like someone's
Speaker 1: like sew into the music they're just like expressing themselves
Speaker 1: in that way. So it's like, I don't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to completely shut it down, but it's not my I
Speaker 1: don't particularly want to be around it, and I don't
Speaker 1: want people to get hurt by it either. So the
Speaker 1: preferred mosh pit for me is a circle pit.
Speaker 4: I think, Yeah, I like a good circle pit. I
Speaker 4: also prefer stage diving, but right now, my old age,
Speaker 4: like I'm like, I think I just like sitting in
Speaker 4: the back and just watch it. Yeah, like, let's go
Speaker 4: with that right now, I'm at that age, you know,
Speaker 4: or I like to be in the band playing, like
Speaker 4: that's what I prefer right now.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 4: So now the dancing that we're describing, like it varies
Speaker 4: a lot, Like, you know, we talked about the circle pit,
Speaker 4: we talked about the wall of death, we talked about
Speaker 4: hard coordiencing, we talked about people kind of throwing their
Speaker 4: bodies into one another and whatever it looks like, right,
Speaker 4: there's lots of different ways to do this. We didn't
Speaker 4: even talk about skanking. We're going to that's okay, good, perfect,
Speaker 4: I'm so glad we are. So the dancing is largely
Speaker 4: express as a positive reaction to the band's energy and
Speaker 4: music and feeds off of the band's enthusiastic performances, which
Speaker 4: also feeds off of the crowds enthusiastic response. So there's
Speaker 4: kind of like a given a take in it back
Speaker 4: and forth. That definitely plays a role. Like I've played
Speaker 4: in bands where people have not showed up, not participated,
Speaker 4: and it's really difficult to get to try to drum
Speaker 4: up the energy right to get the people responding. But
Speaker 4: when you play a show and people are responding and responding, well,
Speaker 4: you're like, okay, I get it. Like it's intoxicating almost Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there's an element of the sort of the
Speaker 1: physical contact with people that's usually like it's a little rough,
Speaker 1: but most of the time it's not too uncomfortable, and
Speaker 1: it's like the adrenaline and you got your energy's pumping
Speaker 1: and you're jumping and you're moving, and like, I think
Speaker 1: that's a large part of what people enjoy about it.
Speaker 1: And it's like to music you really like that you
Speaker 1: feel really passionately about and you're just like you're getting
Speaker 1: all the feels going on and it's just fun to
Speaker 1: get in there. I historically have pretty much exclusively avoided moshpitz.
Speaker 1: I think I've been in one or two in my days,
Speaker 1: but I just I don't like being assaulted. I don't
Speaker 1: like being hurt or pushed or kicked, and so I
Speaker 1: just never wanted to be in those situations. So I
Speaker 1: usually when I was younger, I would put myself as
Speaker 1: close to the front as possible because usually the very
Speaker 1: front is immune to the mosh pit, or i'd put
Speaker 1: myself to the side of the back. Anymore, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: happy in the back, just being away, just being able
Speaker 1: to enjoy the live performance without being crushed or punched
Speaker 1: or kicked.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1: Worth noting that there is some significant risk involved sometimes.
Speaker 1: As a couple of stories, a seventeen year old girl
Speaker 1: was seriously injured and a mashpit at get this, a
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkins concert in nineteen ninety six, and she did I.
Speaker 3: Could see that. I could see that.
Speaker 2: Six. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: She did later die of her injuries at the hospital.
Speaker 1: And another Smashing Pumpkins fan died in a mash pit
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, which is horrible. There were
Speaker 1: seven other moshpit deaths between nineteen ninety four and two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. And there are also deaths due to
Speaker 1: like crowd rushing that are not necessarily sarily related to pits.
Speaker 1: So if you look up some of the recent like
Speaker 1: crowd issues where people died, they were usually like the
Speaker 1: crowd was rushing a stage or there were rushing a
Speaker 1: venue and people got crushed against the doors and they
Speaker 1: were asphyxiated. But it wasn't actually a pit as part
Speaker 1: of the concert. But people have died in these, People
Speaker 1: have been injured in these and taken to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Bones have been broken, people have been stabbed or hit
Speaker 1: with heavy equipment like crowbars and stuff. So it's they
Speaker 1: can be dangerous and again not something we would ever
Speaker 1: advocate for in that way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I played a show one time where somebody brought
Speaker 4: a chainsaw.
Speaker 3: Into the pit.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, no, thank you.
Speaker 4: They tried to kill our guitar player as a whole thing. Wow,
Speaker 4: that's a story for a different day. I think that's
Speaker 4: something that's really important to know is like there's a
Speaker 4: couple things, like there are a lot of social rules
Speaker 4: with this, Like so when you are like in a
Speaker 4: mosh pit, like there is like an unspoken rule that
Speaker 4: like you make sure if somebody falls, you pick them up. Like,
Speaker 4: if somebody gets hurt, you help them out. Like there
Speaker 4: are some like unspoken rules inside of this that I
Speaker 4: don't think that we we talk about as much, but
Speaker 4: I do. It is important to know those, Like even
Speaker 4: though they appear to be very unsafe, and they can
Speaker 4: be unsafe, there is also like that level of protection too,
Speaker 4: there's like an unspoken understanding the people who don't follow
Speaker 4: those rules are often tossed in those situations too. And
Speaker 4: also too, the band plays a huge part of this,
Speaker 4: like bands do a great job of trying to coach
Speaker 4: audiences to be respectful to one another in the pit
Speaker 4: and specifically requested if someone falls down that they help
Speaker 4: pick them back up. Many rock bands explicitly condemned moshing
Speaker 4: and request their audience abstained from doing so during their performances.
Speaker 3: Which is interesting.
Speaker 4: Scott notably has a very anti mosh approach, instead advocating
Speaker 4: for skanking or circle pits, depending on the faster songs. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but skanking is more of a form where you're kind
Speaker 4: of like skip kicking, and it's never aimed at another
Speaker 4: person and it's the most fun.
Speaker 1: Yes, skaking is very harmless and very whimsical looking and
Speaker 1: is actually pretty fun. Yeah, if you're going to do
Speaker 1: a form of dancing, and that's definitely one I would
Speaker 1: be more interested in. But yeah, so, as you said,
Speaker 1: there's sort of a code of ethics here, most people
Speaker 1: to abide by those. There are a lot more mosh
Speaker 1: pits that happen on a very regular basis and that
Speaker 1: end with nobody being injured, and I definitely would advocate
Speaker 1: for that, and so more power to you if that's
Speaker 1: a way that you can pull this off. Interestingly, despite
Speaker 1: beginning in various forms of rock music and pretty much
Speaker 1: existing exclusively there for a while, it was like largely
Speaker 1: confined to those types of performances for like the last
Speaker 1: forty years, but apparently lately mashing has started emerging as
Speaker 1: a dance form in hip hop and rap concerts as well,
Speaker 1: So the trend is spreading to be more of a
Speaker 1: concert going experience regardless of the type of performer who's
Speaker 1: up there, which is kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really fascinating.
Speaker 4: So I guess the moral story is be kind to
Speaker 4: each other and mash on, like, have fun, be safe,
Speaker 4: just know that there are some unspoken rules and just
Speaker 4: know that there is a risk, you know. So for
Speaker 4: me as a forty year old aging punk being in
Speaker 4: a band or standing in the back, that.
Speaker 3: Works for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: If you're younger and you have good health insurance, then
Speaker 4: go ahead and get in the moshpit.
Speaker 2: You should be good hopefully.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, I think that's what we have to
Speaker 1: say about mospitz. If you'd like to tell us your thoughts,
Speaker 1: you can email us directly by writing to us at
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Speaker 1: the end of our full length discussions. But we got
Speaker 1: to close this out because it's a mini and we're
Speaker 1: right at our time. So thank you all for listening.
Speaker 1: Thank you to my team of people, Thank you for
Speaker 1: recording with me today.
Speaker 3: Shane, Hey anytime. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Is there anything I miss or that you would like
Speaker 2: to add before we close this one out?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I think that covers it all right.
Speaker 2: This is Abraham and this is Shane. Why We Do
Speaker 2: What We Do Mini is out.
Speaker 3: Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
Speaker 4: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
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