A Look On A Concert From Sociological Perspective
There is no event similar to attending a concert of your favorite artist in the world. Watching a live performance must be the most exciting thing you have dreamed about; events like those teach you to live in the moment. When you are singing along, dancing and waving your hands in the air to the music, you are not thinking about all your worries. You are not thinking about the test on Monday, phone call you missed or any other responsibility. With the use of your phone, you can record and capture this special event. You and the crowd surrounding you are enjoying and uniting for a common purpose – to enjoy the performance.
Peter Berger introduced two concepts when analyzing a situation from a sociological perspective. One of which you use your sociological point of view and figure out, “what is familiar and seeing it as is strange” in a particular situation. This is done when “for a change, pretend you are a tourist in your own life and notice all the little details that have faded into the background”.
The second concept according to Berger was called “seeing the general in the particular”. He referred to this as sociologists looking for general patterns in the behavior of particular people. When using this concept, you ask yourself “what is this saying about our society” to further analyze from a sociological perspective. A concert is not an everyday event, though it has become quite common over the years for several groups of people. There are plenty of things that can be found as strange from a sociological perspective at a concert. For instance, when the concert begins, you have adjusted to the squished and sweaty surroundings. Violently dancing to the music, jumping and colliding into those around you is familiar and called fun at the concert. This behavior called moshing, would not be acceptable if taken to any other situation because the behavior is so far outside the norm. For example, if someone was moshing around you at a bus stop, you would judge them and probably tell them to stop; since it’s not a normal thing to do. This shows us how norms change in our society when we go into different environmental settings. Some actions are considered normal and expected to do at some scenarios, but not in others. Is it not strange how the audience on their cell phones usually record hours long of a concert?
The unusual thing from this is you are watching the performance through your phone. The second your favorite singer takes over the stage, the crowd lights up by their cell phone lights. If you take a second and think about it, the performer may be a couple feet or meters from you, instead of being amazed by looking them from your eyes, you instead spend that valuable moment and record it from your phone- whether that be to post on Snapchat or Instagram. It’s strange to say that people focus on getting a visually pleasing picture or video for other people rather than living in the moment and experiencing what you paid for. This tells us that our society cares more about another person’s opinion.
People want to be able to share the fact that they went to a concert by posting on social media. Which is why getting the right angle, with the right lighting is important, so your post can be attractive and get more likes. Sociologists are concerned with seeing the “strange in the familiar’ and “general in the particular” as they expand critical skills needed to analyze society. You either further and find what is strange in a normal situation, or take a step back and look for general patterns in the behavior of specific people.
