A&O Productions’ Ball featuring The Roots and Common Thursday night was a success — but for awhile it was touch-and-go.
You’d assume that a show with The Roots and Common would immediately sell out at NU. But 2000 tickets were sold out of 2,300 available — surprising considering that only 600 were sold in the first week.
To compare, 900 NU students registered for the Facebook in the first 36 hours it was available here.
Weinberg sophomore and A&O concerts committee member Benjamin Wolfert said: “It was surprising how few tickets were initially sold and how little visible enthusiasm there was on campus for a concert of such mainstream, popular acts. We were worried for a while.”
What made students so much more enthusiastic about an online virtual world than a real-life experience?
Admittedly a comparison between student reaction to a concert and the Facebook is tenuous at best. There are many reasons why people might have registered for the Facebook — including the fact that you don’t have to leave your room to do it.
It turns out that at least some NU students are actually bothered by human contact.
I heard a bizarre criticism while standing among a throng of students at The Roots show. An NU student said to his girlfriend: “I don’t mind you touching me, it’s everyone around touching me that’s annoying.”
Agoraphobia aside, never in my life have I ever heard anybody criticize a show because it puts you in close proximity to strangers. A good act encourages the audience to act as a one — a variety of people unified under the enthusiasm felt for the performance.
I always thought this was sort of a good thing — a packed house forces a concert-goer to give up a little of his personal autonomy in favor of being part of a collective audience.
Clearly not everyone shares this sentiment. Some people apparently prefer sitting alone in front of their computer.
Maybe the Facebook needs to be taken in jest — it’s just another way to procrastinate. Some might say it doesn’t warrant all that much attention.
But last time I checked, there were 3,117 NU students registered.
Before I really knew what the Facebook was, my friend described the goal as “getting as many friends as you can and getting in contact with as many people as possible.”
The Facebook gives people the satisfaction of cultivating a large bank of friends and quantifying the amount with an absolute number. It makes you feel good to know, for example, that you have 83 friends.
Furthermore, it’s an entirely antisocial activity — sitting alone in front of your computer — but gives the illusion of being social to the utmost degree. You’re alone, but in your mind you’re socializing — you have a growing list of friends to prove it. And there’s none of that annoying physical contact that you’d experience at, say, a concert.
That’s not such a good thing. Go out and get touched by somebody — you might actually like it.
