I find this technique annoying. It takes a lot of time, isn’t explicit about what it’s doing, and aims to shut everyone up when usually you just need critical mass.
Maybe if you’re in a large crowd outside (or in some other place with bad acoustics and no stage or chair one can use to get everyone’s attention visually)? But usually even then you can just walk around saying “I’ll be doing announcements in one minute, be ready” to people, and then a minute later it’s real easy to get peoples’ attention when you stand in the middle and ask for it.
aims to shut everyone up when usually you just need critical mass.
I’m a bit confused why you think this – every time I’ve ever done this it’s definitely been the goal to shut everyone up (so everyone can hear whatever the announcement is). I’m confused when this has happened to you where that wasn’t the goal?
Sometimes yes—e.g. when the announcement is “here is a thing we need everyone to avoid doing,” or “here is information you will need to use by yourself in a few hours and if you miss it it will be a pain.”
Sometimes the announcement is “let me name and thank our volunteers” or “here is a spoken reminder of the program that you could also find on the website” or “here is a short bio for our speaker,” where not everyone needs to be active listening but everyone needs to be respectful, which can still include quiet conversation.
Sometimes the announcement is “now it’s time to do the thing you all signed up for” or “here is information you will use in a group setting in a few minutes,” and if you don’t reach everyone, they’ll figure it out.
Fwiw if I were organizing an event I would want people ~silent for each of those, and I definitely want everyone to be literally silent for at least like 10 seconds so I can verify that people are paying attention.
I’ve never seen the humming used except in situations where the point was to explicitly change the vibe of the room from “people are doing whatever” to “the activity we were waiting for is beginning and there is now a shared intention of some kind.” And people who don’t want to be part of that intention are more like supposed to leave the room if they don’t want to be part of it.
But usually even then you can just walk around saying “I’ll be doing announcements in one minute, be ready” to people, and then a minute later it’s real easy to get peoples’ attention when you stand in the middle and ask for it.
This also seems like it takes way longer than the humming thing?
...
I’d agree “Clap once / twice / three times if you can hear” is faster, and is what I use for quick logistical announcements. The humming thing is specifically when I want to shift the energy to something more relaxed and contemplative.
[sorry I don’t know why I’m so randomly triggered by this]
This also seems like it takes way longer than the humming thing?
It takes longer for the organizer (unless you’re recruiting confederates who know to do the humming thing) and less long for the participants.
Aesthetically I’m just a big fan of using your words for this sort of thing. If I’m talking to you 1 on 1 and want you to be quiet for a minute, I should just say “I need a favor. Could you be quiet for one minute?” If I have 100 people I want to make an announcement to, the same underlying generators of what I feel is “polite” are still there.
[sorry I don’t know why I’m so randomly triggered by this]
It sounds like this might be a part of bay area rat subculture? And so through exposure and context maybe you’ve already transformed your aesthetic experience of it, and also me saying I find it annoying is an attack on the culture as a whole?
I don’t think this particular one is about Bay culture. Or, like, Bay Culture might be the sum-of-the-parts here, but, it’s more like I disagree fractally with you both aesthetically and logistical-preferencelly. I enjoyed the humming thing the very first time it happened to me because it’s beautiful and warm. It sounds like you don’t find it beautiful and warm, just annoying.
Have you actually events and successfully quieted 100 people via the “talk to them all individually?” way?
I think the triggeredness is a bit about “musicalness is important to me”, but also like this is disrespecting my time/effort as an organizer, and the vibe I’m trying to create when I’m running an event.
When I imagine trying to do this via talking to individually people it doesn’t just feel “it’d take longer”, it’s more like “I don’t think that would even work.” Everyone would keep talking loudly. Eventually when I’m actually ready to start I’d still need to do something loud and obnoxious to get everyone to stop and people would still keep talking and I’d have to keep doing something loud and obnoxious until they all became silent.
The event organizer is usually frazzled and busy. The humming thing takes like… 8-12 seconds? I don’t think it even really takes more time for each person than it would to talk to each person?
And, when I imagine the reason people being upset about it being because they wanted to keep a conversation going, I’m like “but, you aren’t supposed to be having that conversation anymore, that’s the point. This room is now about whatever-the-next-activity is.” (Generally it’s known that there’s an activity that’s about to start when people do the humming thing).
I find this technique annoying. It takes a lot of time, isn’t explicit about what it’s doing, and aims to shut everyone up when usually you just need critical mass.
Maybe if you’re in a large crowd outside (or in some other place with bad acoustics and no stage or chair one can use to get everyone’s attention visually)? But usually even then you can just walk around saying “I’ll be doing announcements in one minute, be ready” to people, and then a minute later it’s real easy to get peoples’ attention when you stand in the middle and ask for it.
I’m a bit confused why you think this – every time I’ve ever done this it’s definitely been the goal to shut everyone up (so everyone can hear whatever the announcement is). I’m confused when this has happened to you where that wasn’t the goal?
Sometimes yes—e.g. when the announcement is “here is a thing we need everyone to avoid doing,” or “here is information you will need to use by yourself in a few hours and if you miss it it will be a pain.”
Sometimes the announcement is “let me name and thank our volunteers” or “here is a spoken reminder of the program that you could also find on the website” or “here is a short bio for our speaker,” where not everyone needs to be active listening but everyone needs to be respectful, which can still include quiet conversation.
Sometimes the announcement is “now it’s time to do the thing you all signed up for” or “here is information you will use in a group setting in a few minutes,” and if you don’t reach everyone, they’ll figure it out.
Fwiw if I were organizing an event I would want people ~silent for each of those, and I definitely want everyone to be literally silent for at least like 10 seconds so I can verify that people are paying attention.
I’ve never seen the humming used except in situations where the point was to explicitly change the vibe of the room from “people are doing whatever” to “the activity we were waiting for is beginning and there is now a shared intention of some kind.” And people who don’t want to be part of that intention are more like supposed to leave the room if they don’t want to be part of it.
This also seems like it takes way longer than the humming thing?
...
I’d agree “Clap once / twice / three times if you can hear” is faster, and is what I use for quick logistical announcements. The humming thing is specifically when I want to shift the energy to something more relaxed and contemplative.
[sorry I don’t know why I’m so randomly triggered by this]
It takes longer for the organizer (unless you’re recruiting confederates who know to do the humming thing) and less long for the participants.
Aesthetically I’m just a big fan of using your words for this sort of thing. If I’m talking to you 1 on 1 and want you to be quiet for a minute, I should just say “I need a favor. Could you be quiet for one minute?” If I have 100 people I want to make an announcement to, the same underlying generators of what I feel is “polite” are still there.
It sounds like this might be a part of bay area rat subculture? And so through exposure and context maybe you’ve already transformed your aesthetic experience of it, and also me saying I find it annoying is an attack on the culture as a whole?
I don’t think this particular one is about Bay culture. Or, like, Bay Culture might be the sum-of-the-parts here, but, it’s more like I disagree fractally with you both aesthetically and logistical-preferencelly. I enjoyed the humming thing the very first time it happened to me because it’s beautiful and warm. It sounds like you don’t find it beautiful and warm, just annoying.
Have you actually events and successfully quieted 100 people via the “talk to them all individually?” way?
I think the triggeredness is a bit about “musicalness is important to me”, but also like this is disrespecting my time/effort as an organizer, and the vibe I’m trying to create when I’m running an event.
When I imagine trying to do this via talking to individually people it doesn’t just feel “it’d take longer”, it’s more like “I don’t think that would even work.” Everyone would keep talking loudly. Eventually when I’m actually ready to start I’d still need to do something loud and obnoxious to get everyone to stop and people would still keep talking and I’d have to keep doing something loud and obnoxious until they all became silent.
The event organizer is usually frazzled and busy. The humming thing takes like… 8-12 seconds? I don’t think it even really takes more time for each person than it would to talk to each person?
And, when I imagine the reason people being upset about it being because they wanted to keep a conversation going, I’m like “but, you aren’t supposed to be having that conversation anymore, that’s the point. This room is now about whatever-the-next-activity is.” (Generally it’s known that there’s an activity that’s about to start when people do the humming thing).
IME it’s like 10 seconds for a room of 50 people?
I think I first experienced it ~4 years ago, and it quickly became obvious to me what it’s trying to do.