How to people-watch Words by Joe Fidler People-watching is a term thrown around with reckless abandon. Used to romanticise the act of blankly observing the strangers around you in a public space for want of something to do. To that I say: have some fucking decorum you listless fucks. People-watching is serious business and if you aren’t bringing the right epistemology, you could very well be anti-social.
hurt. My internet ogling would have to settle for the people-watching WikiHow page to see if there were any well-blooded people-watchers willing to part with their hard-stared wisdom. Turns out there are rules, which I’ll abridge.
We’re hardwired to make complex critical judgements of a person from the tiniest of tells which you might not even be conscious of yourself. This is done through the brain’s person perception network.
In pursuit of an academic leg to stand on, I discovered ‘The neuroscience of people watching: How the human brain makes sense of other people’s encounters’, a Birdwatching and plane spotting research paper in the Annals of The DUH ERWK ZHOO ñHVKHG RXW DQG New York Academy of Sciences, respected niches. Birdwatching, published in 2017 by Susanne and more broadly nature watching, 4XDGñLHJ DQG .DPL .ROGHZ\Q sees this observational hobby According to this paper, our ability You also need to be unobtrusive. to judge, that is, turn perception into FRPELQH ZLWK WKH VFLHQWLðF 7KLV PHDQV ðQG D VSRW RXW RI WKH ZD\ interpretation socially, is believed method. Trainspotting has even and wear your most uninteresting transcended its niche in no small by some to be key in our evolution part to the eccentric yet pure internet clothes. Balconies and rooftops are into the self-obsessed, polluting, personality that is Francis Bourgeois. recommended. geniuses we are today. In the science Not to mention, Irvine Welsh’s loosely world, people-watching is known Take Notes and set time related heroin literary epic of the as a third person encounter (TPE) goals too, this will help make the same name. So, if birds and trains — when the subject does not know DUH VR JUHDW ZK\ QRW SHRSOH" ,W PD\ practice purposeful even if it may they are being observed. TPEs, seem goalless and/or purposeless. seem like an obvious question, and though kind of creepy, are critical in , DP JXLOW\ RI RYHUVLPSOLðFDWLRQ EXW 2EVHUYDWLRQ RI SHRSOH LV DQ HσHFWLYH WKH VWXG\ RI SV\FKRORJ\ DV WKH\ RσHU prompt for creativity. However, LW LV WKLV FRPSOH[LW\ WKDW , ðQG VR data from the subject unimpeded make sure to do so discreetly. The interesting. by the awareness found in a second candidness of your subjects is person encounter — face to face essential. The knowledge hunt observation. Lastly, try not to pass Naturally I tried joining a peoplePractice judgement on your subjects. watcher’s Facebook group, the This tip struck me as the most best place to really get stuck into a My original plan was to go bizarre. The psychological kick one subculture. ‘People Watching in a through all the aforementioned gets out of judgement (or rather Crazy World’ is a Facebook group motions and formalities. However, prejudgment) is for many, the with 1.2k members. The page is while trapped at home with a bout of whole point of observing strangers IURQWHG E\ D FDUWRRQ RσHULQJ VRPH COVID and staring at the young and with no consequence. This bit of vague commentary on the failings free souls of Crown Street, I realised advice, though a little misleading, of modern men. Its description to my horror, that I was peoplerather encourages an awareness of reads, “this group is about those watching: judgement. While judgement is part RI XV ZKR ðQG LW LQWHUHVWLQJ WR of the process, allowing negative It was December 11 and I started watch people and what they do prejudgement of a person’s character people-watching in earnest at 5:50. It and then worry that what we are was 28 degrees and the air smelled watching is normal..............Scream.” to enter your practice will damage your bias and just put you in a shit of an imminent storm. My application fell through to my mood. As ‘Hannah’ from WikiHow great disappointment, and with no Despite formally renouncing any puts it: “Everyone has bad days”. discerning questionnaire I was left judgement of character, it creeped IHHOLQJ P\VWLðHG DQG SHUVRQDOO\ Yet judgement is so very human. in anyway through the back door
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Be purposeful in choosing a people-watching spot. If you want WR ZDWFK VHQLRUV" *R WR D UHWLUHPHQW home. If you wish to observe absolute anarchy, try George Street McDonalds past midnight. Note your demographic and make sure people will be there.
CULTURE