We live in a terribly noisy world. Perhaps once upon a time, you could go outside and hear the sounds of children playing, couples laughing and strangers striking up a conversation. These noises, while loud, are also comforting, and I can even enjoy them. Nowadays, instead of hearing the sounds of people connecting with each other, you can oftentimes go to a largely quiet public space and what is the one sound you will hear? Someone playing grating TikTok songs out of their phone’s speaker. These ugly sounds only come in three-second intervals before a new one begins, and while they could potentially be a clip of a decent song, I will never find out. I could rationalize this sort of antisocial behavior if it came from people I perceived as actively trying to step outside of social norms. Still, the worst part of it is that many of these video players seem to be normal, well-adjusted people who want to be liked just as much as the next person. So why do these normal people think this kind of behavior is acceptable? I’m old enough to recall the many jokes about that guy who would walk around New York City with a speaker blasting out of his backpack. This kind of thing used to be widely seen as weird! Well, it still should be.
I love to watch movies (see my past articles). In particular, I love to watch movies in theaters. However, recently, I have noticed that when I make plans to go see a movie, I mentally brace myself for talking, something I had never even considered pre-pandemic. I think it follows logically that after a couple of years paused from typical activities (movie-going, bus-riding, etc.), people would return and completely forget how they were supposed to behave. Fine. However, my fear is that these social norms could be irrevocably changed at the expense of the people who actually benefit from them. It's 2025 — let’s get it together.
If you are one of these “public movie-talkers” reading this article and wondering why anyone cares if you’re talking, I am happy to apprise you. You can watch most movies at home, and even the ones only in theaters will be streaming sooner rather than later. While the giant screen and loudspeakers are a draw, you can also watch a movie at home with a sufficiently giant screen and sufficiently loud audio. The joy of movie-going is the opportunity to completely immerse yourself in what you’re seeing — no pausing, no phones, no talking. This is the experience you cannot replicate in your own home. This is what makes it worth 10 dollars. You might like to talk during a movie, but when you do that, knowing other people don’t want you to, it signals that you think what you want is more important than other people’s reasonable expectations. This general idea that we shouldn’t care about strangers is a clear sign of a sick culture.
I don’t want to live in a world where people don’t care if they’re standing in a busy doorway, don’t care to say hello or thank you to the service workers they interact with and don’t care to remove their napkins from their plates at the dish drop. This notion that the little inconveniences you cause other people don’t matter and that those people’s extra work or lack of focus is irrelevant because you can ignore it disgusts me. For Hater Friday, I’m going to say I absolutely hate it!
One of my friends handed a wallet to someone who dropped it, and the person said nothing. Another picked up her jacket from a past fling, and he gave it to her without a word. Once, I had to enter a building when a guy was standing and chatting in the middle of the doorway, holding the door close to his chest. I literally had to wrench the door wider to enter, and not even an “oh, sorry” from the guy! I think these people are absolutely nuts, and I hate, hate, hate this attitude that we do not owe our fellow people basic niceties in small interactions.
Many people think antisocial means resistance to social interaction, but it can also mean resistance to accepted social behaviors. If this is a culture war between normalcy and chaos, what are we supposed to do about it? For one, it’s pretty easy to be the person who is polite to others, holds the door open, or strikes up a conversation with a stranger every once in a while. However, going further than that, you can actually say something to these people! For a generation of people raised to look down at their phones, it can seem foreign to talk to a stranger, let alone confrontationally. However, the stereotypes about how Gen-Zers are too afraid to ask for ketchup do not ring true for me, and I am not ashamed to say that I’m out here shushing people in the theater. And in the case of the guy who planned to explain every single line of Saturday Night (2024) to his girlfriend and could not hear my shush over the sound of his own voice, I am walking up directly to the seat and whisper-shouting, “Can you please stop talking!!!!!”
If you’re reading this article and you’re with me, I really encourage you to do the same, as there is a near 100 percent chance that they’re going to shut up. If you’re reading this article and laughing about how I’m a huge nerd, that’s also okay. Unfortunately for you, you won’t say it to my face when I tell you to be quiet.
Chloe Asack is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at cia36@cornell.edu
