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Why a 70-Year-Old Movie Made People Applaud: The Lost Art of Communal Experience

The power of an audience and first principles thinking

If you want to know whether a piece of art or entertainment works, put it in front of people. By “in front of people”, I don’t mean uploading it to the internet. I mean presenting it in a physical space with humans. Stream counts and all the data in the world cannot elucidate the feeling that comes over people when a magical piece of entertainment hits them. We have to balance the empirical with the emotional.

I had a marketing professor who was a bit of a misanthrope and a bit eccentric, nonetheless he was one of the most influential people in my art life. One day, I told him about an artist wanting me to go see their act. He said, “when you go, don’t watch the act; watch the audience.” The truth is most things that we tweak and change within the confines of an act create distinctions without an impactful difference. Whether or not an audience is moved is the ultimate litmus test of whether or not something is “working”.

Let’s gather around the fire and see if we can better understand the power of an audience.


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jm


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