The Allegiance of the Crowd

I just saw a Facebook post that caught my attention. The poster opined that a lot of people are jealous of successful people and pray for their downfall so they could rejoice.

I don’t agree. Too many people are fixated on haters. A lil success, or popularity, or wealth, and they come gun-blazing about how people want them to fail.

I will not deny that there are people who do not like you. Not everyone will like you. I was shocked yesterday when someone told me she does not like a particularly lovable person on these streets. Why would you not like him? He is a jolly good fellow who unlike me, with my political posts, is all about positivity. What is there not to like?

So there are a few people like that.

But the majority of people do not care. They are indifferent.

And it is that indifference that shows up in their interactions. Today, they could be on your posts famzing and hailing you as a model of success and intelligence, and tomorrow use you for memes when you are on the wrong side.

Most people are followers. They are not their own people. They do not have directions. They always have a need to borrow other people’s ideas and actions.

So, if the trend is that others are praising you, that’s what they will do. Social media studies show that the more comments you have, the more comments you will have. The fewer comments you have the fewer comments you will attract. It’s a real-life experience of this biblical saying,

“For whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whoever has not, from him shall be taken away even that he has.”

A person who tells you that you are a mentor today could tomorrow say he has always known you are a fake.

They are not the ones saying these things; they are simply echoing the sentiments of the public.

It’s not about ‘fear people’. It’s about the fact that people don’t have a mind of their own.

That is why those who live for the ovation of the public ‘burn’. They are deflated because they do not understand what underpins human psychology.

What underpins human psychology is the desire for a sense of belonging. Humans want to feel that they are in the in-crowd. This means that they will gravitate to whatever the crowd wants.

Heaven helps you if the crowd is against you. That’s when you will realize that it was unwise to put your essence in ‘likes’ and ‘follows’.

People do not love you.

People do not hate you.

People are indifferent about you.

Their allegiance is to the crowd. They will do whatever the crowd wants.

Know this and know peace.

Further Reading: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay