Between Herd Mentality and Immunity: Who is the Mohbad in your corner? Time for Reflection.

It is said that "statistically, you stand a better chance of being assisted if there's only one person present when you experience a heart attack than if there are a dozen close by." This phenomenon is called the bystander effect. It suggests that people do less thinking and are dissuaded from intervening in an emergency situation when they are in a group because they assume that the other person would act. Some people have linked this bystander effect with groupthink. Along those lines, during COVID-19, experts suggest one of the ways we could survive the pandemic was having herd immunity, which is having as many people vaccinated to create a herd effect. Later, they advised that we must do social distancing even when systemic and structural deficits make that difficult.

What this indicates is that they suggested herd at one time and, at another time, Individuality. Today, researchers debate whether both suggestions were necessary in the light of new insights and knowledge. The difference between the two-herd Immunity and herd mentality is that with groupthink (herd mentality), you weaponize your collectivity, community, or clique to harm others; with Immunity, you galvanize your herd or collective for a higher purpose. The latter is predicated on the fact that they cannot kill all of us because we are many.

For the last few days, I have been a "mess." I tried all distractionary tactics, including posts unrelated to the current happenings in Nigeria, even though it is within my field of expertise to comment on Imole. Still, I hesitated for various reasons, primarily because it triggered my trauma and many unhealed wounds.

What is happening in the music industry reflects our daily lives at work, school, church, mosque, family, and every place we socialize or congregate. On the job, there are cliques. If you don't belong to them, they will show you pepper. It is worse in Nigerian academia; you go hear am if someone dislikes your supervisor. This evil happens in different pockets of places. While we hope Mohbad gets justice. Please take time to reflect on your groups, cliques, and your actions to underdogs.

Ask yourself, am I in a clique hunting someone outside our circle? Am I hating on someone because someone blacklisted them? What difference would it make if, when this guy cried out, our bystander effect was not on overdose? Anyone who has ever left a group, clique, or cabal knows how "they come after you," whether real or imagined. If everyone was sensitive to power differentials between them, could it have created a domino effect that would halt this needless death?

It seems to me that one of the things lacking in today's world is the lack of discernment and self-awareness to define behavior that is herd mentality and that which is Immunity. Disassociating yourself from groupthink is equally important as finding the comfort of the community. Ask yourself, why am I doing this? Is it about my individual conviction or delusion of a community?

All my life, I have always been persecuted for standing out or alone at every level of socialization, personal and professional. The truth is I don't thrive in cliques. Especially those ones that have the Queen Bee, which everyone defers to, and the foot soldiers who help them punish those that defy their god. Ask around about me from secondary school and university to workplaces. I don't have and don't do cliques.

Sometimes, we need the community to flourish, and other times, we have to run away from it so we don't perish when it is no longer safe to do so. Other times, we need to define our Individuality. Individuality is essential if it does not lead to the delusion of grandiose, exceptionalism, egotistical, and narcissistic behavior. Knowing when to assert Individuality and community is important. I learned long ago that school playground bullies are nothing but insecure people who find other insecure people and form a team of bullies. They are in your church, mosque, school, market, and everywhere you associate. Those bullies today have migrated online.

The second thing to reflect on is how we weaken other people's testimony. How do we invalidate or minimize the pain of people we don't like? Drugs and mental health have been tools in recent times. Anytime people raise concerns about something, we look for something to cancel them, and these two are readily used. If it is a guy, call him Yahoo boy; if it is a lady, call him olosho or urgent 2k, and nobody will listen to that person. For instance, a sexual harassment victim would come out, and suddenly, people began to cancel that person that "oh she is not a virgin" (check out Dr. Helen Ufuoma Ugah's latest article). Given that cancellation, the sexual violation was justifiable, or she dress provocatively and invited it. With Mental health, I have had to ask Kolo Mental, so what? Whether we like it or not, despite our "God forbid insurance" policy, we all, at one point or the other, would have to deal with one mental illness or the other. The question is whether it becomes debilitating that you can't function or constitute a threat to the well-being of others. She has been to Aro, and Yaba left should not be used to dismiss someone's cry. When Naira Marley said he was on drugs, he shut down any compassion for that boy, whether intended or unintended.

Over two decades ago, I was telling Modupeola, my late younger sister, how some girls were mean to me because I did not participate in disliking a particular person and how the person I was fighting for was now back in the comfort of the community of mean girls because she could not stand alone and how I wonder if it was wrong to stand with her. Mum walked pass us and started singing "konkon janbele kaluku lomi seti won" (it was an Ebenezer Obey song). It was evident she heard all I was telling my sister. Days later, Mum told me things that made me forever secure in my Individuality as much as I could be in the community's Immunity. Let people do them and do you. Stop making other people's life miserable.

There is a Professor who need no mention that I once crowned the professor of the underdog. When life hit me, and everyone did not want to help because of who I was related to or what they heard or cooked up about me, this man came through for me in ways I cannot tell until when I write my memoir in 2090.

Finally, who is the mohbad in your community, church, mosque, and cliques that you all have ostracized because they choose to do them and not you and your miserable company? Time for reflection!

Selah

Rosemary Oyinlola Popoola PhD