⚽️🙌🌊The Wave: Put your hands up for a sea of humanity

It’s the common thread between baseball games, Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings, the [Estonian Song Festival]( [Lady Gaga concerts]( [Obama speeches]( and [Wimbledon]( not to mention the [FIFA World Cup,]( which kicked off this week. Exactly what to call it is a slightly more complicated matter: The collective display of stadium-centered enthusiasm is known as “the Wave” in the United States, “La Ola” in Mexico, and “the Mexican Wave” everywhere else. Whenever large groups of people congregate in a circular space, you can almost always count on the Wave rolling into existence, slowly at first and then growing larger as it gains traction. The crowd participation phenomenon has been around since at least the 1980s, and possibly longer, depending on which story you believe. What is it about standing up and thrusting our arms in the air en masse that appeals across so many cultures? We’ll attempt to understand, but if at any moment we bore you, go ahead and stretch your hands toward the sky, let out a “whoo” or a “whoa,” then carry on. 🐦 [Tweet this]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( [Quartz Obsession] The Wave June 15, 2018 The great uniter --------------------------------------------------------------- It’s the common thread between baseball games, Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings, the [Estonian Song Festival]( [Lady Gaga concerts]( [Obama speeches]( and [Wimbledon]( not to mention the [FIFA World Cup,]( which kicked off this week. Exactly what to call it is a slightly more complicated matter: The collective display of stadium-centered enthusiasm is known as “the Wave” in the United States, “La Ola” in Mexico, and “the Mexican Wave” everywhere else. Whenever large groups of people congregate in a circular space, you can almost always count on the Wave rolling into existence, slowly at first and then growing larger as it gains traction. The crowd participation phenomenon has been around since at least the 1980s, and possibly longer, depending on which story you believe. What is it about standing up and thrusting our arms in the air en masse that appeals across so many cultures? We’ll attempt to understand, but if at any moment we bore you, go ahead and stretch your hands toward the sky, let out a “whoo” or a “whoa,” then carry on. 🐦 [Tweet this]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Reuters/Action Images/Craig Brough By the digits [25 mph:]( Speed of the “stand-and-sit” Wave, according to a study by Arizona State University [50 mph:]( Speed of a “hands-up-only” Wave [15:]( Width, in seats, of the average Wave as it travels through a crowd [80:]( Height, in feet, of the largest ocean wave ever surfed [6,000:]( Plastic bottles used to make “La Ola,” or “The Wave,” an art installation in San Jose, Costa Rico [17 minutes, 14 seconds:]( Duration of the longest-running Wave on record [1:]( Guy who started [Stop The Wave]( a crusade against the “most insanely moronic ritual in sports” Giphy Origin story Making a splash --------------------------------------------------------------- The advent of the Wave is a bit of a contentious topic. [Some say]( it dates all the way back to 1945, the product of four bored Canadians at a youth softball game. We do know the first televised Wave occurred at an Oakland A’s game on October 15, 1981, organized by a professional cheerleader named Krazy George Henderson. According to this [exhaustive reportage by ESPN]( the idea originated when Henderson was a college cheerleader at San Jose State in the early 1970s: He directed the student body to stand up in sections and yell “San,” “Jose,” and “State.” After trying variations on the tactic at minor league hockey games and high school pep rallies, Henderson thought the crowd at the fateful A’s vs. Yankees game was ready to give it a shot. It took him three or four tries, but he finally managed to get the Wave off the ground. “All three tiers were doing it,” he said. “It was amazing.” The move quickly took off across the US, but the Wave received global exposure nearly five years later when fans performed it during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. (That’s why, in most of the world, the synchronized motion is known as “the Mexican Wave.”) Most recently, 70-year-old Henderson [appeared]( on America’s Got Talent in 2015, where his one and only talent was starting the Wave. The judges waved him off the stage in a matter of seconds. Giphy Million-Dollar Question How many people does it take to start a Wave? --------------------------------------------------------------- Hint: If you’re going to start a Wave, you’re going to need to recruit some friends. And probably some strangers. Scientists from the University of Budapest in Hungary [studied]( video examples of the Wave in stadiums containing at least 50,000 people. They determined that the critical mass of people needed to get it started is somewhere between 25 and 35. “It is generated by no more than a few dozen people standing up simultaneously and subsequently expands through the entire crowd as it acquires a stable, near-linear shape,” the research team reported. (In other words, [as this ESPN writer learned]( it’s harder than it looks.) While spending research time and money on a subject as innocuous as the Wave might seem a bit frivolous, scientists actually believe similar crowd behavior studies could be used to help predict and dissolve riots and violence during sporting events. Fun fact! Regardless of the event at which it occurs, the Wave [usually travels]( in a clockwise manner. Particle man, particle man Particle or wave? --------------------------------------------------------------- The reason that most people (Bill O’Reilly excluded) can’t seem to keep themselves from participating in this silly sports tradition might be even more primal than plain old peer pressure. Back when researcher Illes Farkas witnessed a group performing the Wave in 2001, he wondered how so many thousands of people coordinated a near-simultaneous bursting motion without advance planning. Particles, he noted, are able to create a complex phenomenon by obeying a few simple rules. “In a very similar way, surprisingly, humans do similar things,” [he told NPR](. “The reason why we got interested in stadium waves was that people, apparently, very often behave like particles.” But that’s not all: The shimmering movement created by the Wave is a [large scale example]( of a metachronal wave—wavy movements produced by sequential action, not synchronized action, as often seen in cilia, segments or worms, or legs. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky Fidel Castro at the women’s USA-Cuba basketball game at the 1991 Pan Am Games in Havana. (Cuba won 86–81.) Reuters/Action Images/Paul Childs Pop quiz Which former TV host claimed he invented the Mexican Wave? Pat O’Brien, former host of Access HollywoodRobert Stack, former host of Unsolved MysteriesRobb Weller, former host of Entertainment TonightKevin Frazier, former host of The Insider Correct. As a cheerleader at the University of Washington, Weller led crowds in similar wave-like crowd participation acts, and says his came before Krazy George Henderson’s. “I haven’t even gotten a free hot dog out of the deal,” he lamented in 2001. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Resistance is futile Don’t bother banning the Wave --------------------------------------------------------------- In the 1980s, University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler asked fans to knock it off, arguing that the Wave was distracting his players and fans were not paying attention to the game. Fans [responded]( not in the way Schembechler had hoped—by coming up with new and inventive ways to implement it, including the Silent Wave and the “Shsh” Wave, achieved by making a shsh noise instead of cheering. Here they are doing a decidedly [not silent]( wave in 1984. The Texas Rangers learned nothing from Bo’s mistake. [In 2011]( the MLB team ran signs on their giant video board that declared the park a “No Wave Zone,” and threatened to sell any child participants to the circus. The fun-hating ban backfired, of course: “There is a segment of people who see our sign and do the wave,” an anonymous Rangers exec [told]( the Los Angeles Times. “It’s actually going stronger than ever.” Watch this! College football’s newest wave --------------------------------------------------------------- There’s a new kind of Wave happening at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City—one that benefits the young patients at the University of Iowa’s new children’s hospital. Grab some tissues before you hit play. take me down this 🐰 hole! How is intimacy in the workplace—the good kind, not the HR kind—like doing the Wave? If you’ve got 11 minutes to watch a [Ted Talk]( by Choose People CEO Kris Boesch, you’ll unravel the mystery. Reuters/Stefan Wermuth Poll Do you participate in the Wave? [Click here to vote]( Uh, I’m the one leading it.Sure, I’m usually game.I loathe the Wave, along with puppies and kittens. The fine print In yesterday’s poll about [air conditioning]( 60% of you said “turn the A/C up” means you want to cool things down. 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