This American Life - 158: Mob Mentality

Broadcast on: 05 May 2000

From WBEC Chicago, the Public Radio International, what's this American life on our class. And to start today's program, I just have to play you a recording of this television ad from Canada, and that is so popular in Canada that people champ this ad in bars. It's made the front page of every major paper in Canada, all the nightly newscasts, the Canadian Heritage Minister played for a group of Americans in Boston this week to explain Canadian cultural identity. In the ad, a young man walks onto a stage before a huge maple leaf flag goes to a microphone, taps it meekly, and begins. Hey, I'm not a lumberjack or a fur trader, and I don't live in any glue or eat blubber or own a dog sled, and I don't know Jimmy, Sally, or Susie from Canada, although I'm certain they're really, really nice. I have a Prime Minister, not a President, I speak English and French, not American, and I pronounce it about, not a boot. I can proudly solve my country's flag and my backpack. I believe in peacekeeping, not policing, diversity, not simulation, and that the beaver is a truly proud and normal animal, but Duke is a hack, a test of field is a coach, and ladies pronounce said, not saying said, Canada is the second largest landmass, but first rich and lucky and the best part of America, my name is Joe, and I am Canadian. Near the end of the ad, the product flashes on screen, Molson's beer, which in Canada is not called Molson's, it's called Canadian, but Marcin is very president for marketing for Molson's Canadian, and even he's surprised at the reaction to the ad. People are doing things like standing cheering in theaters when it's been shown, you know, we've played it in hockey arenas, and 20,000 people have cheered like they just won the Stanley Cup, and you just can't help if you've been in one of those arenas, or if you've been in a theater and seen how people generally have reacted, you can't help but think, gee, something's going on here. And there is now spoofs all over the place, in fact there was a double page spread in one of the national newspapers yesterday, that had a picture of our actor in the middle of it, and written up spoofs all around him, so. I think somebody forwarded one to me, it's, I am Pakistani. Oh, I haven't heard that one. Hello, my mom doesn't have a dot on her forehead, and my dad doesn't wear a turban. I don't live in a grass-hot, or eat curry every day, or own a flying carpet, and I don't know Ravindar, Priya, or Akshay, though I'm sure they're very, very nice. I have a military dictator, not a prime minister, on and on and on, down to Pakistan's the second largest safe haven for the politically displaced, the first nation of cricket, and the most corrupt part of South Asia. My name is Khan, and I am Pakistani. Well, of course, every ethnic group in Canada is weighing in with its own version of the ad. People feel misunderstood, people feel overlooked, and to have a call to arms that, on the one hand, gives you the thrill of being in a cheering mob yelling, "We are number one." While on the other hand is simply just kind of a joke, that is a very appealing package. You get the pleasure of being in a mob, without the threat of mob violence, of rising totalitarianism, of rampaging and rioting. There is a deep part of most of us that takes pleasure in being in a crowd. A real crowd, I mean. A mass of people that is thinking and feeling the same thing at the same time, jumping to its feet as one unit yelling for a cause, or a team, or a band, or whatever. Today on our program, the pleasure of being in a mob, the terror of being in a mob, all

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