Group Hallucination
Why group-thinking sucks
The Panic Is Not Real. The Herd Is Just Loud.
It is Finals Week. Or it is the week before the Bar Exam. Or it is the launch of the new iPhone. Look at your friends. They are vibrating with anxiety. They are mainlining caffeine. They are talking about how “screwed” they are. They are sleeping four hours a night to prove how much they care. They are forming a Misery Circle.
You walk in feeling fine. You studied. You prepared. But after ten minutes in the circle, you feel it. The knot in the stomach. The doubt. “Am I anxious enough? Maybe I missed something. If they are this scared, I should be scared too.”
You have just been infected.
The Mechanics of Mimetic Desire
René Girard, a French historian, identified a mechanism he called Mimetic Desire. It means you do not desire an object directly. You desire it because someone else desires it.
You don’t want to go to Club X because it’s a good club. It’s loud, the drinks are watered down, and the bouncers are rude. You want to go because everyone else is standing in line.
You aren’t anxious about the exam because the exam is fatal. You are anxious because your peers are using “Panic” as a social bonding ritual.
If you refuse to panic, you are signaling that you are not part of the tribe. So, to stay safe, you lower your IQ. You adopt the hysteria of the group. You become a lemming because it is safer to fall off the cliff with the group than to stand alone on the edge.
Popularity Is A Red Flag
From a strategic standpoint, if “Everyone” is doing something, the value of that thing has likely collapsed.
The Club: If the line is around the block, the experience inside is already ruined. It is too crowded. You are paying a premium for the privilege of being unable to move.
The Investment: If your Uber driver is giving you crypto tips, the bubble has already popped. You are the exit liquidity.
The Anxiety: If everyone is freaking out, the curve will be set by their panic. The calm man is the only one who can actually think.
The Contrarian Protocol
You must treat social trends, crazes, and shared emotions as Radioactive. They are dangerous. They warp your perception of reality.
1. The Quarantine Rule When the group enters a “Hype Cycle” (obsession with a new product) or a “Doom Cycle” (exam panic), you must physically and digitally separate. Mute the group chat. Stop studying in the library with them. Do not let their emotional exhaust fumes enter your ventilation system. You cannot remain objective while standing in a riot.
2. The “Empty Room” Test Before you buy the shoe, go to the club, or adopt the political opinion, ask yourself: “If I were the last person on earth, and no one would ever see me do this, would I still want it?” If the answer is No, you are strictly performing for an audience. You are spending your resources to buy a costume for a play that no one cares about. Save your money. Save your energy.
3. Short The Crowd When you see a massive emotional wave—everyone terrified, or everyone euphoric—bet against it. If everyone is terrified of the exam, they will make stupid mistakes. They will burn out. This is your advantage. While they are bonding over how “impossible” it is, you are sleeping eight hours. You are eating steak. You are studying the material, not the panic. You treat their emotion as a market inefficiency that you can exploit.
The Conclusion
The majority is almost always wrong. Not because they are stupid, but because they are Slow. By the time the “Crowd” arrives at an idea, the opportunity is gone. Be wary of the thing everyone wants. Be suspicious of the emotion everyone feels. If you are standing in a line, you have already lost.