Ummm… can I listen too?

Just because the bowels of the NYC subway were my extended living room this winter, I chose it as the setting of another social experiment. Everywhere I looked, passengers with earphones were tuned into their own soundtrack and tuned out of the shared space. I thought it’d be interesting to tap into these sound bubbles, so I bought a headphone splitter and started asking strangers if I could plug into their mp3 thingies to share their music. For a shy gal like me, it sometimes took a while to build up the courage, my heart racing till I could muster a tap on the shoulder. I did this about a couple of dozen times… TOTAL SUCCESS since every single person said YES! Here are the most interesting findings:
1. Everyone chose new songs for me. They’d say things like “Hope you like Jay-Z” and “You like Billy Joel?” They all wanted to curate our shared soundtrack, leading me to conclude that humans are inherently good and want to please each other.
2. Most people enjoy their music at ear-bleeding levels.
3. Most of the black people happened to be listening to songs that featured the N-word. One guy actually turned to me and, with an apologetic face, mouthed “sorry.” What? You’re sorry? I’m sorry? I’m confused.
4. Foreign people changed their selections to English after one song max.
5. No one introduced themselves. Not sure what to glean from that.
Overall, it was a pleasant experience that always ended with full-blown or shakily-stifled smiles. My favorite moments were turning to sparkly-eyed, knit-hat stranger and whispering ‘that was nice’ at the end of this song:

Advertisement