"The average person is gregarious; there is something in the spirit of the crowd that adds to the enjoyment of entertainment"
About this Quote
Novello is pitching a truth the entertainment industry still runs on: people don’t just consume art, they consume atmosphere. “The average person is gregarious” reads like a mildly patrician shrug, but it’s also a practical diagnosis from a composer who lived off live audiences. He’s not romanticizing community; he’s identifying a built-in human bias that makes a decent show feel great when it’s shared.
The phrasing does sly work. “There is something in the spirit of the crowd” stays conveniently vague, as if the crowd has a soul you can’t measure but can definitely monetize. That “something” is permission: permission to laugh harder, to clap longer, to feel more. In a group, emotion becomes contagious and therefore safer. You don’t have to be the first to be moved; you can join the wave and call it taste.
The subtext is less kumbaya than logistics. Crowds lubricate entertainment by turning attention into a collective ritual. A joke lands because others laugh; a ballad swells because silence becomes shared. Even disappointment gets softened when it’s communal; the night still “happened.”
Context matters: Novello’s world was theatre, operetta, and star-centered spectacle in the early 20th century, when radio and cinema were rearranging leisure but not replacing the social prestige of a night out. He’s defending liveness and the room itself as part of the artwork. Read now, it’s also a quiet warning: entertainment doesn’t only compete on content, it competes on congregations.
The phrasing does sly work. “There is something in the spirit of the crowd” stays conveniently vague, as if the crowd has a soul you can’t measure but can definitely monetize. That “something” is permission: permission to laugh harder, to clap longer, to feel more. In a group, emotion becomes contagious and therefore safer. You don’t have to be the first to be moved; you can join the wave and call it taste.
The subtext is less kumbaya than logistics. Crowds lubricate entertainment by turning attention into a collective ritual. A joke lands because others laugh; a ballad swells because silence becomes shared. Even disappointment gets softened when it’s communal; the night still “happened.”
Context matters: Novello’s world was theatre, operetta, and star-centered spectacle in the early 20th century, when radio and cinema were rearranging leisure but not replacing the social prestige of a night out. He’s defending liveness and the room itself as part of the artwork. Read now, it’s also a quiet warning: entertainment doesn’t only compete on content, it competes on congregations.
Quote Details
| Topic | Joy |
|---|
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