Day Five: Mass Social Experiment (Anailuj)

Today we had to make an out of order sign, stick it on something, and see if it caused a breakdown of our social structure as we know it.
So I ripped out a piece of notebook paper, scrawled "Out of order" on it in sharpie, and taped it to a vending machine. But that wasn't that exciting. So I taped it to a bathroom door. Not a stall door, the door to the entrance of the whole bathroom.

See, there it is, on my very low resolution camera. I picked a place that was pretty high traffic, but doesn't have a lot of seats so there was no one sitting around to observe me causing trouble. Except some girl who was sitting right across from me and was not observant enough to notice me doing any of this. Then she got on her phone and was being obnoxious.

The results were pretty predictable: every now and then some girl who had to pee or fix her hair would walk up to the door, hesitate, and walk away. Once two girls walked by and one pointed to it. Not that exciting. no one was even curious enough to take a peak to see what kind of disaster
could put a WHOLE bathroom out of order.

Conclusion: People obey signs, and watching them do it is really not that thrilling. I would have done the same thing. This was only life-changing in that it made me want to try it on a larger scale. Next time I'll put an out of order sign on an airplane. Or a pilot.

Day Five: Mass Social Experiment (Yellenahs)

Today, the book provided us with a circular red "Out of Order" sign and instructed us to place it on any item of public infrastructure we may encounter throughout the day. I didn't want to destroy the book by cutting it out, so I just wrote "Out of Order" on a piece of notebook paper. Not quite as harsh as the book's, but it gets the idea across.

Now, I'm basically a huge wimp when it comes to things like this. I would have liked to place my sign on something really cool that would really freak people out, but I didn't have the nerve. So I placed it over the buttons of an elevator in one of the academic buildings on campus. And then I ran like hell. Okay, I walked away sort of fast. But I was sweating in fear!

Since I had to go to work, I didn't even get to watch what people did. Instead I am going to provide you with a fictional conversation that may have occurred between two freshmen Long Island girls when faced with the sign:
Girl wearing leggings: "Uhhh the elevator is broken?" (tilts head)
Girl wearing Uggs: "Whattt?" (whine)
Leggings: "How does an elevator even break?"
Uggs: "Uhhh I dunno? Should we try it anyway?"
Leggings: "I don't think so...we could DIE in there!"
Uggs: "But there are soooooooooo many stairs!"
Leggings: "I know, right! The third floor is soooo far away!"
Uggs: "Let's go to Starbucks instead."

I'm pretty sure this is indicative of mass social breakdown. Toward the end of the year when I'm less of a wimp, I also plan to do this more often. For the funs.