ICYMI - Decoder Ring: What’s Really Going On Inside a Mosh Pit?
Slate Culture Feed
Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The mosh pit has a reputation as a violent place where (mostly) white guys vent their aggression. There’s some truth to that, but it’s also a place bound by camaraderie and—believe it or not—etiquette. In this episode, we explore the unwritten rules of this 50-year-old live-music phenomenon with punks, concertgoers, and a heavy-metal physicist.
Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin with Katie Shepherd. This episode was written by Katie Shepherd. This episode was edited by Willa Paskin and Andrea Bruce, with help from Joel Meyer. Derek John is Slate’s executive producer of narrative podcasts. Merritt Jacob is our senior technical director.
Thank you to Vivien Goldman, Paolo Ragusa, and Philip Moriarty, whose insights and research on moshing were crucial to this episode. You can create your own mosh pit using this simulator developed by Jesse Silverberg and his colleagues.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Rachel Hampton, and you're listening to I see why am I. In case you missed it, |
| 0:17.8 | Slate's podcast about internet culture, and it has been a while since you've heard me do that by myself. |
| 0:23.8 | Well, today I'm doing it by myself because we actually have a special treat. |
| 0:27.7 | We are bringing you a very fun episode from Slate's award-winning decoder ring podcasts. |
| 0:34.0 | In this episode, Decoder Ring explores the unwritten rules of a 50-year-old live music phenomenon, |
| 0:42.0 | The Mosh Pit. |
| 0:42.9 | Decoder Ring talks to concert goers and a heavy metal physicist. |
| 0:49.6 | And without further ado, here's the show. |
| 0:55.8 | Before we begin, this episode contains adult language. |
| 1:03.4 | In 1991, when Joel Meyer, a senior editor and producer at Slate, was 14 years old, he went to the very first Lollapalooza concert tour when it stopped in St. Paul, Minnesota. |
| 1:18.8 | It might have even been my first concert without a parent involved. |
| 1:22.5 | There were so many bands he and his friends loved playing. Jane's addiction, living color, and especially Henry Rollins from the hardcore band Black Flag. |
| 1:36.8 | We thought he was kind of the coolest guy that we had ever seen. |
| 1:40.9 | As Joel and his buddies watch Henry Rollins sweating and shirtless and caught up in the |
| 1:45.6 | moment, they got caught up in the moment too, full of energy and fearlessness and adolescent boy |
| 1:51.2 | umph. They decided they needed to go into the mosh pit. Because I'm a very cautious and |
| 1:58.8 | conservative person by nature, I think I was maybe the last person to go in. |
| 2:03.2 | But then I did it. |
| 2:04.9 | A mosh pit is a staple of a Henry Rollins show. |
| 2:14.9 | The problem is I wear glasses. |
| 2:17.4 | And I have had to wear glasses since the fourth grade, and I can't |
| 2:21.2 | see anything without them. Within about maybe 20 seconds of going into the pit, lost those glasses |
... |
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