Know Your Mob! Before it knows you...

Herd behavior got you down? Do crowds of angry people who hate you, for being you, make you upset? But still want to occasionally gang up on people, places, and things you hate with friends, family, "allies", and others who are caught in the spirit of the moment? Don't worry, that's just part of being an advanced social mammal, and as long you know your group dynamics, keep your nose down, stay in line, you'll be just fine.

Sure it's a riot, but of what variety, bread, police, race, religious, student, urban, sports etc.etc.? Or perhaps some blending of riots, the magenta of riots

Know your Crowd
Am I in a protest? Well. Are you being photographed? Is this still a protest? It should be noted that many things billed as peaceful protests often devolve...no? Your still just peaceably expressing your ideas? Can you loot in a protest? Are bludgeoning tools also the tool of the protester? Can I expect to be let off for my OUTRAGEOUS behavior based on the size and emotional nature of the crowd? Are all thing someone should be asking before they enter a crowd, and decide based on the nature of the crowd, and how much fun everyone in it is currently having.

You jumped in head first, and now this is how you're spending your night

Know your place in the crowd

It's alright to tell yourself that "You are the Alpha" in front of the bathroom mirror, or intimate it during obligatory sex, but in a crowd you have to be honest about your place in the pack and your ability to dominate others, or else you end up like Benito Mussolini circa April 28th, 1945. Remember, a crowd is like a beautiful women, on coke, with a small dog in her purse, drinking red bull and vodka out of a fountain cup, with misapplied make-up... and acting aspirations, so if you want to lead that @#$% show, fine, but most sensible folk understand that the real fun of a crowd is to submerge oneself in the group, rather than try to do something with a mass of unstable humanity. Being in a crowd is all about being "in", the ingroup, that and sticking it to those outgroup @$$holes, being yourself isn't how you establish a group paradigm.

Remember to have fun with it!

Of course, as always, the most important thing is to have fun with it, otherwise you are already dead and the people who hate you will be winning, and if you are like most Americans "Showing them All!" is the only thing keeping you going. Besides the obvious looting opportunities, and chances for relatively consequence free violence, it is also a chance to make friends for a moment and memories that will last a lifetime... no matter how much you drink.