Not worth it

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

I don’t like crowds. I guess that’s a good dislike to have? A lot of people have been killed in a Halloween-celebrating crowd in Seoul.

At least 120 people are understood to have been killed in a crush during Halloween celebrations in in Seoul’s Itaewon district.

It was the first outdoor no-mask Halloween event since the pandemic.

“The area is still chaotic so we are still trying to figure out the exact number of people injured,” Moon Hyun-joo, an official at the National Fire Agency told Reuters news agency.

Avoid crowds.

Comments

4 responses to “Not worth it”

  1. Sackbut Avatar
    Sackbut

    It is ironic that this was a no-mask event for Halloween, a holiday where many people normally wear masks.

    I don’t like crowds, either. I used to tolerate them, but the very thought now makes me worry about having a claustrophobic panic attack.

    What a horrible event. Those poor people.

  2. Omar Avatar
    Omar

    The Soviet-era poet Yevtushenko on Stalin’s funeral:

    Suddenly I saw that a young girl was being pushed against the post. Her face was distorted by a despairing scream which was inaudible among all the other screams and groans. A movement of the crowd drove me against the girl; I did not hear but felt with my body the cracking of her brittle bones as they were broken on the traffic light. I closed my eyes in horror, I could not bear the sight of her insanely bulging, childish blue eyes, and I was swept past. When I looked again the girl was no longer to be seen. The crowd must have sucked her under….

    ‘Did you see Stalin?’ my mother asked me.

    ‘Yes,’ I said discouragingly, as I clinked glasses with the boy.

    I hadn’t lied to my mother. Stalin was really what I had seen.

    That day was a turning point in my life and therefore in my poetry as well.

    I realized that there was no one to do our thinking for us now, if indeed there ever had been. I realized that we needed now to do some hard thinking…

    .

    https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1954-2/succession-to-stalin/succession-to-stalin-texts/mourners-crushed-at-stalins-funeral/

  3. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    Avoid crowds.

    Don’t have to tell me twice! I hate crowds with a passion. Always have. I hate noise, I hate people violating my personal space, and I hate being touched by people I don’t know.

    For what it’s worth, I never shop at WalMart.

  4. Mike Haubrich Avatar
    Mike Haubrich

    I’ve got two fears, really big fears, and one is to be crushed by a crowd, so I take reasonable precautios and avoid crowds when possible. Hoildays especially present me with the opportunity to avoid them. When I was younger and frequented bars, I discovered that the best place to go on St. Patrick’s Day in the US was any Scots pub. There was no green beer, for one, and the crowds were small.

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