Running in the wrong direction

I was sitting at a table in Reagan International Airport, pecking away on my computer, waiting for my next flight, when a man began screaming somewhere down the terminal. It wasn’t a frightened scream. It was more of an angry or panicked scream.

He didn’t sound happy.

And it wasn’t just a single scream. It was a scream, followed by another scream, followed by another and another.

It was deeply unsettling.

Even more unsettling:

At the sound of the screaming, I closed my laptop, slid it into my bag, and began moving quickly in the opposite direction, away from the sounds of the screaming.

As I did so, others around me – many, many people – rose from their seats, took out their phones, hit record, and began running in the direction of the screams.

Perhaps every single one of the dozens of people I watched run in the direction of the screams was planning to record the situation in an effort to ensure that airport police did not handle the situation too aggressively or end up accused of something they did not do, but I don’t think so.

I think most, if not all, were hoping to record something interesting, salacious, newsworthy, or unprecedented. I think that most, if not all, were in search of something that might garner them clicks and likes and whatever the hell they might receive on TikTok.

I think that most of them were hoping to exploit the situation for their own benefit. Rather than moving away from a potentially dangerous situation, they were running towards it, not in hopes of rescuing people, saving lives, or preserving someone’s rights under the Constitution, but because social media has become more important to them than common sense or basic human decency.

None of them were screaming as they ran down the terminal, yet I still found them all more frightening and unsettling than the screams of a man who was experiencing a very bad day.

Later, I texted Elysha:

“People have lost their damn minds.”

Somehow fleeting, meaningless, ultimately forgotten ephemera has gained traction and value in this world, and it’s a disastrous thing.