Mobs have a very particular mentality and characteristic to it. Whenever one is a part of a crowd or a mob, their mentality, goals, and personality changes some what. It was discussed in Elias Canetti’s text Crowd and Power, how a man’s main fear is being touched, whether if they’re outside in the broad daylight or in a dark empty room, being touched by a foreign matter is terrifying. The mere fact that you don’t know what is touching you and that “even clothes give insufficient security…It is only in a crowd that man can become free of this fear of being touched. That is the only situation in which the fear changes into its opposite.” When in a crowd, all sense of the fear of being touched is usually lost. You’re surrounded by people who most likely have the same mentality as you or at least the same goal. “The more fiercely people press together, the more certain they feel that they do not fear each other”. That moment when man feels at one with the crowd, when the fear is lost is called discharge.

The people that surround you and give you that “safe” feeling is all a part of this enviornment that the crowd is taking place in. The space that they occupy play an important role in the crowd’s characteristics. The space can predetermine whether or not the crowd is going to be an open crowd or a closed crowd, it determines if it is domesticated or destructive.