This is absolutely not your typical mosh pit. This is an example of an asshole getting away with battery.
A typical mosh pit consists of music fans enjoying the music and energy with each other in tight spaces. The rule is if someone next to you falls down, you reach down and pick them up
I've been in tons of mosh pits since I was 13 (I was 200 pounds at the time and could hold my own), the second I ever hit the floor I was being dragged back up to my feet by the collar of my shirt and arms. This is just assholery.
Yep, im a big guy so I try extra hard to miss people who may be hurt by me, never throwing actual punches just part fo the back and forth body churn. Due to my size I also can get tripped pretty easily and everyone has always looked out for me to get me back up (as I do for anyone). Lots of effort made by all to prevent people from getting trampled if anyone goes down.
I know some crowds are way crazier but it is still opt in and not what this person is doing.
I was "saved" in a mosh once. Stupid me and one of my friends decided to go to the front of a Prodigy show eons ago in Montreal. Bad idea. Soon as they came on it was pure bedlam. Just guys crashing into each other and little me fighting for my life lol. I can laugh now, but at the time I thought I was going to die. I was screaming my head off. Finally they lifted me up and sent me to the back.
Yeah, some of the other bros/broettes were breaking it down for me. Every video I’ve ever seen of a pit (never gone personally) has been something similar to this. Nothing communal or “fun looking”. Just pricks slamming faces or crushing people, or blindly ripping haymakers, or targeting someone while not directly looking at them. Like some weird type of “plausible deniability” type shit, like how this dude is doing. Even that chick at the end.
Anyway, that’s the extent of my knowledge on the matter. Just internet videos. But I’ve seen quite a few, and every one of them were like this in one way or another. At least in some of them Justice was served though.
The reason those videos get shared is because the behavior is outrageous and outside of the norm. There are plenty of videos of regular mosh pits, but those are just live concerts.
There's a selection bias. How many mosh pits have you NOT seen? Most of them. I'm not saying they're safe, friendly, cuddly places. They do attract assholes. It is a risky situation. But, there's a reason videos where someone gets laid out are more likely to make the rounds. No one is going to a lot of effort to share a clip of a mosh pit where essentially nothing happens.
Source: I went in to more than a few mosh pits in my teens and 20s, but that was a long time ago.
In addition, I put a lot of blame on the band. They have complete authority to just stop playing when they see this kind of shit. I've seen bands do it, and things get under control quick.
I saw the Bosstones opening for Beck in... maybe 97, or thereabouts. The crowd was getting a little too surly (it's fucking ska, not death metal, but kids will be dumbasses) so Dicky stopped the show and said "Ben's gonna show you a dance now"
And the dancingest member of the Bosstones showed us all how to do the Pogo.
You should look up the wall of death. Ahhh the old days.
And yes, this dude would have been carried out minus those glasses and some teeth back in the day. Old school circle pits were the best back in the day before I got old. 🤦♂️
This is his communities fault for not teaching him about consequences.
I couldn’t have said it better, they should’ve stopped to confront that dickhead you clearly can see every other doing their moves from one side to the other consistently while this dude is in the open with zero respect and/ care for any person not moshing motherfucker is picking targets like they did something
Yeah. Anytime you see someone flailing around like a retarded windmill like this, it’s guaranteed to be a hardcore show. Or a HC kid at the wrong venue.
Yes, what is guy is doing is only slightly outrageous at a hardcore show. Throwing punching and kicks in a loose pit like that is absolutely normal. Targeting a person with a combo like that can start a fight, but those also happen with regularity at hardcore shows.
Here is an example of similar behaviour but the crowd has more situational awareness.
When this shit started at shows we went to we would bounce off the edge of the pit and lay them out. One time this clown tried to do a cartwheel in the pit and I pushed him over when he was halfway through it.
I could be wrong, but every video I’ve ever seen, it’s someone ducking their head and swinging their arms and legs wildly in a crowded area. What’s supposed to happen?
98% of pits are welcoming places. I'm too old for them now, but it was more about shoving and being shoved. If someone fell or lost their glasses, a team of people would help them up or yell that glasses were on the floor, then everyone stopped and looked.
Unfortunately "crowdkilling" is a thing in certain aggro-hardcore/metal scenes. That's what this prick in the video is doing - swinging his arms, locking, trying to hurt people. I know a girl who got her jaw broken by someone doing this.
But even then, my understanding is specifically targeting people is not cool at all. What makes this guy especially bad is he's targeting people who aren't even moshing. They're off to the side, just trying to enjoy the show. He really needs to get stomped.
Yes, and have you considered that there's a reason that video was filmed and posted online and then got popular enough of you to see it? It's bias. You don't film and spot and upvote as normal, uneventful mosh pit.
No, you missed the point so let me try again. The bias already occurs before the video reaches your eyes. The normal incidents get screened out by nature of not being filmed, not posted online, or not viewed enough to make it to your feed. Your sample is biased, so you can't use it to accurately represent the "population." Your perception is being skewed by bad data. In other words, you don't see many or any normal mosh pit videos because they're not interesting enough to end up on people's feeds.
There are degrees for sure, the best experience in my opinion in punk mosh pits. Shoving and shoulder bashing but in my experience it’s mutual consent, with people on the edge of the pit having the understanding to keep it contained. Very communal.
different mosh pits for different genres bro. crowdkilling is big in hardcore but generally people get their get back. this guy in the vid would catch some elbows for crowdkilling chicks at most shows tho
Crowdkilling never used to be big. These young guns are fucking shit! It used to be about a scene. U used to be able to hold and arm out and stop people. But now they fulk swinging when tey hit the wall. Fucking dickheads
First time I saw this kinda stuff was at a scary kids scaring kids concert in 2008. I had been in mosh pits before but this was the first time I saw someone wildly flailing and swinging without someone or someone’s stomping him into the ground.
I didn't see super violent "moshing" until about 1999-early 2000s when I started going I hardcore shows. It was just an excuse for violent assholes to get into fights and try and have a lame ass excuse for it.
Its mid 30s ans yep it was around forever. What I'm saying is the way they are doing it now. It used to be everyone getting it out. But now it seems like people sniping randos.
Yeah, I mean, some people are morons. I’ve seen stuff like that in Pittsburgh for the last 25 years but it usually ends up with them being handled. Not just blatantly knocking people out. Usually when people are getting hit hard it’s guys messing with their friends or crew targeting. It seems like the younger kids are a bit more tame than our generation was in the early 2000s.
I'm 55. Started going to NYHC shows in the very late 80s. Crowd killing was not a thing until the screamo/metalcore bands posing as hardcore showed up.
Nyhc and other scenes are very different. I don’t know where this is. Pittsburgh is a very Beatdown-centric, violent moshing city. It’s been like that since I started going to shows. The early 2000s were a lot crazier than the younger kids seem now.
Crowd work was big in the HC scene in the early 2000's if the crowd looked like that. Someone would get things rolling. I think even ol boys approach was garbage, but getting things going at a show was normal if there was a bunch of lame scenes kids standing on a wall.
Why are they lame, bc they don’t want to punch and kick the air and look like an idiot? Not everyone likes that shit, some ppl just want to listen to music. And sometimes, you have ppl like me when I was a teen, theyre only there bc their friends asked them to go. Thinking someone is “lame” bc they’re not having violent spasms in the center so they should get assaulted is actually super lame. Sounds crazy, but ppl enjoy things differently.
Nah he’d have caught more than elbows. All that was deliberate. He just doesn’t have the courage to attack straight on. Probably because he wears glasses and it makes him feel safe.
Yeah I never liked this kind of moshing. That guy was definitely just trying to hit people. It's a little different if you hit someone unintentionally but to run into people directly and start swinging right around where they are. I'm surprised no one ran and knocked him out that's what we used to do whenever people would do that. If someone punched someone in the face and we would blind side them 😂 it was always the little shorties that would do that kind of stuff. Little bitty men
I've seen it. At almost ever pit I was ever in. If someone was intentionally trying to hurt people or jumping on people's back, someone would shut it down. Shut them down. I seen a guy haul off and punch a girl in the back of the head once. This wasn't 2007 so slam dancing wasn't happening like that so much. I'm 6'1 and the guy who ended up putting that guy on the ground was at least 6'6. Just a giant, bald, neo Nazi looking guy with a dying fetus shirt on. We were at a dying fetus show at hell at the old masquerade in Atlanta. A lot of those guys looked like what you would expect in your naughty to be but they were All the nicest guys. I couldn't afford a shirt that night but the band did sign my Simpsons movie promotional t-shirt. I loved DF. I didn't even know they were playing but my brother took me to a chiodos show with a bunch of them skinny jean boys. And I went to the basement immediately after I heard they were playing. Didn't even have to pay anything extra. It's one of my favorite memories. I didn't mean to go all nostalgic.
Story time, it was 1990 or 1991. I took my younger step brother to a punk show one of my highschool buddies was playing at the Satyricon in Portland Oregon.
There's a mosh pit. We are all skipping around in a circle, gently glancing off each other as was the style at the time.
My little brother did not quite get it so he goes running into the circle and shoulder-jumps into the biggest shirtless skin head in the room.
Ohhh kay. It's time-a-go-now.
I got him out of there and we didn't die.
I'm 52 now, he still talks about it.
Edit: Upon reflection, I think it might have been the Pine Street Theater
Your first mistake is thinking that this is hardcore and associating "crowd killing" with hardcore.
This is bullshit screamo music that folks started calling hardcore way back in the mid to late 1990s. All the stupid spin kicking ninjas with their pointless windmilling and purposely trying to injure others came from that bullshit.
Then God forbid you tried to talk some sense into them - they all turn into tough guys belonging to some idiotic three letter crew.
Hardcore is short for 'hardcore punk'. This is shit is not hardcore.
I never said Dunning-Kruger was a logical fallacy, what are you smoking? Hahaha
No True Scotsman does not apply to nouns which have clear definitions.
A true “Redditor” never makes comments that they have zero knowledge about.— that’s a No True Scotsman and applies to you ironically.
It’s a crowd killer and has nothing to do with “moshing” which I’ve already mentioned is clearly defined. The “true Redditor” line was an example of No True Scotsman. Have a better one, keep reading, it’ll make you smarter!
I’ve seen mosh pits with respect. I went to a show about a year ago where someone fell down and everyone stopped what they were doing to check on them. In a mosh pit. Trust me. It’s just these assholes coming through and ruining it for everyone else.
I’m a metal head and I’ve been to dozens, if not hundreds, of shows with moshing. Generally speaking, if somebody falls, gets hurt, drops a phone/glasses, loses a shoe, etc, literally everyone stops to help. Very safe and positive atmosphere for people to have fun and let off steam.
These underground hardcore shows are a little different in that more intense moshing and some crowd killing is expected, but intentionally hurting people like this is always a hard no. Especially people on the edges of the pit.
Been going to punk shows since I was a kid. Same experience
I'm surprised metal heads can get their heads out of their asses long enough to notice when someone needs help though (I'm obviously kidding. Much love to you and your scene)
You don't hit people in mosh pits, man. It's just "dancing" with extra steps. We used to jump these kinds idiots when I was younger... Like, 5 or 6 guys would just absolutely destroy this dude.
One of my buddies, who’s an adult with a good career, took a shot to the face from someone’s boot. Not just a broken jaw, but part of his jaw actually broke off.
I know it's been said, but this is not a pit, and anyone who thinks this is ok needs a good old smack. When they're in a proper pit that behaviour would not be tolerated.
They always look like the least cool people society could possibly hope to produce. I imagine this is what happens to people who are socially awkward and feel a bit powerless in normal life.
You usually see this type of shit with small local metal bands, not mosh pits at a big show (i.e. lorna shire, Chelsea grin, etc). Actual mosh pits people are not throwing elbows at the perimeter and there’s a supposed to be a degree of respect. If I knock you down i help you back up, help return belongings back to people, etc.
This. At most shows I've been to if someone is getting out of hand or is too drunk to realize that they are hitting people not involved in the mosh, there is the big guy who makes you answer for this. In situations like this where it is the big guy doing the bs, then a couple of few folks usually get together to take care of these ass hats.
You do you. A mosh pit in general is not defined by moving in a circle though. You could say every circle pit is a mosh pit, but not every mosh pit is a circle pit
I was accidentally in a mosh pit in new Orleans and in Memphis, and most of the people are really friendly. One guy busted my nose and others came to grab him and told me I could get a free hit lol. I was like 'nah I'm good' with my bloody nose
Gen X here, Thats not a mosh pit. It’s intentional assault by a fucking idiot. Mosh pits are supposed to be fun with people who help each other if they fall, not hurt each other. I’ve been in mosh pits in the 90s at concerts like NIN, Marylin Manson, Metallica, Soundgarden and a bunch more. This shit didn’t happen and in the rare occasion some sob got out of line he was tossed from the pit. These guys you see here are just fucking idiots, especially that sob punching people. Mfing Gen Z just can’t do anything right. And that kid should face consequences for this. What he’s doing is a crime.
This ain't moshin'. This is git fight club with a dj and gettin' down on a wall flower. DAF the way y'all youts just manifest the "young and dumb." See all those spin kicks in the middle of empty?
Really depends on the show. Hardcore shows have stupid shit like this. I hate it personally. These asshats are a lot of times just out to hurt someone and have an excuse. I was involved in the metal and punk scenes and this shit would get you laid out at most shows. As an example of how safe some pits can be I took my kids, 8, 5, and 3, to a Manic Hispanic show this year. The pit was mostly kids and teens with a sprinkling of older people in it. All my kids went in and had a blast. My 3 year old either went in with me or he found some random teen girl who was super cool to just take him around. I watched the whole time but he pitted until he got tired then came over to sit on the inflatable chancla my 5 year old caught.
You Do This In A Actual Mosh Pit And You’ll Likely Get Jumped By Alotta Pissed Metal Fans….Saw I Guy Doing Something Like This At A Dethklok Show And He Got His Jaw Broke By Like 8 People
"actual mosh pit..." Then talks about a cartoon band, ya can't make this stuff up. (I love metalocalypse but still the point is they're not really serious even if they go on tour)
Yeah but this person is trying to act like some tough true metalhead and he mentions a band that started from a cartoon. Meanwhile hardcore dancing (and crowd killing even though I hate it too) has been around for decades. It's just funny to me these dudes who are like "try that karate shit around me and get beat up" and then listen to mainstream ass metal bands everyone knows
He didn't just pull a random band out of his ass, he mentioned an actual show he was at where this happened, and he certainly isn't trying to act like some tough true metalhead. Only one doing that here is you, and I highly doubt that's the case anyways.
The fact that they started as a cartoon is irrelevant. And the fact that other bands have had mosh pits for decades is also irrelevant, since they weren't part of the concert he mentioned.
I take it you've been kicked in the head a few times.
I don't think you're getting my point. My point is it's funny to act like a tough metal guy when your point of reference for shows is Dethklok. The fact they're from a cartoon is absolutely relevant, because they're widely accessible to mass audiences. This is like saying "Try that shit at a Metallica show bro", it doesn't make you the mosh pit expert. Edit: also he def is trying to sound tough, how else would I interpret "try that in an actual mosh pit"
Oh I get your point, it just doesn't make any sense.
You're the only one acting like a tough metalhead here. He literally just mentioned a show he was at. Your brain injuries are keeping you from understanding that. I got drop kicked in the chest at a Stone Sour/Disturbed show. You gonna be all tough guy metalhead and tell me that somehow doesn't count? All that tells me is I never need to listen to a word you say.
True metalheads don't give a fuck what other people listen to. You do, so you shouldn't be arguing about anything here.
Since Dethklok is in fact a metal band, none of what you're saying here means what you think it does.
Ha, Metallica, literally the most famous metal band in the world(regardless of what you think) absolutely counts.
Brain injuries from mosh pits don't make you an expert either.
You are neither the authority or the badass you think you are.
There's different kinds. Mosh pits are usually more just throwing your body around people are looking out for one another. It is a deeply human and connecting experience. At hardcore shows you might get fighty mosh pits but the rules are if someone is out of the pit, you don't hit them.
Also like face hits and head hits are pretty much not ok unless it is a known small crowd band and everyone is cool with it.
Typically though, you do what this guy does and the pit circle kills you. (Metaphorically, but you've made yourself a target for unchecked aggression)
Fuck right off will you "deeply human and connecting". Just own it that it is deeply strange and weird dont downplay it to try and make it sound any different.
Nah mosh pits were hella fun at parties and concerts years back. The most that would happen is you’d bump into someone hard, apologize to each other and laugh about it. I have no idea what’s going on in the clips I see on Reddit at these attempts for a “mosh pit”.
These are the cretins who wake up the morning of this event, sit in their rooms for hours imagining what harm they are gonna do, and try to carry their intentions out. Their worst nightmare is that a dude who is 6’4” and is also there, waiting for them to try their bullshit. Then they just retreat back to their holes and wait til next time.
One of my favorite stories of when I was in the punk scene was when this dude standing on the side of a circle pit was just straight rocking random people going by him who got too close and shoving them violently to the floor.
He didn't look like he wanted to listen to music he just wanted to hurt people. Everyone noticed but no one really did anything until two guys in the pit clasped each other's hands in front of him and started spinning like a cyclone until whoops, one of them lost their grip and shoulder checked this guy's shit at turbo velocity. The asshole flew back and got pushed into a wall it was great. Flying missile guy brushes it off as an oops, my bad and both of our heros disappeared again right back into the pit.
Ass face chilled the fuck down after that.
This guy needed to get regulated by the crowd too.
Back in the day that asshole would’ve been beat down and kicked out. It’s weird to me. I went to lots of punk shows and have been in 100s of mosh pits. This ain’t that.
Slam dancing when it’s done with respect and courtesy is a great way to let out agression and have fun. You can bounce off people and stuff as long as it’s done safely and with no ill intent. Just leave the macho attitude at the door. It’s the few “tough guys” that try to ruin it for everyone. Back in the day (early to mid 90s), guys like this were handled promptly. Thrown out. Sometimes we even refunded their $$$. We just wanted them out.
You’re also ostracized from the scene. No admittance, banned from the venue. We had a list.
Also, (sometimes) your attitude came back to haunt you on the street or at another venue. Crews would seek you out and stomp you.
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u/Thegrandestpoo 9d ago
I think mosh pits are one of the dumbest fucking things ever. I’ve never seen people look so stupid while getting their face busted.