Why Do We Follow Everyone Else? | The Crowd — Before You Follow #6

BEFORE YOU FOLLOW — Episode 6: THE CROWD Nobody tells you to follow. Nobody gives you an order. Nobody threatens you. Sometimes... everyone else simply does it. And somehow, that can be enough. In this episode of Before You Follow, we explore what happens when the pressure to follow comes not from a leader—but from the people around us. We begin with Solomon Asch's conformity experiments, where people were placed in a remarkably simple situation: they could clearly see the correct answer, yet everyone around them confidently gave the wrong one. Why? Was it because they thought everyone else knew something they didn't? Or because they simply didn't want to stand apart? Then we turn to The Third Wave, a classroom experiment conducted in 1967 that began with discipline and gradually developed into something much larger—community, identity, conformity, and followers beginning to police other followers. And that's where the question becomes uncomfortable: What happens when the crowd itself becomes the authority? We've often imagined leadership as: Leader → Followers But what happens when it becomes: Follower → Follower → Follower And what happens when one follower decides to stop? Because followers don't just receive influence. They can reinforce it. They can spread it. And they can challenge it. Perhaps the crowd isn't simply something leaders control. Perhaps... the crowd helps create its own power. The question for you: If everyone around you was moving in the same direction—but you believed they were wrong, would you stand apart? Watch. Think. And before you follow... ask yourself why. BEFORE YOU FOLLOW A documentary investigation into authority, obedience, conformity, decisions, human behaviour—and the overlooked power of followers. Episode 6 — THE CROWD By Zulfiqar Ali Qureshi Historical & Research Note This episode references Solomon Asch's conformity experiments and the 1967 “Third Wave” classroom exercise associated with Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California. The episode focuses on the broader mechanisms of conformity, social pressure, belonging and follower-to-follower influence.