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I’ll preface this post by saying: I’ve been hosting my educational sidewalk experiences for eight years, and what I’m going to explain in this post happens in every single city I visit regardless of audience, demographic, time of year. Plus, it’s sporadic, not anywhere near a typical night.
The reality of sidewalks and public spaces
As we move about our lives, we often encounter buskers, street performers, solicitors, megaphone preachers, reps trying to reel you into monthly donations, hand lotion stalls, and a variety of other situations from which most of us avert our eyes and keep walking by.
It makes sense. Many of these people are trying to sell you something, persuade you into making a donation, or are waiting for the right person to come around who can help launch their career.
Many of these interactions are high-pressure: the person or organization lists off reasons why you should donate, why you should buy their product, why you should follow them on social media, why you should follow their specific denomination of Christianity, or why you should hire them (and, arguably, I fall into this last category).
This constant bombardment makes us numb–and anxious. We see the person ahead and we start thinking of ways to avoid the encounter, what to say to skip by, or suddenly hey, that particular tree in the background just became SUPER interesting and we can’t keep our eyes off it.
Simply ignoring the person makes us feel rude. Humans are conditioned to respond to comments, compliments, and questions, and ignoring someone talking to us makes us feel ashamed and guilty, as if we are somehow at fault even if we’re just another face in the crowd. But really, this stems from the pressure of knowing that in situations like these, money is typically the end goal of the interaction (and why lie: I’ve made sidewalk astronomy my full-time career and need to maintain a minimum income to continue offering it for free).
Choosing the life of a traveling sidewalk astronomer
When it comes to artists, educators, and busking, we typically have an active job with passive engagement. We perform music, create art, and set up educational experiences in the hopes that people will stop, engage, and leave a tip or purchase something from us. I started my Sidewalk Science Center experiences in Savannah, Georgia way back in 2018, where street performing was part of the city’s inherent culture. The city recognized and celebrated artists, musicians, and educators with cheap yearly permits and widespread spaces throughout the city. Two months into my table-top science experiments, the newspaper hired me to write a monthly science communication column. That’s how recognized buskers were (I speak in the past because I haven’t lived there in seven years, so can’t speak for anything current).
In my eight years of street science outreach that has always been free and always will be, I’ve gotten plenty of people who stop…and even more who don’t. Whether I have a table of science experiments or a giant telescope pointing skyward I estimate that 60-70% of people walking by will skip without a second glance on any given night. The 30-40% of people who do stop to look or engage account for the 30-50,000 people I meet every year. I have thousands of pictures showing dozens of people gathered around the telescope, and hundreds of timelapse videos of people stopping to look through. So what could I possibly mean by the phrase “chronic incuriosity”?
On Sunday, I shared a timelapse covering 21 minutes in Sedona in which just 18 out of 232 people stop to look in the telescope. 214 people ignore it, even some of the people who stop to read the sign or chat with me briefly. The giant telescope, combined with my signs that say “ALWAYS FREE” and that it’s looking at Jupiter, weren’t enough to draw these people in.
This is the “Chronic Incuriosity” I’m talking about. Maybe you missed the signs, but the telescope is obvious. There are also times when kids will ask their parents what it is, and they’ll pull them along with a rushed answer, or speed up walking as the kids lag behind staring at the telescope before skipping ahead saying “but it says it’s free!” (You get it, kids, you get it.) Sometimes a person will stop, ask what’s going on, then keep walking without looking through. But for the most part, people will simply avert their eyes and ignore it entirely.
Here’s a list of factors I’ve gathered over the years that I suspect lead people to this deliberate avoidance:
- Conditioned to expect me to talk to them as they walk by (I never solicit unless people express genuine interest and seem open to talking)
- Conditioned to expect a financial transaction (despite the signs saying otherwise)
- Conditioned to expect me to sell them something (I actually try to drag people away from my photography and books if that’s the first thing they stop to look at, because those aren’t point of me being there)
- Overwhelmed by vendors soliciting them all day (in St. Pete, I actively change my walking route if I see solicitors on the sidewalk)
- Conditioned to think I’m going to upsell them to buy my photography or books (I only talk about those when asked, or if you naturally go over to them)
- Think I’m just there to be hired for astronomy events, and nothing is actually visible in the telescope (despite the signs saying otherwise)
- Conditioned to think you can’t use a telescope in daylight; therefore, it must not be looking at anything (despite the signs saying otherwise)
- Expect me to preach about Scientology (looking at you, random people yelling at me from their cars in St. Pete, Florida who think I’m preaching Scientology)
- The “nothing is ever free” crowd, who tend to be weirdly hostile because they’re constantly expecting some catch to come along (despite the signs saying otherwise)
- The people who refuse to look simply because they don’t have money for a tip, even after I assure them that it’s perfectly okay and I would rather they look in than skip by (just like the signs say)
And some regular benign factors:
- Have reservations for dinner
- Have reservations for a tour or activity
- Have to get to their campground before dark
- Kids are getting hungry, tired, or cranky
A lot of the reasons above have ‘despite the signs saying otherwise’ after them. When you’ve watched a million or more people walk by as I have, you quickly learn a handful of common social behaviors, one of those being that the vast majority of people don’t read signs, even a significant percentage of the people who stop and talk to you (the number of times I’ve been asked “How much does it cost to look?” is astounding).
Depending on the city I’m in, I have a variety of signage, banners, and educational materials that accompany the telescope to keep people busy as their waiting to look through, so in most areas, it’s quite clear there is no admission required.
Even with all this, I’ll still get those days of “Chronic Incuriosity” in every city I visit. To have fewer than 10% of people stop as entire crowds of people are walking by is rare, so when it happens, it sticks with you, and you get a severe case of imposter syndrome–until the next day, when suddenly dozens of people are crowding the telescope every ten minutes eager for a look.
The vast majority of people who stop leave the telescope excited, talking about what they saw, sharing stories about places they’ve visited to see the stars, star parties they went to, teachers they had who were enthusiastic about astronomy, telescopes they or their parents have, etc. A woman in St. Pete went so far as to get a tattoo of Saturn after seeing it in my telescope back in January/February, and last week, a man in Sedona stopped to show me his tattoos of all the historic Apollo rockets, crewed capsules, and planets on his arm.
What I (truly) believe causes the Chronic Incuriosity phenomenon
- Collective psychology
Groupthink. Bystander Effect. Suggestibility.
However you describe it, when nobody is at the telescope, general passerby tend to ignore it. There is no catalyzing factor beyond the telescope pointing skyward, nothing but the sign to “give permission” to stop and look.
On their own, all of the above factors I listed blend to create an avoidant psychology in individual people and groups. But the moment one curious person, couple, or group of people gathers near the telescope, the avoidance conditioning breaks down. Passerby tend to linger longer or stop entirely, wondering what is going on. They now see there is “permission” to look in the telescope because other people are doing it. This escalates into a cascading effect: a second person stops. Then three, then ten.
On November 10, 2024, during the occultation of Saturn and the Moon, I had more than 600 people gathered on the sidewalk and lawn at one time because people kept wondering what was going on, saw the telescopes, got to talking to other people, and the crowd double, tripled, quadrupled over the course of an hour or two. People just stuck around for 20, 30, 45 minutes, an hour.
But then it happens.
The moment there is a lull in the amount of people walking by, and the final person looks in the telescope and leaves, you’re back at square one. Suddenly, the “permission” is gone. Even if I wave my hand at the telescope and say what it’s looking at, people don’t see others looking, so they are more likely to skip by, oblivious to the sight they’ll see, the shell of avoidant conditioning hardened once again.
Unlike what mystics will try to make you believe, collective consciousness is a well-studied psychological phenomenon that shows when individuals see or join a crowd, they are more likely to temporarily abandon their preconceptions and identity in favor of joining the psychology of the crowd.
With sidewalk astronomy, this manifests in the form of someone who is not typically or actively interested in science or astronomy suddenly having their curiosity piqued wondering why so many people are excited about what’s going on. This curiosity creates suggestibility: you’re now more likely to join the crowd or accept an invite to look through the telescope because you see other people doing it and, better yet, enjoying it.
In conclusion, don’t mistake this for me complaining when no one stops
But also, please stop when you see me. I love to chat and have so many cool videos, pictures, and stories to share with you! Remember: my experiences are not about the telescope; they are about the conversation and social engagement.
But yeah. I love to gripe and complain (sarcastically) about days when no one stops to look through the telescope. Keep in mind, however, that I host 250 events a year and see 30-50,000 people in that time, all while I travel around the US exploring cities, small towns, national parks, and our wilderness areas. I am so, so happy with my life and privileged beyond belief to live like this and do this work.
The main goal is to bring these educational experiences to you, to show you these wonders and bring nature closer to each of us, especially to people who don’t have these opportunities, who deserve to have these moments of inspiration and passion influence their lives in some way.
Thank you for stopping at the telescope. Keep sharing your stories, keep looking up, and above all, stay curious and notice the nuances of the world around you each and every day.
This world is beautiful.
Alex
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