Hi,
I could not get any sound and just had to gauge what was happening by the pictures -but even that was enough.
I actually feel pity for all the people there. Great pity. The simple fact that they laughed so much at this man who felt shy, intimidated and embarrassed and Letterman's poor interviewing skills -all points to a stark fact: that social anxiety and intense shyness are very close to the ordinary human experience.
People are only inclined to ridicule a person so when they themselves feel similar emotions to the one they ridicule. The condenscending, shamed look on faces of people in the audience, the shrill (I go by looks rather than sound) laughter at someone and Lettermans' highly rude and immature snatching away his envelope from the man. -Like, all of them can relate to the peer pressure to fit in with the clan, but none of them has the guts to admit that they feel like the self-concious, nervous man. It's hypocritical. And I actually see it as real weakness.
Perhaps it is partly the country America, where everyone is supposed to be a confident loud mouth. I've seen people withdraw shyly on tv before, yet on Australian television the interviewer or anchorman would show more respect towards a person with shy ways and they'd employ a maturit and skill in diverting the attention from the person in a way that would stop the embarrassment.
I think that this clip is actually really good -because it reveals a lot about people.
It shows how much people hide their real self from others and how they can't handle a glimpse into their own true feelings of shyness and insecurity. And my view is that they're all just as scared and afraid of appearing weak in front of others. And the only difference between all the people who laughed and ridiculed the shy and nervous man, is that he is less able to hide how he really feels than they are.
