Backstreet's Back?!

Before the time of WhichWich or Moe's, the BSB was a quiet place for science majors to study at one of the many OPEN tables in the the atrium.  Now the place is overrun with loud sandwich-eating invaders from distant parts of campus, but that's a story for another time.

WhichWich opens at 10:30, so us science majors are given a few quiet study hours before the lunch rush. But, this morning there was a blatant disturbance.

Some guy walking through the BSB, minding his own business, earphones in, backpack on, ready to go for the day was BELTING out Backstreet Boys music.  The people sitting around me and myself tried to quietly chuckle and not look up from our work, but he just kept on belting 90s Pop music.  At this point I noticed that almost everyone looked up at each other with puzzled looks on their faces and blatantly burst out into laughter together.

Come to find out, this guy was doing a project for his own Sociology class in which he had to break social norms (good job!) to see how others reacted.  Our negative informal sanction to him for breaking the silence, the norm of morning hours in the BSB, was laughter at his expense.