A street musician is playing. There is a microphone and a small amp. But the sound is far too loud for the size of the space. Standing a few meters away already feels too much. The music does not seem meant to be heard; it feels meant to dominate. This is no longer a choice, it is a reflex. No one asks why it is this loud anymore because it has quietly become the rule. Yet no habit is born without a reason. Somewhere, sometime, there must have been one. Maybe a passing truck once drowned the music. Maybe the crowd’s noise swallowed the melody. Maybe in that moment the musician thought, “No one will ever drown me out again.” And so a new norm was born. Over time the reason faded, but the pattern stayed. Loudness turned from necessity into identity.
This is what sociology calls normative drift, when a behavior loses its original meaning and becomes its own justification. What was once functional becomes automatic. People repeat it without knowing why because questioning it no longer feels necessary. Society has sanctified the form. Asking “Why do we play this loud?” sounds absurd. Loudness is no longer part of the music; it is part of the norm. To play quietly now feels incomplete, weak, invisible. The behavior devours its reason and survives as a reflex, a reflex that becomes cultural memory.
But there is another layer: technology. The microphone, the amplifier, the speaker. They do not just amplify sound; they amplify the human desire to be seen and heard. As Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message. The power of sound begins to outweigh its content. Technology, built to carry the human voice, starts speaking in its place. Music stops being a form of communication and becomes a show of force. Loudness turns into a declaration of existence. It says, “I am here. You cannot silence me.” Technology inflates not only sound but also ego. To be heard is no longer a need; it is an act of domination. And now, it is not the sound that matters but the decibel. Noise replaces communication.
At this point, normative drift and technological determinism intertwine. The behavior forgets its cause, yet technology keeps it alive. Noise becomes both a social reflex and a technical destiny. Humans surrender to the rhythm of their own machines. The microphone, the amplifier, the speaker, these are no longer tools; they are the justification. People glorify not the voice but the system that makes it louder, because the system’s voice always wins.
Today in the streets, at metro exits, in small squares, the same scene repeats itself. Noise has ceased to be communication; it has become identity, a way of existing. Yet on that first day, the volume was raised only to overpower a truck. The truck is gone, but the noise remains. And we are still raising our voices against the ghost of that truck. We keep shouting not to be silenced, not to disappear. But perhaps the truth is the opposite. Real presence begins with the courage to stay silent. When a society sanctifies its noise, it loses its inner voice. And then even music becomes nothing but noise, until someone dares to remember the silence again.
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