The Disc Jockey: Alternate Theories
November 6, 2006: 4:33 PM

(Blog Soundtrack: Louis Armstrong - A Kiss to Build a Dream On. Open it in a new tab/window and read along)

I have, in the past, had a tendency to describe the purpose of my job in terms of entertaining people. Now entering my fifth year of spinning music for parties and weddings on the weekend, it occurs to me that perhaps this little job of mine is quite a lot more meaningful, and for deeper reasons, than I had originally figured.



The purpose of the DJ is to stimulate population growth.
Not a lot of things facilitate sexual relations quite like a night on the town, or close quarters at a party with drinks and music playing. Dancing, to be sure, is a very special brand of public affection that often enough leads to the private sort afterwards.

That said, consider for a moment a few (blatantly unverified but hypothetically accurate) estimates.

The average wedding/party crowd that I have spun music for has consisted of approximately 300 people, and let's say that we exclude the children and dateless, we'll come to about 250 or so. So, 125 couples/party.

I DJ about 30 parties/year, and have been doing so over the course of four complete years now. Do the math, and we're at 120 parties, 30,000 sexable people, 15,000 couples.

Let's, for the hell of it, assume that, without the music/dancing, none of these people would be quite "in the mood", and would instead probably go to bed reading Maxim or something.

Let's say that 80% (12,000/4 yrs) of the attending couples dance and eventually go home and, ah, well, you know.

Let's, entirely unfoundedly, also say that 5% of all sexin' results in a kept pregnancy.

Do you know what that makes me, the DJ? That makes me the effective starting point of the lives of 600 babies. I'm a regular Mick Jagger or something.

The purpose of the DJ is to make the underlying order of the universe readily apparent.
It's hard to tell when the music isn't loud or central, but there's an underlying order to just about everything that becomes readily apparent every time the rhythm and beat pick up, and the melody kicks in.

People start walking in sync with the music. Handclapping, drink-clinking, toilet-flushing synchronicity abounds. The best man doesn't even realize that he's taking shots in time with the bass drum, and the maid of honor's tears fall one by one with every high-hat cymbal. The mother of the bride's vocal chords hit notes to coincide with the chord of the most recent chord.

Music brings about order. I swear by it.



The purpose of the DJ is to relieve the stress of economic instability.
The employment downturn of the last couple years can be easily relieved by voting in a different governor and hoping for the best, or it can be forgotten about as you slip into euphorics during some motown. A six-hour-fix to lose your worries makes for a pretty good saturday night, I'd say.

And besides, remember those 600 babies I've abstractly fathered, mentionned above? You can't tell me that there's no chance of any of them becoming famous economists.

It could happen.

Thanks for the comments: Tim, Terry, Montoya, Dimitry, Christelle, Rikkye, Andrew Faulkner, Beth, Steve, jp33, Chris, Jack, Mike, Sonora, diwiesign, Brad, Elme, keoshi, Jen, ReTodd, Gilk, DanL, marcelo, Mostafa Mourad, Michael, Kent, Bill.

« Previous Post | Next Post »