I've often wondered about the psychology behind singing at football and if that's changed over the years. Every generation in this country seems to be more self-conscious than the last. In the generation before mine, you'd often see guys shirtless in summer, walking around, mowing the lawn, at gigs or whatever. I think you also saw a bigger variety of hair styles (long hair!) and fashion styles, and they had more confidence randomly talking to strangers (at my gym its always the older generation who start conversations).
Combine that with the change in supporter type during the 90s, i.e. young guys now going to games with their girlfriends or families, rather than their mates. And I think there's a psychological block for many young men now where they see singing positive songs about Rovers as being a bit embarrassing. So its always the ones with swearing or slagging off Burnley that get sung the loudest, and they all get sung too fast as though trying to get it over as quickly as possible (which is why a drum is so important).
And then as you say 1SG, many like to stand with the singers but spend their time moaning at the team, "looking hard" or abusing the away fans. Which is the last thing you want as it dilutes the singers. There's a lot of good singers in N01 (including my inspiration growing up, a lad in my school a few years up called Mark, who still leads it) but they're diluted by a lot of hangers on who don't contribute but want to stand there anyway. Guess that's what W01 has going for it at the moment.
Some good observations in there BAWH and I'd agree with all of that.
I'd also add that the problem in modern football stadiums - and certainly at Ewood - is not just whether people in the ground are comfortable singing but how they react to people near them that are. If I'm out in public, on a bus, walking through town etc, I'd never dream of balling at the top of my voice and swearing in front of women and children, but at the football, for me different rules apply. This is where the big divide between the singers/standers/swearers and the others exists and where we the singers start to get wrongly labelled as hooligans or idiots as I've been called a few times in my arguments at Ewood.
No doubt some of it is down to the snowflake generation, but it's also a result of modern stadia and the more fervent types not having a specific place - like the terraces - to congregate en mass. I remember many years ago sitting in the JW upper with my dad for one game because his ST mate couldn't go. My dad isn't a singist but has followed the Rovers all his life and his dad before him and was really responsible for me becoming a big Rovers fan by taking me to home and local away games when I was younger. After the Rovers had scored I had the temerity to stary standing for about 20 seconds and join in a song from the Blackburn End, the old bloke in front of us turned round and said "get back in't Blackburn End with tother hooligans"! My dad who despite not being a singer is far more aggressive than I am used the rest of that match to sing as loud as he could in ear of the fella and encouraged me to do the same.
Now I know for a fact that some reading the above story will side with the old fella, maybe more than will be on my side, but in one short anecdote I think it sums up the divide and why there's a problem getting an atmosphere going in the modern stadiums. As an aside, growing up my Dad never swore in front on his kids, never heard it once from recollection apart from when he took me to the Rovers and it certainly didn't suddenly turn me into a menace to society or a bad person, I grew up fine. These parents protecting their kids from swearing at the football should spend a day with them at school, they'd hear a lot worse.
The crux of it is this, people like me who grew up on the terraces still want to go the match and stand up, sing, swear call the ref a wanker etc and if we lose people like me, if the consensus is that there's no place for fans like me in modern stadiums then the game will be worse off for it, in truth it's already happening/happened and that's why there's so much discussion about the lack of atmosphere at the game today.
COYB