Many observers alluded to the importance of emotional and affective dynamics during the mass protests of “Tahrir” (2011) and “Taksim” (2013). Often, protester’s rhetoric directly evoked certain emotions such as tearing down the “Wall of Fear”, calling for a “Day of Rage”, or living the “Spirit of Gezi”. Anger, fear or joy are among the frequently mentioned emotions, which shaped these extraordinary moments. Still, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. Pearlman 2013, Schielke 2014, Gambetti 2014), there is not much systematic research available on the affective and emotional dynamics of the transformative experiences of the squares and beyond. The paper addresses this gap and develops a conceptual proposition of how to understand the emotional and affective dynamics of such extraordinary events. While critically engaging with social movement approaches towards emotions, I also look at the affective dimensions of politics and try to link these. Based on this conceptual literature, my own fieldwork in Cairo and first-hand accounts from both Egypt and Turkey, I start from the assumption that intense experiences of affective resonance (and dissonance) dubbed as “Gezi or Tahrir spirit” were at the heart of these protest events. I propose to understand them as „midan-moments“ or plaza-moments (Platzmomente, ‘square moments’). The paper then engages with this new heuristic device and sketches the affective and emotional dynamics of these moments. “Midan-moments”, the paper holds, encapsulate highly productive affective and emotional dynamics in that they help to overcome – at least momentarily – old and new social, economic, religious or ethnic cleavages. “Midan-moments” are moments of “emotional liberation” (Flam 2005) and they enabled participants to experience “affective solidarity” (Hemmings 2012). This turned e.g. “Tahrir” and “Taksim” at times into real-time political laboratories of emerging new political subjectivities, which are re-negotiated along the lines of existing gender-, class or ethno-religious orders. Thus, “midan-moments” also stimulated new political practices, which lived on well beyond the central squares and the peaks of mass mobilization such as the Gezi-Forums in Turkey or the popular committees in Egypt. Still, while these moments travel in time and space, I conclude, affective solidarity might turn into hateful polarization and the experience of emotional liberation is confronted with new waves of repression and violence.