Consider amid literary or even archaic. It does little that among or in can’t do better. Already in the 1960s, Henry Fowler considered among better than amid, yet Bryan A. Garner still considers amid better than among when dealing with mass nouns. His example reads, “one is among friends but amid a crowd.” I suggest to follow Fowler’s example: while one is among (or with, though the connotation shifts slightly) friends, one tends far more frequently to be in a crowd.