Flash mob |
A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual or notable, and then disperse. They are usually organized with the help of the Internet or other digital communications networks.
=Origins=
The first flash mob was organized in Manhattan in May 2003, by an underground group called the Mob Project . The first attempt was unsuccessful after the targeted retail store was tipped off about the plan for about fifty people to gather. The first successful flash mob assembled in June 3 2003 at Macy s department store. Organizers avoided such problems during the second flash mob by sending participants to preliminary staging areas—in four pre-arranged Manhattan bars—where they received further instructions about the ultimate event and location just before the event began.
More than 100 people converged upon the 9th floor rug department of Macy s, gathering around one particular very expensive rug. Anyone approached by a sales assistant was advised to say that the gatherers lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York, that they were shopping for a Love Rug, and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group. Following this flash mob, about 200 people flooded the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel in synchronized applause for about 15 seconds, and next a shoe boutique in Soho was invaded by participants pretending to be tourists on a bus trip.
For partial origin of the name, see also : .
=Usage and effects=
Flash mobs started as pointless stunts, but the concept has already developed for the benefit of Politics and Society. For example, a group of Homosexuality people in Detroit targeted a Heterosexuality restaurant in reaction to reported homophobia there. Flash mobbing utilises the efficiency of communicating information on websites and by email, and protestors can use the on and off concept to swarm political events just like that restaurant.
In December 2004, in Bucharest, Romania, in front of the National Television, around 70 people stuck duct tape on their mouths and mimed a jogging session. It was a flash-mob that most referred to as Shut Your Mouth And Play Those Ankles (an expression meaning do as you are told, do not comment ). The statement was targeted towards the low freedom of speech of the journalists in Televiziunea Română (Romanian National TV). This flash-mob (among other things) has caused changes in the board of the National Television.
It is also claimed that flash mob actions contributed to the defeat of Philippines president Joseph Estrada, when approximately a million people assembled through cell phone text messages gathered outside the presidential palace to demand the president to leave the place.
Flash mob gatherings can sometimes shock people. Such activity might seem amusing and surreal, but it also might frighten people who are not aware of what is taking place.
=Around the world=
Flash mob events quickly spread to Asia, and by August 2003 to Europe, Latin America and Australia. The first flash mob in India took place on October 4 2003 outside a shopping centre. A group of 70 people gathered, talking loudly about stock prices and then dancing for a few minutes. More flash mob events were planned for Mumbai, but the police there introduced strict security restrictions in response to bomb blasts that occurred around the time. Police permission would have needed to be sought before a gathering of more than five people could take place.
==Recent flash mobs in Britain==
In August 2003, a flash mob gathered at an Oxfam charity shop in Birmingham. The group stripped off their clothes and waved them above their heads while singing Give it Away by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and donated their clothes to the store. This event was described as being the world s first Altruism mob .
Earlier in the same month, a flash mob event took place at the London Eye In London, where an estimated one hundred people gathered and waved bananas clockwise in the air in order to celebrate the Millennium Wheel. These two events followed the first flash mob in England, which occurred at a Central London store and involved about 500 people speaking without use of the letter O .
On Monday 13 October 2003, a flash mob took place at the site of the David Blaine stunt beneath the Tower Bridge in London. This was the start of the final week of magician Blaine s stunt, which saw him encased in a Perspex box for 44 days without any food, and hundreds of participants met at the South Bank by the Tower Bridge at 19:44. For one minute, the flash mobbers set off their mobile phone ringtones at the loudest setting, and then for the next minute the group stopped their ringtones and chanted what goes up, must come down . The flash mobbers then created a cacophony of laughter while holding an item of food in the air, and then separated to bring the area back to its usual calm.
On 31 March 2005, about 80 to 100 people assembled outside the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland—without any visible signal (though at what must have been a pre-arranged time) most of them produced pillows or cushions, then enthusiastically and cheerfully thrashed each other for about 20 minutes before gradually dispersing.
==Canada==
Several Canadian flash mobs have taken the form of zombie mobs, in which people gather at a prearranged place in makeup and walk to a predetermined location in a zombie style, shuffling stiffly and moaning braaains at passers-by. The first was probably a small zombie flash mob which took place in Toronto s Queen West area on October 16, 2004. On July 3, 2005, several dozen self-described hipster zombies pretended to attack an unsuspecting medieval reenactment in Mount Royal Park in Montreal. In Vancouver, on August 27 2005, a group of 200 to 300 zombies assembled in front of the downtown Vancouver Art Gallery, circled the gallery, travelling through two protests, marched through the Pacific Centre mall, and took the SkyTrain (Vancouver) to a Main Street/Science World station. The zombies paused there briefly, before attacking a few busses, and then walking up main street 30 blocks to the cemetery. The walk down Main street was made quite a bit easier by a sponteneous police escort which shut down one lane of southbound traffic.
=Other forms of flash mob activity=
*Flash mob computing is a temporary supercomputer made when a large group of people get together and tie computers together for a single purpose or event.
=See also=
*Critical Mass *Direct action *Guerilla gig, live music gathering *Mobile clubbing *Pillow Fight Club *Nathan Barley
=External links=
*[http://www.weblog.ro/aglomerarispontane Aglomerǎri Spontane] A blog about the flashmob movement in Romania. Also contains a [http://www.weblog.ro/aglomerarispontane/2004-12-5.html Flashmob Manifesto] in English and Romanian. *[http://flashhack.blogspot.com/ Antimob.com] — A blog critical of flashmobs, now dead. *[http://www.brismob.com Brismob] — Flashmob from Brisbane, Australia (Brismob - Your space, our playground) *[http://www.cheesebikini.com/archives/cat_flash_mobs.html cheesebikini.com] — Site that was the first to cover flash mobs. The term flash mob describing these phenomena was first used here. *[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23200-2003Aug20.html A Fast-Moving Fad Comes Slowly to Washington ] *[http://www.flashmob.com/ flashmob.com] *[http://www.flashmob.co.uk/ flashmob.co.uk] *[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s913314.htm Flash mobs: a new social phenomenon ] *[http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.plFlashMob FlashMob]s, from MeatballWiki *[http://www.lewishenshall.co.uk/blog/blog_entry=3 Flash Mob entry on a blog] *[http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/24/flash-mobs-history.html The Short Life of Flash Mobs - in-depth interview with Bill, the founder of flash mobs] from Stay Free! magazine #24 *[http://flashmob.wiki.taoriver.net/ FlashMobWiki] — A wiki to globally coordinate flash mobs. *[http://www.folksamling.tk Folksamling] — Swedish site with mailing list for future Flashmobs. *[http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/37/features-bemis.php My Name is Bill : A Q&A with the anonymous founder of flash mobs] — Extensive, 5000-word interview by journalist Alec Hanley Bemis with the semi-anonymous founder of flash mobs. *[http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html Smart mobs: Website and Weblog] *[http://www.sydmob.com Sydmob] — A flash mob operating in Sydney Australia. *[http://www.TenThousandSmiles.com Ten Thousand Smiles] — a 30 s flash mob at exactly 1:24 PM in the middle of Purdue University s Memorial Mall where students (at the notice of a whistle) spread their arms like wings and flew around with airplane noises. *[http://www.xflashmobs.com xflashmobs.com] Flash mob creation site.|
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