Flash mob

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Flash mobs, like this pillow fight flash mob in downtown Toronto, are designed to surprise passers-by.
Flash mobs, like this pillow fight flash mob in downtown Toronto, are designed to surprise passers-by.

A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse.

Contents

[edit] Origins

[edit] The first flash mob

The first flash mob was organized in Manhattan in May 2003, by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper's Magazine. The origins of the flash mobs were unknown until Wasik published an article about his creation in the March 2006 edition of Harper's. The first attempt was unsuccessful after the targeted retail store was tipped off about the plan for people to gather.[1] Wasik avoided such problems during the second flash mob, which occurred in June 3, 2003 at Macy's department store, by sending participants to preliminary staging areas—in four prearranged Manhattan bars—where they received further instructions about the ultimate event and location just before the event began.[2]

More than one hundred people converged upon the ninth floor rug department of the store, gathering around an 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.

Subsequently, 200 people flooded the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel in synchronized applause for about fifteen seconds, and a shoe boutique in SoHo was invaded by participants pretending to be tourists on a bus trip.

Wasik claimed that he created flash mobs as a social experiment designed to poke fun at hipsters and to highlight the cultural atmosphere of conformity and of wanting to be an insider or part of "the next big thing."

[edit] Precursors

Flash mobs began as a form of performance art. While they started as an apolitical act, flash mobs may share superficial similarities to political demonstrations. Flash mobs can be seen as a specialized form of smart mob, which is a term and concept forwarded by author Howard Rheingold in his 2002 book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution.

[edit] Literary precedents

In 1973, the story Flash Crowd by Larry Niven described a concept vaguely similar to flash mobs. It described how, with the invention of popular teleportation, an argument at a shopping mall, which happened to be covered by a news crew, swells into a riot. In the story, broadcast coverage attracted the attention of other people, who use the widely available technology of the teleportation booth to swarm first that event — thus intensifying the riot — and then other events as they happened. In Niven's story, when a riot begins and is televised, others join in, resulting in the participation of millions of people. Commenting on the social impact of such mobs, one character -- articulating the police view, says, "We call them flash crowds, and we watch for them."

The 1998 novel Distraction by Bruce Sterling features a riot by a flash mob in its opening pages, although the term is not used, and the flash mob riot is only a very peripheral element of the plot.

[edit] Use of the term

The first recorded use of the term flash mob was in 2003 in a blog entry posted in the aftermath of Wasik's event.[2][3][4] The term was inspired by the earlier term smart mob.[3]

Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English defines flash mob as “a group of people who organize on the Internet and then quickly assemble in a public place, do something bizarre, and disperse.”[5] This definition is consistent with the original use of the term; however, both news media and promoters have subsequently used the term to refer to any form of smart mob, including political protests;[6] a collaborative Internet denial of service attack;[7] a collaborative supercomputing demonstration;[8] and promotional appearances by a pop musician.[9] The press has also used the term flash mob to refer a practice being used in China where groups of shoppers arrange online to meet at a store at the same time in order to drive a collective bargain with the store owner.[10]

[edit] 1800s usage

In 1800s Tasmania, the term flash mob was used to describe a subculture consisting of female prisoners, based on the term flash language for the jargon that these women used. The 1800s Australian term flash mob referred to a segment of society, not an event, and showed no other similarities to the modern term flash mob or the events it describes.[11]

[edit] Notable flash mobs

[edit] Worldwide Pillow Fight Day

The 'Worldwide Pillow Fight Day' or 'International Pillow Fight Day' was a pillow fight flash mob that took place on March 22, 2008. Over 25 cities around the globe participated in the first 'international flash mob' and the 'world's largest flash mob' to date.[12] According to the Wall Street Journal, over 5,000 participants partook in New York City alone, overtaking London's Silent Disco record for the largest flash mob gathering in 2006.[13] Word spread via social networking sites including Facebook, Myspace, Wikipedia, private blogs, public forums, and personal websites. New York based public party planners, Newmindspace created a website where planners could post links to their local website. Among some of the participating cities were: Boston. Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, New York City, Paris, Pécs, Shanghai, San Francisco, Stockholm, Sydney, Vancouver, Washington, DC, Beirut and Zurich.[14]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Goldstein, Lauren (2003-08-10). "The Mob Rules". Time Europe (18 April 2003 issue) 162 (7). ISSN 0040-781X. OCLC 1767509. 
  2. ^ a b Wasik, Bill (March 2006). "My Crowd, or, Phase 5: A report from the inventor of the flash mob" (Subscription). Harper's Magazine: pp. 56–66. ISSN 0017-789X. OCLC 4532730. 
  3. ^ a b McFedries, Paul (2003-07-14). flash mob. WordSpy.com. Logophilia Limited. Retrieved on 2006-03-14.
  4. ^ Savage, Sean (2003-06-16). Flash Mobs Take Manhattan. cheesebikini. Retrieved on 2007-03-14.
  5. ^ "flash mob". Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6). Retrieved on 2007-04-27. 
  6. ^ "Putin protest by flash mob", BBC News, 2004-02-28. Retrieved on 2007-05-03. 
  7. ^ Musil, Steven. "This week in Web threats: The Internet is always good for a little fear and loathing", CNET News, CNET, 2005-02-11. Retrieved on 2007-05-03. 
  8. ^ Biever, Celeste. "A Flash mob to attempt supercomputing feat", New Scientist, 2004-03-29. ISSN 0262-4079 OCLC 2378350. Retrieved on 2007-05-03. 
  9. ^ Gardner, Elysa. "Avril Lavigne, in the flesh, at 'flash mob' appearances", USA Today, 2004-02-27. Retrieved on 2007-05-03. 
  10. ^ China's new shopping craze: 'Team buying'. Christian Science Monitor (2007-12-05). Retrieved on 2008-02-12.
  11. ^ The Flash Mob. Cascades Female Factory Historic Site. Female Factory Historic Site Ltd.. Retrieved on 2007-10-23.
  12. ^ Fitzgerald, Sean D.. "International Pillow Fight Day: Let the feathers fly!", National Post, March 21, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-19. 
  13. ^ Athavaley, Anjali (April 15, 2008). Students Unleash A Pillow Fight On Manhattan. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 2008-05-19.
  14. ^ World Wide Pillow Fight Day. Newmindspace. Retrieved on 2008-05-19.

[edit] Links