| Social activists have heralded the Internet as a powerful organizational tool for years. Inevitably, the strategies that lead to a resurgence in public protest are now being used to perpetuate mass silliness.
Flash mobs, or quick public gatherings of a mass of people organized by e-mail, wireless technology or the Internet (don't get too excited – the word "flash" is used to indicated spontaneity and speed, not nudity), have turned into the next blogs. That is, a quickly growing Internet trend that is about self-indulgence as much as anything.
Technically, flash mobs are a work of "performance art" organized by e-mail or the Internet that features a mass of people suddenly materializing in one public place, seemingly out of nowhere, and acting out some pre-ordained piece of theatre or silly instructions, then disappearing, to the delight, amusement or bemusement of everyone else (presumably, the mob gathers at a nearby pub and laughs about its adventure over beers).
Flash mobs are said to have started in New York in May, organized by someone known in public only as Bill. Bill's first flash mob, as he described it to Wired.com, including having a mass of people converge on a Macy's department store salesman at the same time, asking for something called a Love Rug. Bill got a little more secretive about his succeeding flash mobs, but that didn't stop the rest of the world from co-opting his idea.
In August, a flash mob hit a Toronto Toys R Us store, with participants jumping around like frogs before they disappeared. In Washington, a crowd crammed into a magazine store and, watches synchronized, started reading aloud simultaneously before high-fiving each other and leaving the store. There have even been rumours of flash mobs in Calgary. The idea has become global enough that there are now stories of fleet-footed cops cracking the skulls of flash mobbers for disturbing order.
The unofficial "historians" of flash mobs are a few self-described "average Joes" behind a Web site called Mob Project (www.mobproject.com). They are less mysterious than Bill, but do say they have been in touch with him.
Don't try to figure out flash mobs, Mob Project says, because there is nothing to figure out. It's just for fun – self-indulgent fun, perhaps, but worth a few laughs nonetheless.
Not to get too heady on something that is basically a well-organized prank, but flash mobs are more than just fun – they are an indicator of the ways technology is influencing the societal order. In his book Smart Mobs, author Howard Rheingold says technology is amplifying human co-operation in unheard of ways. Like flash mobs, for instance.
Rheinbold explains that wireless technology is creating new orders of society by removing people from physical locations and allowing them to co-operate in a virtual world. He says the implications of technology facilitating swarms of connected, mobile people have both positive and negative ramifications – wireless text messaging co-ordinated much of the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, and helped organize the massive crowds that toppled Filipino president Joseph Estrada in 2001, but it also allows British teenage girls to track Prince William's every movement and helps terrorists organize attacks.
The cultural implications of smart mobs notwithstanding, Rheingold makes the apt point that wireless technology allows for mass movements without need of a leader. It facilitates the execution of ideas without hierarchy and allows instant response to change without asking permission of anybody. He also worries that corporations are trying to mould the technology to remove such power from users – or, in other words, take away the power to create in favour of the simple power to consume. Rheingold argues that such struggles are already being played out in the battles over Internet file-sharing and copy-protection.
Whether you think of Rheingold as a visionary or you brush off smart mobs as simple human socialization, his insights will at least give you a small measure of understanding if you ever find yourself inexplicably confronted by a public mob of buffoonery. |
Copyright ©2003 FFWD. All rights reserved.