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Flash Mobs: Peaceable Assembly for Spontaneous Fun
Schmendr1ck writes "The Orlando Sentinel is carrying a story on the growing trend of 'creating a crowd on a moment's notice for no particular reason' knows as a flash mob. Recent flash mobs (sometimes hundreds of people) have wandered into into an upscale NYC shoe store acting like confused tourists from Maryland, gathered at the Hyatt near Grand Central Station for 15 seconds of spontaneous applause, and converged on the Macy's carpet department to debate the quality of the rugs for sale. Check
cheesebikini? for pictures and info on past mobs, as well as links to sites that organize these events. Sounds like a fun, harmless, and Constitutionally-protected way of blowing off a little steam."
Just wait until someone high up views this as a threat and that Constitution guarantee gets brushed aside as something from a "different era" like concerns about quartering soldiers.
Sounds like a bunch of hippies!
Let's spontaneously "get together," if you know what I mean. It'll be fun!
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Why? What's the point?
Can't they program the mob in proper W3 approved HTML instead of Flash? Until they do this, I won't want to join, even if it's a CowboyNeal fan mob.
However in places like columbus ohio, as far as i'm aware, it's illegal to gather more than 6 people in public places with out a permit from the city. So i guess it's protected so long as you jump through the proper hoops. Sort of cuts down on the spontinaity thing. (although, i don't think i've ever heard of such a regulation being enforced)
There are lives at stake here!
... a lot of these people, especially the ones organizing on the web, are recently laid off techies, with copious amounts of free time on their hands.
People SPAM.
Maybe they could further exploit this phenomenon by incorporating Stuart Tunic's (sp?) work?
Flash mob flashing people....you know...whole shit like that
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
And it's probably all a crafty plan to meet chix0rs.
The cake is a pie
...but people who think assembly is fun are just weird.
In the old days. This was our best approximation. Back when I was a kid we'd get one or two people on side of the road, and each "team" would pull on an invisible (virtual/imaginary) rope across the road. Most cars would slow down or stop thining there really must be a rope there, they just couldn't see it. Then we'd just walk away.
I guess we should have tried recruiting other mine-wannabes.
If I'm wrong, I stand corrected (in advance.)
flash mob, meet slashdot. ooo look! i see your server already knows us. don't worry, we'll be gone in 15 minutes.
but it looks like the site has been. . .umm. . .flashmobbed.
I want the fire back.
Anyone else think of Larry Niven when they read this? Thank goodness quantum teleportation won't work on people... yet. (see http://www.wordspy.com/words/flashcrowd.asp if you don't know what I mean.)
An old idea.
The new twist seems to be that no one is getting killed.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I was a part of one of these, and let me tell you it was a riot. One of the rules was you couldn't initiate conversation with anyone and that answers to questions were scripted. We stayed together for 5 minutes and dispersed, no one having said a word. It was surreal but wonderful, especially the looks on the normal people's faces, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.
Triv
This looks a lot like some of the behavior engaged in the past (and present) by the the San Francisco Cacophony Society http://sf.cacophony.org/
The increasing capacity for spontaneous social expression via the network is going to get a boost, now that *everyone* who is within proximity of a prank has a chance to participate.
Yet another example of new social behaviors that emerge spontaneously at the 'edge' of the network.
It's be interesting to see what new kinds of mass social behavior develop, and which ones manage to survive, and become institutionalized.
As long as no one gets hurt, we could use a little levity.
As stated on the SF Cacophony site: "The Cacophony Society is a randomly gathered network of individuals united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society through subversion, pranks, art, fringe explorations and meaningless madness. "
Here's an excerpt about one past activity:
Mad Santa Crawl:
"each year at christmastime a crowd of santas descends upon one of san francisco's most-touristed neighborhoods to get drunk, to hand out disturbing gifts, and to frighten tourists.
on december 16, 2000 a santa faction drove to a ranch in petaluma, spent the afternoon discharging firearms, then joined the rest of the santas for the evening's festivities in san francisco. about 150 santas took over grant street in chinatown, and they eventually headed up into north beach."
cheesebikini?
July 24, 2003
Flash Mob in Central Park
Fred Hoysted was first to chime in with a report and a photo from the Fifth New York Flash Mob. SatansLaundromat.com was quick on Fred's heels with a report and a nice group of photos, including a larger version of the cropped shot to the right.
They seem to have carried out a fantastic, bizarre idea: make a bunch of increasingly surreal "nature sounds" in Central Park.
Did anyone make an audio recording? Please let me know if you did.
Filed under flash mobs at 05:12 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (2) | Permalink
Europe's First Flash Mob
A flash mob went down today in Rome, as an estimated 100 to 300 people flooded a books and music megastore. They asked employees for nonexistent books. They broke into a round of spontaneous applause. Then they dispersed.
Here's coverage in Italian from the newspaper la Repubblica, and here's a clumsy English translation. The photo, courtesy of la Repubblica, shows mobbers evacuating the megastore.
In the comments attached to this posting, you'll find a report from our Senior Rome Correspondent "JJFlash."
If you have more photos, please send them (or links to them) to photos[at]cheesebikini.com. More to come.
Filed under flash mobs at 03:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) | Permalink
July 23, 2003
Flash Mob News from Minnesota, Texas, Austria
Minneapolis organizers put together an event (or rather, a series of events staged in different locations) at a huge shopping mall. Participant turnout was estimated at 50, but perhaps reduced secrecy about the next Minneapolis event will spur a larger crowd?
New flash mobs are brewing in Vienna, Austria and in Dallas. (Here's an English version of the Austrian flash mob page, as automatically translated by babelfish.altavista.com.
Flash mobs are a widespread phenomenon now with lots of people around the world taking part, so from now on when I mention flash mobs I'm going to focus on the most compelling flash mob coverage and opinion. For more exhaustive listings of the numerous local flash mob announcements, groups, sites and press coverage, check out flashmob.info, where anyone can sign up for an account and submit mob news or a link to a new mob group, or mob(b)log, whose creator "Alex" is doing a good job of listing media coverage but strangely fails to provide any way to reach him or to comment on his postings. In the meantime, Rob Zazueta is designing a site to make it easier for people to organize what he calls "flocks;" it's not done yet but you can keep track of it at flocksmart.com. Thanks for the resources, people!
(By the way; have you seen The Word Spy's entry for the term "flash mob?")
Filed under flash mobs at 05:18 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) | Permalink
July 19, 2003
The First Italian Flash Mob
Londoners have been talking about organizing a flash mob for weeks and weeks. Now, with minimal talk, it seems the Romans will beat the Brits to the punch and create Europe's first flash mob.
Our Senior Rome Correspondent "J. Jack Flash" reports that a flash mob has been planned in Rome next Thursday, July 24. Here's the invitation: in Italian and in English.
In other news: Flash mobs are arising in Boston and in Phoenix, Arizona.
Filed under flash mobs at 10:15 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack (0) | Permalink
July 18, 2003
Invitation: Manhattan Flash Mob #5
Below is the invitation to the fifth New York flash mob as it was e-mailed to me. It's scheduled to take place next Thursday evening, July 24th.
(If you're wondering what a flash mob is, see this entry for an explanation.)
more...
Filed under flash mobs at 12:14 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (1) | Permalink
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
BYOB!
http://flashmob.fantasmaformaggino.it/
It's in Italian.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
It makes me wonder if we are on the verge of creating a trans-human intelligence capable of consciousness. Too bad we don't have any formal idea of what intelligence and conciousness is, or we could analyze the situation more closely...
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Seems like a real life representation of a slashdotting.
Does the first one there yell 'FP!' ?
They don't waste their time posting on /.
Tin Foil Hat
This would be for these types of stories that get the paranoid wackos to remind us of how our rights are gone, the government is after us, etc.
Or at least store these on tfh.slashdot.org
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
All over the world, there's been a movement called Critical Mass that gets folks together to take over the streets on bike rides on a semi-regular basis. Here in Chicago, it's been really successful -- hundreds go on the main ride every month, even in the dead of winter. In the summer months, there have been around a thousand riders. Critical Mass is a sort of anarchic protest against the domination of our streets by cars but without a specific, directed agenda. The idea is that having fun and taking over streets, no matter what one's political orientation is, is a good way to make a statement. What's interesting is that now that almost everybody has some direct connection to the Net, Critical Mass rides are getting organized overnight. When the war in Iraq broke out, the next day a group of Critical Massers against the war (not all CM folks are) organized a very effective ride within a half a day and people have been now talking about organizing within a few hours. I have to wonder about flash crowds becoming flash protests or flash rides and what the potential benefits and problems of this will be. Speaking of which, this effect also happened in the South Korean election recently in a close race.
Online citizen journalism from the inner city: The View From The Ground
Why? What's the point?
Because it's there. Jeez, pay attention!
Please help metamoderate.
Electronic sheep?
[o]_O
This country is totally going down the crapper, when there's all this ridiculous, unfair, unjust stuff going on and people are organizing these pointless stand ins.
Think of it as a testing ground for more smart spontaneous protests.
Will anyone organise a flash mob to boo an RIAA lawyer?
I'll have pictures up shortly.
Moderators, how is this insightful?
First, these do not appear to be protests, so it's comparing apples to oranges.
Second, if you follow this logic, then you might as well stop going to bars, movies, singing, playing music, watching screensavers, and other "fruitless" endeavors until you've solved the world's problems.
This poster probably also derides liquid nitrogen cooled pentiums and potato guns and every other "worthless" geek project posted to slashdot.
I think you need to realize that there really IS no point.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
If you're ever at a concert or any event like that, get like ten people you know to start doing something that makes noise (applauding, chanting something, whatever). It will spread infectiously in a matter of seconds. This works in just general crowds sometimes too but at a concert or similar event it's almost ensured.
I know this because I discovered it by accident once. For no particular reason I began clapping abnormally loud and in a pattern, long after people had stopped applauding. A group of my friends joined in as a joke and within say 20 seconds the whole room of people was clapping along. We tested this a couple other places as well.
In retaliation, several flash mobs will coverge on the Slashdot offices. (They have offices right?)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
BYOB! Is that Bring Your Own Bash_shell, or Bring Your Own Bandwidth?
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
They're having fun. They'll laugh a lot the rest of the day. They'll tell a whole lot of people about it. That's not doing nothing. Works for me.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
Read Distraction.
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
Rememeber youre in slashdot. This is where people built beowulf PDAs and emulated a PC in a PC which ran an emulator which ran a PC. Its all because we can, and just because. Its that feeling of control over things and exercising it with no purpose which makes it all interesting and geeklike. Protesting something is just too usual.
Also note people would have different agendas.. geeks with differing nationalities etc, but a flash crowd gathers these various people with absolutely nothing in common except for the unreasonable excitement about creating a flash crowd. Try it. Youll never go back to protesting.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."
--Famous misquote of Emma Goldman
Sometimes, people just want to have fun. Fear not; some people have already figured out that organized coincidences can be effective protests. See: Critical Mass bike rides. More will figure this out over time. Right now, just enjoy it!
Side note: The story behind the quote is here.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
1. Fill out a 'right to peaceably assemble' permit, specifying the date, time, number of people expected, and reason for assembling. 2. Request where you'd like to peaceably assemble, keeping in mind that your local goverment may move you on a whim (Democratic National Convention, 2000). 3. Bribe 50 or so local officers so that you are not arrested for 'obstructing a sidewalk' (a la the protesters in NYC against the War in Iraq). 4. Finally, do not allow anyone to shout during said demonstration, otherwise police in riot gear that were 'hanging around' may find a reason to bust up your assembly.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
My view of life is not fatalistic. I still believe that individuals have the potential to excel and find peace, but the world as a whole will always be screwed up, simply because of probability. There will always be screwed up people in the world doing screwed up things.
You're view is fatalistic. There is no way out with your mindset.
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
If you want to see something interesting...
I have scanned through the responses to this subject here on slashdot, and while there are some that have been very negative, the overall vibe I get is positive. (or nuetral)
Now, go over to FARK.com, and read through the comments that were posted after the article went up yesterday. A vast majority of them are negative, and not just negative in the "bah Im smarter than everyone else" mindset that most of the FARK message boards are built upon, but rather an honest to god "I am offended at how stupid people are that would do this sort of thing" kind of way.
Not sure if its all that important or even on-topic but an interesting contrast of the two communities.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
I'm all for it, but what happens if a group gets out of hand and starts thrasing property, wether it be in a store, or some public place.
I guess I wouldn't want it to get out of hand, and maybe have something like that happen. Especially since there will be all kinds of people that know about it now (well, more than before anyhow), so you'll always attract a certain bad subset. Like slashdot in trolls, it's unavoidable.
GeekWares - Buy and Download Today!
From article: Getting groups together is easier these days thanks to e-mail, Savage says, but that's only the start. Imagine how simple it will be to assemble a flash mob, he says, when cell phones and handheld computers are equipped with "location aware" technology that will emit a "ping" at the right moment and tell potential mobbers exactly where to go.
Just replace "potential mobbers" with "police." 'nuff said. Not in my cell phone!
But on topic, what these people are doing is seriously funny. If I lived in a major city that was doing those things it seems like it would be a great thing to do to ward off boredom and seriousness. Normally, I'm the kind of person who's paranoid about the cameras, under the fear that I'll do something that "looks" suspicious in my every day activities, and be questioned for no reason because of it. This seems like a good way to confuse the heck out of normal people, with pure surreal action.
In a way, it reminds me of something we used to organize way back in school. Anyone else have a tradition where a large group of classmates would pick a keyphrase to wait for a lecturer to say, and then upon that word, everybody shifts weight, turns a page, or something of the like? Less organized than these 'mobs' but still a lot of fun, as immature as we were. I mean, are. Yeah...
Mad Santa Crawl: "each year at christmastime a crowd of santas descends upon one of san francisco's most-touristed neighborhoods to get drunk, to hand out disturbing gifts, and to frighten tourists.
You want to really freak people, dress like Santa's in July and sing carols. I had a college friend who used to get drunk on a hot May night and wonder around singing xmas carols. It was a hoot.
Table-ized A.I.
Feel sorry for us UK residence it is now law that a gathering of over 7 people in a public place can be classed as a riot is it doesn't dispures when asked.
That is just having a group larger than 7 people (unless obvoiusly you have a permit to hold a public demonstration).
Yay to no constitution and the criminal justice bill in Britian.
Paul Gogarty
So this is basically a bunch of people going and doing a real-life meat-space slashdotting of public places?
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
In the science fiction book "WASP" by Eric Frank Russell he quotes an early example of this when one person stared at the sky intently, muttering about flames - pretty soon there was a small crowd and in the end the air-force was sent up to investigate. I can't recall where it happened (in eastern Europe, I believe). The book is highly recommended (albeit slightly dated now as it was written in the days of the height of the cold war and the obvious parallels are less relevant now)
Just another example of Matt Groening's (obligatory Simpson's reference) life view that individuals are clever, crowds are stupid
This was probably very sad but nonetheless.
When my friends and I were teenagers and used to find ourselves wandering the streets at 3AM in the morning ( usually ending up at all night petrol stations ) we devised what we like to think of as street theatre.
Usually the area of town we hung around in was as quiet as a grave and you'd hardly ever see anyone else at that time in the morning. When there was a fair sized crowd of us ( 8+ ) we would all position ourselves on various sides of the street near a set of traffic lights.
As a car approached somone would press the lights to get the car to stop and everyone would by then be walking up to and over the traffic lights like we were all unknown to each other and just happened to all turn up at this particular set of traffic lights at the same time and carry on off in different directions.
I always found it very amusing and luckily so the Police when we had mistaken them for a normal car and carried out this trick on two different traffic lights on the same set of road. We stopped them at both lights but the driver was seen to clap his hands in slow applause at the second.
There were easily half a dozen people with cameras who were holding their cameras up and taking snapshots. WhatI found strange is that they didn't seem to really be focusing their cameras on anything in particular.
I thought for sure that there must have been some famous person shopping at the store, but that doesn't usually cause such a strange buzz in NYC (unless you are in Times Square with the tourists).
The first I have heard about flash mobs is through this story on slashdot. And as soon as I read the story, I knew that is what I had seen. When you don't know about flash mobs, the whole thing kind of leaves you a little bit bewildered, yet it absolutely gets your attention.
Those who trade freedom for security will lose both, and deserve neither" -- Ben Franklin
I say we get a group to go stand at the north-side fence (by Lafayette Park) of the White House and give a resounding "Boo!" for about 60 seconds while giving thumbs down (no obscene gestures), then just leaving. Absolutely peaceful, no signs, just a really vocal show of disapproval. Saturday, July 26, at 1800EST.
Join Tor today!
How about meta flash-mobbing? As in you have a flash mob group who watches a different flash mob site to figure out what they're up to, get there at the same time, and do something else, possibly related in some way to the "official" behavior.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
This story on flash mobs reminds me of Santarchy.
Flash mobs, meet lots of Santas informally gathering at the same place and time.
www.santarchy.com
The title of the story had me confused. At first, before reading the article, I thought the story pertained to mobs getting together to see people flash themselves. Shucks, I was wrong.
Linux at home
Just ask them what they earn. When they refuse to tell you ask them why they want to keep it secret have they done soemthing wrong?