Flashmobbing - The Successor to Streaking?
Flashmobbing is a craze which appeared as quickly as streaking did in
the 70s. It involves a stunt, co-ordinated by mobile phone or email, in which large
groups of people turn up in a specified place at a specified time, and do
strange things. Sometimes it involves nudity, other times it doesn't. Apparently
the fad started in New York.
Flashmobbing could be called a successor to streaking, in that it is quite
similar in purpose, popularity and attitude. Streaking as a fad spread extremely
rapidly across the universities of the US, and then around the world. It wasn't
long before large numbers of students were organising mass streaks, or novelty
streaks such as the parachuting streakers. The purpose was pretty much the same
as flashmobbers - to have fun and to surprise, perplex or shock people. It
embodied an attitude of freedom and foolishness, combined with a feeling of
thumbing one's nose at society. Flashmobbing's cheerful weirdness seems to fit
that profile quite well.
As the Sydmob site says "The act itself is one of total silliness,
stupidity, or just plain weird! This is what attracts the majority of people to
taking part in a flashmob, the fact that you have the chance to carry out
something in front of total strangers which you wouldn't normally do. It's the
chance to take a step out of our normally mundane lives and once again bring
back that childlike playfulness that modern society has managed to nearly crush
with all its boring rules and regulations."
Again, this seems very similar to some of the motivations behind streaking.
Here's a few of the incidents
reported in the news.
Flashmobbing
hits New Zealand
200 people piled into Burger King in Auckland and mooed like cows at lunchtime.
Unfortunately the restaurant put on extra food to meet the sudden demand, but
no-one stayed to eat anything, and all those burgers were thrown away.
Sydney Morning Herald, 3 Sept 2003
Flashmobbing
in Australia
Flinders Street Station in Melbourne was the scene for Australia's first
flashmob. About 100 people, all wearing a yellow glove, pointed skywards.
- Melbourne Indymedia Site, 21 August 2003
SMH has a movie of the incident
via this link
First
Flashmob in the UK
250 people turned up at furniture store Sofas UK in Central London and began
speaking English without the letter "o".
- The Guardian, 8 August 2003
Another
article on this incident
Read More
Newstrove - Listing of
Flashmobbing news stories
Great resource site, listing all flashmob incidents around the world.
Comment by Harold
Rheingold about Flashmobbing
"Of course, it's meaningless. Is it meaningful for a hundred thousand
people to pay to sit in a stadium and watch men in tight pants kick a ball
around a field?"
- TheFeature.com, 22 Sept 2003
Flashmobbing Sites
Flashmob.co.uk - has details about heaps of UK flashmobs, news and links to other
flashmobs around the world. A very useful resource if you're looking
into this phenomenon.
The Mob Project - US site
with lots of information.
London Mobs -
lots of links and instructions
SYDMOB - the Sydney
chapter. Has details of their latest mob events and plans for more
Smartmobs by
Howard Rheingold is an intelligent blog site discussing how
technology can co-ordinate groups of people. Has info on
flashmobbing.
Flashmobbing
Info - Dutch and English site
The Antimob Project is trying to get people to bog off from a place at a specific
time... funny