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[bryant]

Tonight was the first Boston flash mob. (The mailing list isn’t hard to find, but I think I won’t link to it; email me if you want to know.) It went OK. I showed up and got instructions around 6:50, and hit the designated spot at the designated time. People were kind of quiet, as per instructions, but not really. Then someone hushed the crowd, and the crowd obeyed. Cool.

A minute passed.

I started whistling Happy Birthday, since we were all there to buy a card for Bill. People picked it up.

I made as if to sing a bit of Happy Birthday, but a woman caught my eye and shook her head. I stopped. We whistled a few more bars of the song.

She caught my eye again and mimed clapping. I nodded back at her. We got the applause started; the entire mob caught it.

We stopped, and the crowd dispersed.

Good mob. Needs more interesting things to do; this one was really a repeat of the rug mob from NYC without quite as much focus. But it’s a nice start.

Larry Niven, you were right.

Comments

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

Larry Niven? What was his take on all this?

[bryant]

He sort of predicted the flash mob as a consequence of teleportation, although he thought it would be people congregating in interesting areas from all over the world. But cheap mass communication seems to have served a similar purpose.

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

Coooooooooooool... :)

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Umm, woopie. Every flash mob I've heard about is the sort of narcisstic belly0-button gazing activity that makes me think the luddites are right.

You have really cool technology and the best thing folks can think of to do is be a bunch of uninspired gits?

Come on Bryant, you for one are mroe creative than that. Geesh, influence an election or something.

[bryant]

Part of the stated intent of the flash mobs is to create a sense of surprise and joy in the unaware onlookers. Is that a desirable purpose? I think so. Is it a purpose achieved? Not when the Boston mob is just a retread of something New York's already done. But I find the ideal worthy.

It fails when it is too well known. Flash fad. I suspect the tipping point passed about a week after the first one.

As they say: "Hiss, shout, kick my teeth in, so what? I shall still tell you that you are half-wits. In three months my friends and I will be selling you our pictures for a few francs."

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Than folks trying to do this sort of thing need to read a little more of the writings of the dada movement who did all this so much better 80 years ago.

Even the original flash mobs struck me as a waste of potential. There is no substance here. No true spontaneity to the observer's eye (of course I haven't been there so I'm relying on second hand reports to build my impressions).

[bryant]

I wouldn't disagree with the need to read up on dada.

I'm not sure that there's not a paradox inherent in the concept. The need to draw in a lot of people conflicts with the need to keep the details under wraps. Once People Magazine does a story on it (which will be next week, I understand), it's no longer mysterious.

Another effect of cheap communication. But you can't know until you try, so it's worth trying to see what happens. Failed experiments are still useful.

Regarding spontaneity, I think we had some in Boston. In the absence of specific instructions, I triggered the Happy Birthday whistle on the spur of the moment, and the crowd was willing to pick it up. Someone else (not an organizer) triggered the applause.

That was what was fun for me. The crowd knew it was supposed to do something, but didn't know what. Supersaturated solution. It was clear from moment one that the surprise and delight aspect wasn't going to be so strong. But it was interesting getting the crowd to come together on something that wasn't preplanned.

In the more general sense, I think it's healthy for the media to be reminded that sometimes fads grow and fade without their help. The phenomenon indicates that the media isn't the only vector of information anymore.

[lucky-otter.livejournal.com]

The whistling and applauding was definitely my favorite bit. It was also interesting to watch people adjust their actions according to what they felt "should be" happening. The two phenomena have the same feel to them, but I can't think of the right word to describe it.