Flash Mob (2003)

About

Flash mobs are a form of performance art in which a group of people are coordinated via some online communication medium, usually a blog, twitter, or mass text message, and arrange to meet at a central location, usually to the bewilderment of other bystanders. Though they can sometimes serve a political or commercial purpose, they are generally for the amusement of the participants and bystanders.

Flash mobs are an unusual meme in that the actual artifact is not on the internet, but actually takes place in real life. However, the coordination occurs on the internet, and many more people watch the performances online than in real life.

Examples

As flash mobs started before widespread streaming video on the internet, most of the early flash mobs were only documented in photographs and on blogs.

One early example is outlined on CNN, in which over 300 people arrived at the same bookstore and began asking about nonexistent book titles.

A swedish flash mob is organized shortly after the death of Michael Jackson, performing his iconic dance from “Beat It”

Variations

Improv Everywhere

Improv Everywhere is a comedy group loosely affiliated with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, that uses a blog to arrange large-scale performances or “missions” intended to amuse the participants while baffling and ultimately entertaining bystanders.

In one prominent example they coordinated over 200 participants to go into Grand Central Station individually and at a freeze for a fixed amount of time all at the same cue.

In another event, they had 111 men walk into the Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store in New York and take off their shirts, mocking the store’s use of male nudity in their advertising and branding.

Pillow Fight

Pillow Fight flash mobs are also very common, in which participants are invited to bring their own pillows and engage in a pillow fight.

Critical Mass

Critical Mass is a bicycling held simultaneously in many major cities in which a large number of cyclists meet at a set location and time and travel as a group through city or town streets on bikes.

Break Out In Song

Break Out In Song is a group that coordinates amateur singers and dancers into large scale recreations of famous musical numbers at notable New York City landmarks. Here is an example in which hundreds of participants posing as tourists at the USS Intrepid suddenly break out into a rendition of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”, complete with a tap dancing sequence.

Corporate Subversion

Several PR firms have tried to use this meme to promote products or to gain internet buzz. Trident Unwrapped was an internet media campaign that arranged several choreographed group scenes in high profile landmarks.

A Belgian television station promoting a new reality tv series staged a large performance of “Do Re Mi” from “The Sound of Music” in the Antwerp train station.

Mainstream Media

Flash mobs have gained the attention of mainstream media sources too:
In the Weeds Season 5 premiere Nancy Botwin is hanging out at a food court when the crowd spontaneously breaks into dance. She asks a cellphone-video-capturing teenager what it’s all about and he says “because it’s cool”.

In Law & Order: SVU, flash mobs are a major plot device in the episode “Authority”. A clever suspect arranges a flash mob in the style of Improv Everywhere, in order to create a distraction during which he evades the police.

Dangers

Though most Flash Mobs are harmless and humorous, there are cases where flash mobs have turned violent.

For example, a March 1, 2010 Flash Mob in Berkeley, California degenerated into vandalism and became dangerous for participants and law enforcement officers.

For More Information

In addition to Improv Everywhere, Charlie Todd runs www.urbanprankster.com, and the Urban Prankster Network, a ning-based social-networking community based around finding other link-minded individuals in their local areas who would like to organize flash mobs and other participatory art projects.