Flash Mob

See also: Community | Freedom

  1. Verb – Organizing and spontaneously gathering in a public place, do something unique, non-sensical, or amusing, and then disperse. It is a harmless form of self-expression and, in contrast to an organized political protest, is a short and light-hearted celebration of freedom. Often, the general goal is to avoid a clear, overt purpose.
  2. Noun – The group performing a “Flash Mob”

For example, fifty people walking “randomly” through town might suddenly stand still and start singing a song, only to continue walking along “randomly” a minute or two later.

Contents

Smart Mob

“On thursday 2 September, Howard Rheingold gave an interview in Waag because of his released book ‘Smart Mobs’. In his book, Rheingold goes in depth on the social and cultural changes under influence of new technologies. He speaks about for example the fact that people are more and more experimenting to develop their own media. One of the new forms in which people independanly of time and place come together to organize collective actions are the so-called ‘Flash Mobs’. These are created from arbitrary compounded groups of people who via the internet and mobile phones make arrangements for ludic, insignificant actions. A video of the interview is online available:”

http://connectmedia.waag.org/media/030902reingold.mov

(translated from http://connect.waag.org)

Flash Actions

This is a proposal for a tactic called Flash Actions. It is all about using our advantages to the full and showing that mass, decentralized, anti-authoritarian organizing techniques can be more effective than the police command hierarchy. If used correctly it should avoid many of the disadvantages of pre-announced mass direct actions, but at the same time is more realistic than simple telling affinity groups to ‘plan autonomous actions’.

Flash Actions proposal: http://flashactions.freehomepage.com/

Discussion group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flashactions/

Anti Mob

“The Antimob Project is an alternative to the Mob Project. While the Mob Project seeks to materialize a mob of people at a place for a brief period of time, the Antimob Project seeks to create the opposite effect. In a given 10 minute period with the participation of everyone in the world, we will create a ghost town atmosphere in a famous public space. Our group will appeal to passive aggressives and give them an opportunity to express their hostility to the world in a safe and indirect way. If we can get everyone in the world to participate in our non events, we can produce some dramatic results. Think of Grand Central Terminal empty at 5 pm on a weekday.” Taken from the Antimob homepage.

Links

TakeDown.NET -> “Flash-Mob”