[mobglob-discuss] New street theatre phenomena gaining popularity

[Graeme Bacque]

http://www.iht.com/articles/105170.html

Flash mobs: summer silliness spread worldwide
Otto Pohl/NYT The New York Times

BERLIN  All at once at 6:01 on Friday evening, about 40 people in the middle
of a crowded street pulled out their phones and started shouting "yes, yes!"
Then they began clapping.

Margarethe Mueller, emerging from a nearby department store, sensed that
something was happening. She just wasn't sure what.

"Someone told me Jan Ullrich is here," the 66-year-old retiree said,
straining to see if the Tour de France runner-up was on the scene. She
spotted a man on a bicycle, decked out in the spandex peacock garb of
serious cyclists, his cellphone in hand, and holding forth into a television
camera.

"That's not Jan Ullrich," she said, disappointed. "Can you please tell me
what is going on?"

Many people were asking the same question. The telephone-wielding crowd was
the latest incarnation of something called flash mobs. Called into being on
short notice by Web sites and e-mail distribution lists, flash mobs meet at
an appointed time, engage in some organized spontaneity for a few minutes,
then rapidly disperse. The activities are innocent, if mysterious, and tend
to bring together loose groupings of surprisingly conventional-looking young
adults.

Brimming with such a lack of purpose, the fad has found a home in Berlin and
across Germany. On Monday, at 5:05 p.m., mobbers have been called to gather
at the washing machine display in a department store in Dortmund, eat a
banana, and leave. But events have also been organized in Rome, Vienna and
Zurich. Australia is planning one.

As might be suspected, New York is the acknowledged place where people first
used the latest technology to gather and delight in pointlessness. In June,
more than 100 people gathered in the rug department of Macy's, claiming to a
bewildered clerk that they were looking for a "love rug" for their suburban
commune. The concept quickly took on a life of its own, propelled by e-mail,
cellphones and the Internet.

Typically, instructions include somewhat awkward reminders to avoid the
press even while spreading the word, and to stay within the law.

At Friday's nonprotest, a contingent of 11 policemen stood by, unsure what
to do. "We are here to look for people breaking rules or criminal acts,"
explained Uwe Stellmacher, a policeman who clearly wasn't sure if he had
witnessed either.

He admitted to feeling fairly superfluous.

"If someone had stepped out on the street or something, we could have done
something," he added.

The idea of using the Internet and mobile phones to quickly organize groups
is not new. But until recently, it has been used for greater goals, or at
least more practical ones. In Seattle, protesters used the Internet and
cellphone messaging to help organize anti-globalization protests. In
Britain, teenage girls alert each other to Prince William sightings.

The lack of apparent purpose only broadens the appeal of flash mobs.

Still, woven amongst the cheerful inanity of like-minded Web sites like
cheesebikini.com and flashmob.info is some discussion of their importance.

Howard Rheingold, who has published a book entitled "Smart Mobs: The Next
Social Revolution," thinks flash mobs are part of a larger trend. "Right
now, it's just people wanting to do something silly and it's not hurting
anybody, so what's the harm?" he says on smartmobs.com, a Web site that is
dedicated to his book. "But it shouldn't come as a surprise when this
becomes a major outlet of political activism soon as well," he says, perhaps
hopefully.

Others only see proof of society's decay. "Do none of these people believe
in anything that might be worth gathering for?" someone using the moniker
YllabianBitPipe asked on slashdot.org.

On Saturday, a flash mob collected near the American Embassy in Berlin, and
far from deriding Iraqi policies or some other momentous topic, they wore
silly hats, waved flags and popped champagne. "Here's to Natasha!" they
toasted, before vanishing.

Tobias von Schoenebeck, a tour guide, shook his head when he heard about how
the phenomenon was traced back to Macy's. "This is just the sort of thing
that happens when you forbid New York to smoke."

The New York Times