Last night a flash mob finally went down in London. It almost was a disaster because the owner of the targeted sofa store closed up early to hit the pub, but he headed back and opened up the doors to let the flash mob in. Thanks to nyclondon.com for the photo above; here are more photos.
Photos and accounts of last night’s New York flash mob have been posted at the usual places: moistandtasty.com, fredhoysted.com and satanslaundromat.com. Apparently the flash mob scheduled for last night in Toronto was cancelled due to “overwhelming media coverage and police presence.”
Last night’s New York and Toronto flash mobs both targeted outlets of the same giant multinational toy store chain. That’s an ugly coincidence.
Organizers: consider steering clear of the large corporate retail stores; these places get enough business as it is. Participants: remember that a corporation could easily create fake flash mobs designed to spur more business to its retail outlets. Don’t be a sheep! Consider the consequences before following any flash mob instructions. Avoid purchases during, after, or on the way to a flash mob.
Meanwhile in Germany, folks are still going absolutely nuts over flash mobs. Over at twoday.net there are flash mob groups assigned to dozens and dozens of German cities and towns, and people are joking about a fictional flash mob in Iraq.
Still, no mob organizers have taken this to the next level. The sarcastic creativity behind the Antimob Project might spark some ideas:
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… If we can get everyone in the world to participate in our non events, we can produce some dramatic results.
“Tom” seems more organized in his flash mob backlash; he wants to hack the events. Who knows what he’s cooking up at flashhack.blogspot.com, but it smells good from here.
The folks at flashmob.com are working to build what sounds like a group of open-source community-based Web tools designed to power evolving flash mobs. They’ve opened the flashmob-dev mailing list to serve as a discussion forum for people developing flash mob related applications.
Micah at why-war.com looks forward to using flash mobs for political purposes, and she has written up some thoughtful strategies for doing so.
San Franciscans: remember the next local flash mob is scheduled to take place tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon. Details here. Let’s hope the organizers have put together something new.
