Flash Mob
One of the reasons I love to read Wired Magazine is to keep up with the latest terms and technologies - and Wired is nothing if not trendy.
A regular feature in Wired is its "Wired, Tired, Expired" table, which shows which related concepts are hot, heating up, and cooling off. One of the terms used in a recent issue was "flash mob." Flash mob? Mobile flash? A group of Flash experts?
No, turns out its a crowd, enabled by today's instant communication devices, that gathers "spontaneously" in a public place to do something unusual for a brief period of time, then quickly disperse.
Of course, political organizers have recognized the benefit of "spontaneous" demonstrations for a long time. What differentiates (or not, depending on how you look at it) the flash mob from a political (or other type of) demonstration is its pointlessness.
Wikipedia complains that the news media has picked up the "meme" and, in predictable fashion, misapplied it, whether ignorantly or on purpose. The terms has been erroneously applied, says Wiki-p, to almost any form of "smart mob," (crowd of people informed and encouraged to behave a certain way behind the scenes), including:
* A "silent rave" at Victoria Station, London involving 4,000 participants
* Political protests
* A collaborative Internet denial of service attack
* A collaborative supercomputing demonstration
* Collaborative bargaining techniques being practiced in China
* Promotional appearances by a pop musician
The claim is that the first flash mob was organized by Harper's Magazine Bill Wasik, who "claimed that he created flash mobs as a social experiment designed to poke fun at hipsters, and highlight the cultural atmosphere of conformity and of wanting to be an insider or part of 'the next big thing.'" (Wikipedia)
Having never been invited to be part of a flash mob, I am confident that I am neither a hipster, nor a hipster wannabe. How about you?
One of the reasons I love to read Wired Magazine is to keep up with the latest terms and technologies - and Wired is nothing if not trendy.
A regular feature in Wired is its "Wired, Tired, Expired" table, which shows which related concepts are hot, heating up, and cooling off. One of the terms used in a recent issue was "flash mob." Flash mob? Mobile flash? A group of Flash experts?
No, turns out its a crowd, enabled by today's instant communication devices, that gathers "spontaneously" in a public place to do something unusual for a brief period of time, then quickly disperse.
Of course, political organizers have recognized the benefit of "spontaneous" demonstrations for a long time. What differentiates (or not, depending on how you look at it) the flash mob from a political (or other type of) demonstration is its pointlessness.
Wikipedia complains that the news media has picked up the "meme" and, in predictable fashion, misapplied it, whether ignorantly or on purpose. The terms has been erroneously applied, says Wiki-p, to almost any form of "smart mob," (crowd of people informed and encouraged to behave a certain way behind the scenes), including:
* A "silent rave" at Victoria Station, London involving 4,000 participants
* Political protests
* A collaborative Internet denial of service attack
* A collaborative supercomputing demonstration
* Collaborative bargaining techniques being practiced in China
* Promotional appearances by a pop musician
The claim is that the first flash mob was organized by Harper's Magazine Bill Wasik, who "claimed that he created flash mobs as a social experiment designed to poke fun at hipsters, and highlight the cultural atmosphere of conformity and of wanting to be an insider or part of 'the next big thing.'" (Wikipedia)
Having never been invited to be part of a flash mob, I am confident that I am neither a hipster, nor a hipster wannabe. How about you?
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