— 2 September 2003
Flash-in-the-pan-Mobs?
The emergence of flash mobs has created quite a media stir over the past few months. Now that they have occurred in many of the world's major metropolitan areas, some reflection on the hyperbole is in order. Opinions about what flash mobs mean or might mean are as varied as the ideological axes each commentator has to grind. Some see it as performance art, symbolic disruption, general goofiness, social movement, biologistic metaphor, information decentralization, Situationist tool, to name a few. I have to say that I take exception to the notion that flash mobs mean anything more than what they are in the moment - a random game of duck, duck, goose, overwhelming retail environments, spectacle, and public displays of seemingly random behavior. Historically, the power of technology (when considered in apart from its social context) has been vastly overrated and astonishingly misinterpreted. I can already hear the far off din of frenzied theorizing shifting into overdrive as I write this. Objectively speaking, flash mobs are largely a middle class, cosmopolitan, technocratic conceit, leaving the majority of the planet's inhabitants far out of the loop. If the global lack of food and potable water got as much media coverage as flash mobs the world would be a far better place. Indeed, the backlash has already begun. One of my favorite screeds about the overwrought interpretations of flash mobs can be found here.
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