Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Global Chaos, Just for Fun

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Global Chaos, Just for Fun

    Global Chaos, Just for Fun

    terra lycos Network
    Wired News

    02:00 AM Jun. 17, 2004 PT

    It was a sultry evening early last summer when 200 or so New Yorkers
    marched into Macy's department store and loudly informed bewildered
    onlookers and one blasé sales clerk that they were looking for a
    "love rug" for their communal suburban house.

    That was the start of the Mob Project. And this Saturday,
    at approximately 2 p.m. local time, people in 76 cities in 32
    countries will participate in a global flash mob to celebrate the
    first anniversary of what is now a worldwide phenomenon.

    Since the first mob gathered in force last year on June 19 (there
    was a small mob event in Manhattan a few weeks earlier, but it was a
    failure due to police interference), flash mobs have been organized
    around the world. People are evidently quite taken by the idea of using
    e-mail, blogs and the Internet to gather together a group of people
    who suddenly materialize in public places, do something absolutely
    inane and then vanish.

    Some mobs have joined together to sing Christmas carols. Others have
    gathered to support then-Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean,
    to attempt to link their laptops to form a supercomputer, to taunt
    performance artist David Blaine when he was hanging in a box over
    the River Thames in London or to protest local politics.

    Mobs can do whatever they want; there is no mob boss, no Tony Soprano
    running things. But it is worth pointing out that flash mobs were
    supposed to be meaningless, silly, utterly pointless endeavors,
    according to "Bill," who conceived the whole Mob Project idea.

    "It's just a mob, for no reason. That's it, that's the whole point,"
    said Bill, when Manhattan's Mob Project ended Sept. 10, 2003.

    The current political unrest in many areas of the world sparks a
    desire to describe the global mob as a warm and fuzzy international
    gathering. But in a return to the random roots of the mob as Bill
    dreamed of it, organizers have firmly stated that the gathering will
    have absolutely no political or social significance.

    "The idea of the East greeting the West and the West greeting the East
    and everyone coming together has nothing to do with a real flash mob
    script. Mobs should be silly," said one of the event's main organizers,
    who in the spirit of Bill just goes by the name "Dave."

    Dave, who describes himself as "a 36-year-old communications technician
    from Moscow, who was born in Armenia, is Chinese by origin and has
    been living in New York and Chicago for the past three years," seems
    to be a perfect person to host a global event.

    The idea for the global mob was first posted May 21 on the Flash Mob
    Association website run by Dave and his collaborator, "Capricorn."
    Twenty-five people from six countries were soon involved in the
    planning.

    Mobs follow a script that lets participants, many of whom don't know
    each other, synchronize their actions. In Manhattan, the scripts,
    printed on slips of paper, were handed out to participants at
    designated meeting places immediately before the beginning of each
    event. Since then, many people have relied on e-mail or text messages
    sent to mobile phones to deliver the scripts.

    Participants in the global flash mob will receive their scripts
    by e-mail immediately prior to the event. To participate, a local
    organizer just needs to register. Once signed up, they will receive
    the e-mail containing the script and will also have access to private
    planning forums.

    Organizers said they worked hard to come up with a script that
    would work well for people in different locations. The various mobs
    are encouraged to follow the script as closely as possible, but the
    organizers also said that participants should feel free to alter the
    script to suit cultural differences if needed.

    "Planning this has been a lot of fun," said "Tempest," an organizer
    from Sydney, Australia. "The script is pretty cool, I think. It should
    confound a lot of people."

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Working...
X