[wordup] Rushkoff on Flash Mobs

[Adam Shand]

From: http://www.rushkoff.com/2003_08_01_archive.php#106172846830920655

Flash in the Pan

Okay okay. I've gotten more email than I want to count asking me about 
Flash Mobs. From the perspective of a guy who used to be considered a 
cyberpundit (an oxymoronic phrase, as I see it, since this is a medium 
that undoes artificial expertise), this is like the old days: a 
phenomenon happens that seems inexplicable, or at least worthy of some 
ink, and then everyone and his sister (or eveyone and her brother) 
wants to write about it, or produce a segment about it.

So, either Flash Mobs are the biggest net-related news story since the 
AOL/TimeWarner merger fiasco, or this is a dry news season for 
interactive technologies. Either way, comment has been demanded, so 
comment shall come:

No, I don't think that flash mobs as they currently happen are a big 
deal. As I see it, they are a result off the same urge that led kids to 
hold raves in the 90's: the urge to connect with people in real space 
and real time.

And, like rave, it seems important that these mass gatherings occur 
with no agenda whatsoever. They just happen. They are not overtly 
political, and no statement is made other than 'let's do this thing.'

I get that part. I wrote about it way back when in Cyberia: raves were 
self-consciously agenda-less. It was not about taking power, fighting 
power, changing our relationship to money, or any of these things. It 
felt as if to impose an agenda on such an emergent phenomenon would be 
dirty or inappropriate. But what we didnt' realize - and a good part of 
the reason rave didn't survive so very well - is that there were 
agendas. We were creating an alternative economy, an alternative music 
business, an alternative to crooked-cop-controlled nightlife, top-down 
media celebrity, and corporate directed youth culture. By ignoring our 
agendas, we also ignored our adversaries, who were working very hard to 
shut us down. We were also ignoring the true source of our strength.

Flash mobs - unlike truly 'smart mobs' - do things that have no clear 
point, such as dancing like chickens in a department store. The threat 
to them now, of course, is that people will try to impose agendas on 
them. Marketers will create 'fake' flash mobs to draw attention to 
retail environments. And they'll likely do this long before activists 
decide to use flash mobs to publicize an ActUp or PETA campaign.

And then people will become suspicious of flash mobs - is it a real 
one, or not? Who is calling this one? Is it a reputable flash mob 
syndicate member? Get ready for flash mobs called on the same day or 
night by competing conveners.

The problem with flash mobs is that they are contentless. Unlike a 
Madagascar Institute spectacular (hastily convened but miraculously 
conceived mass events in New York), they do not match the energy of the 
crowd with a lasting experience, or even a lasting memory or insight.

They certainly show our need, as people, for mass experiences 
unmediated by television or profit-driven sports conglomerates. But 
they also show just how little we understand about why we've lost our 
ability to assemble meaningfully, and how to win it back.