E-Mail Brings Together Flash Mob at NY Toy Store

Yahoo! News / Reuters ^ | 8.8.03

[mhking]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It's become a case of mob rule in New York.

A growing flash mob craze -- when crowds organized by e-mail turn up in unexpected places -- brought a mob late on Thursday to the flagship Times Square store of Toys "R" Us, where a giant dinosaur roars menacingly at customers.

The mob of some 300 people gazed at the dinosaur, as if transfixed, then fell to the floor screaming and waving their hands in the air. As store staff hurried to call security, the mob dispersed as quickly as it gathered.

The flash mob was the sixth in New York and the latest in a string that has popped up around the globe. Organized by e-mail, recipients are invited to arrive at a certain place, at a certain time, and receive instructions for a particular mobbing event.

On Thursday evening in London, Britain's first flash mob -- a crowd of more than 200 people -- marched to a furniture store selling sofas with instructions to make mobile phone calls in which they praised the merchandise.

The New York-based Mob Project started in June with a man named Bill who sent an e-mail to some friends. Since then, it has spread across the nation and to many cities in Europe.

Europe's first flash mob hit Rome last month when a group gathered at a bookshop and peppered staff with queries about nonexistent books.

At Toys "R" Us in New York, Maria Peters, a tourist from Texas, said: "They just picked me up off the street and gave me directions.

"It was just like a big mind game," she said.

Other New York sites that have been mobbed are Central Park, where the crowd tweeted like birds and crowed like roosters, and a Hyatt Hotel, where the mob burst into applause.

Organizers like to remain anonymous but say the fun of the flash mob is its absurdist, inexplicable nature. However the flash mob could just be a flash in the pan, they say.

A man who seemed suspiciously like an organizer and gave an obviously false name said after the Toys "R" Us event: "Unfortunately all the media coverage, it's going to just destroy the cachet sooner or later.

"You can imagine that the next one or two ... people are not going think its cool, it's not really a happening, it's a media event," he said.

[mhking]

Just damn.

If you want on the new list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

[anniegetyourgun]

Lib/dems getting in practice and testing systems for upcoming Bush protests?

[JeeperFreeper]

Dear Annie: My thoughts along the same lines except more generic. Flashmob= idle sheep-like losers.

[Jaded]

On the other hand, the behavior of showing up en masse and doing something stoopid is much the same as what most of the media does.

[Tai_Chung]

Organizers like to remain anonymous but say the fun of the flash mob is its absurdist, inexplicable nature.

It's not funny to disrupt a place of business. I bet it is the anti-business protesters that are organizing it.

[discostu]

Somebody needs to tip off the victim to one of these, it would be really fun to have 50 guys with tazers waiting for the idjits.

[anniegetyourgun]

Does seem rather anarchist-like.

[mhking]

it would be really fun to have 50 guys with tazers waiting

LOL! I love the idea!

[Salgak]

Followed by 50 VERY large lawsuits. The behavior is odd, but not illegal, and certainly not enough to justify the use of force in any court of law.

This is just another odd fad, like pet rocks, or streaking, or mood rings. . .

[Texas_Dawg]

These groups demonstrate the height of post-modernism in our extravagantly wealthy society. These people have no real reason worth living so they are having to find new ways to distract themselves from what is coming to us all someday. But at all costs, let's not consider that... better to just form flash mobs and act stupid and ignore the utter hopelessness that they face when they actually sit down and consider their situations.

[discostu]

Gimme some big enough lawyers and I can get em thrown in for disrupting the piece and possibly even a RICO violation (harder to make stick but still doable thanks to how RICO got manipulated to outlaw pro-life protests). What kind of crimes are these guys covering?

Or I could just excuse it as flash mobbing a flash mob. Turn about is fair play.

[jriemer]

What kind of crimes are these guys covering?

Trespassing is the first to come to mind. One group in KT burned an American Flag.

[MineralMan]

"These people have no real reason worth living so they are having to find new ways to distract themselves from what is coming to us all someday. "

I think we should lighten up on these flash-mobbers. They're causing no harm at all...they show up, hang around for a few minutes, then leave. They're not damaging property.

It's a silly prank, and I have no doubt that most of us have engaged in pranking at some point in our lives.

In fact, I see this phenomenon as, perhaps, a model for other types of mobbing, by, maybe, Freepers. The possibilities are certainly there for some interesting activism.

Instead of condemming these folks, maybe we should emulate them. Remember, they're breaking no laws and getting lots of publicity.

[dfwgator]

So it's just the modern incarnation of streaking, this too will pass.

[thoughtomator]

I think this stuff is hilarious. Anyone who can't see how funny (and completely harmless) this is needs a sense of humor transplant!

[ibbryn]

it would be really fun to have 50 guys with tazers waiting LOL!

I love the idea!

How about if 50 guys with tazers are sent instructions to show up at a specific location at a predetermined time, taze strangers at random for 2 minutes, and then leave as mysterousily as they arrived? Now that's a party!

[MineralMan]

"Anyone who can't see how funny (and completely harmless) this is needs a sense of humor transplant!"

I agree completely. Why are not Freepers using these techniques. In fact, I've seen it here already. Someone will post the location of an activist action, such as a protest, in hopes that other Freepers will show up.

Same thing, exactly, really. It's just that the current flash-mobbers are doing absurd things for the absurdity of it. These are just pranks. The same technique, however, could be used for activism as well.

[discostu]

I was thinking more about what could be going on in the back of the store now that they've gotten all of security to the front. Surely at least one store owner has seen the last two Die Hard movies.

On a less aggressive note you could always setup waterbaloons with something nasty in them (cheap assed white wine being a personal favorite, doesn't store long though) rigged to drop on their flash. That would be pretty funny.

[mewzilla]

These folks need a life.