2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
In the youth environment, this concept has long been known, although it has existed for only a dozen years. But representatives of the older generation do not always understand what, in fact, they are talking about. So, flashmob - what is it?
A bit of history
“Flash mob” is an English word, or rather, a combination of words: “flash” - “lightning, flash, instant” and “mob” - “group of people, company, crowd”. In fact, for the first time these two concepts - "instant" and "crowd" - were combined by the American science fiction writer Larry Niven, who created a story about cheap teleportation in the future in the 70s of the twentieth century. True, his term sounded like “flash crowd”.
In 2002, a book by the American sociologist Howard Reinhold was published, who predicted that in the 21st century people would come together to hold mass actions using the growing possibilities of information technology. Such structured, culturally behaving groups are called "smart mob" - "smart crowd". What about the flash mob?
What is this?
Today, this term is understood as a mass action in which a group of people, often strangers, takes part. They gather at a designated place, behave in a certain way for a given amount of time, andthen quickly (instantly) disperse, as if dissolving into the crowd of spectators, as if nothing had happened.
Flash mobs are organized through electronic means such as cell phones or the Internet. Participants, called mobbers, post news about the place, time and subject of the upcoming event on blogs, on social networking pages or on a specially created website. Sometimes email or SMS messages are also used.
Pioneers
The official date of birth of the flash mob is June 17, 2003. It was on this day that about one and a half hundred people gathered near an expensive carpet in the largest department store in the world - New York's Macy's - and explained to the sellers that they live in a commune on the outskirts of the metropolis, in a warehouse, and would like to purchase the Love Carpet.
The success of the project was so high that it swept across America, Europe and other continents like a tsunami. Mobbers applauded for 15 seconds in the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel, pretending to be tourists in a shoe store in Soho. The organizer of the first American shares was the editor-in-chief of Harper's magazine Bill Wozik. He considered them a funny action, ridiculing party-goers. However, the flash mob began its victorious march across the planet.
The first European action took place on July 24 of the same year in Rome. Three hundred people gathered in a bookstore, demanding books with non-existent titles from sellers. On August 16, 2003, the first flash mobs took place in Russia and Ukraine.
Precursors
But is this a new phenomenon - a flash mob? What is it - a sign of the XXI century or a well-forgotten old? Experts believe that similar actions have taken place before: organized groups of people rode the subway without pants, gathered from different regions of the country for a bike ride, instantly “froze” at the New York train station, frozen in various poses. However, only in our days has the flash mob become a truly massive action. For example, in one of the actions in Chicago in 2009, more than 20 thousand people took part. Today, the terminology and rules of this movement have been developed, its name has firmly settled in academic editions of dictionaries and the media.
Target
The purpose of each action depends on its type. Usually they are organized for spontaneous entertainment of participants and bewilderment of passers-by: people dance en masse, sing, lie down on the floor of supermarkets, dress up in dude costumes, hug passers-by, participate in pillow fights, freeze, looking at the sky, launch Chinese lanterns. But some actions are held for political or commercial purposes.
The best flash mobs are absurd, mysterious, look spontaneous, confuse and even shock casual viewers. Watch the wonderful movie "Step Up 4". It's not just great mass dances. The picture will show you a real flash mob: what it is, how it is organized and what consequences it can have.
