I guess we are the iGeneration

I actually know two people who took part in this, they are people whom you could quite easily classify as cunts. However watching the videos on the news was quite impressive, it's amazing how motivated Facebook makes people.

Groupthink. Sheep. Lemurs. Eh.

How about getting all those people together to, I don't know, each feed one homeless person rather than fucking around dancing?

A lot of grumpy old men on this board. You guys would have detested the 70's.

As one of the older grumpy men, I can say the seventies pretty much sucked. But this bit? I'm with Dreary: I have no clue how to take it. Not the whole "flashmob" thing. That's no big deal. But getting that many people to have a shared individual experience (listening to your own music)? That's the sort of thing that strikes me as fundamentally *wrong*. Not in a generational sense so much as a sociological sense. It bespeaks of a social disconnect as strong as the social ties that brought the flashmob together.

But I'm old and there's a lot of things you kids do that I don't get. So it's cool.

My roommate participated in the Grand Central Station version of this in NY last year.

There's more to communication than audio. Just because these people weren't listening to the same music doesn't mean it wasn't participatory, communal activity. Besides, I imagine that many of the participants would be inclined to strike up conversations afterwards.

In some ways, it might be more of a "real" experience than chatting on a message board, where body language doesn't exist, sarcasm often falls flat, and personal connections are often secondary to bad jokes.

"Lemurs"?

I'll buy that. Having never experienced one of those sorts of gatherings, I don't have any clue as to the sort of communication they engender. I've only read of them, and in the reading have been led to believe that the gathering is the purpose for things in and of itself. You show up to have showed up, and then you go.

As I mentioned above...I don't get it. But I don't have to.

Everyone's dancing to their own beat, dreary.

Would've really made headlines if they all started fucking, but really - what CNN headline wouldn't?

The individual can't communicate anything to their earpiece, because earpieces don't receive information. They can, however, establish eye contact with their fellow human beings.

Think of it this way - in a dance club, everyone dances somewhat differently. Some can't even find the beat, in fact. And, quite often, the music's too loud to carry on a conversation. So does it really matter if the participants are dancing to the same music or different music, so long as they're dancing in the same general area?

For posterity.

I'll take a guess and assume he meant Lemmings.

There's a fine line between co-op masturbation and public performance art. And I really don't have a problem with either one.
Anyway, this is a lot better than what Burning Man has become.

Which is why I hate dance clubs. Give me conversation, even message board conversation, over simple gyration any day of the week.

Reduced to this level, how is it really any different than dancing with a girl at a club and listening to the same music? There's the exact same potential for performance and inflated self-image there (which has everything to do with the individual, not the situation); the only difference is that the soundtrack is more consistent.

I feel it's kind of alarmist to worry about this sort of thing. Let the kids play. This sort of thing isn't going to replace hanging out with friends.

I'm not a big fan, either, honestly. I'll go if the music's good, but I'm far more inclined to find a quiet corner than to hit the dancefloor.

Maybe that's why I have a hard time seeing how this event is public co-op masturbation, but dance clubs aren't.

Do you know what a flash mob is, dreary? If a large group of people suddenly converge onto one spot for a short period of time to dance, do you expect them to have set up a huge sound system and concert area beforehand in a busy London train station so that they can all dance to the same music?

Let the guy have his idiocy.

Can we drop the dance club comparison? It doesn't work beyond Dave's initial point. The vast majority of people go to dance clubs to get laid. While I'm sure some folks go to these mobs in the hopes of picking up an art chick, most of the people involved do it as a fun expression.
And no, DL, it's not some kind of weird party. It is in fact closer to performance art than anything else.

Flash mobs have been around for years. Why is this irritating dweeb only getting annoyed by them now?

They're different from a strictly utilitarian point of view. But I'm not talking about intentionality or end results. In terms of the type of communication, the two are pretty similar. It's strictly physical communication - the only variable is whether the music is the same or different for the participants.

For your perusal: Bunch of flash mob videos

Alright, now you're sucking me into this tangent too!
I'm thinking in terms of having an audience. In a dance club people are performing for each other and themselves. In a flash mob the primary audience is made up of the non-participants.

I mean, this guy should be getting annoyed because flash mobs are so 2003.

In a big flash mob event like this, I'd have to think, for many, it's also for the benefit of the other participants. But, yeah, you raise a good point.

Lemurs are primates, far away relatives, small brain and isolated on an island so...

If they flash mobbed to The Smiths I'm pretty certain that Senor Mouthbreather's head would pop like an overripe zit.

I almost can't believe I just read that. My irony muscle will be in an Ace bandage for a week. . .

Ack!! Perils of dropping in quick-like between patients. My bad. Lemmings as was noted above.

*EDIT* Although Feral's parrellel between the Americas and the British is pretty funny.

You're right. I have done this, and it plunged me into a world of noise in which all other senses were denied me. Sight, smell, touch, taste - these were all unknown to me for that brief moment in which the iPod became my world. If someone were to wave to me, attempt to dance with me, blow cigar smoke in my face, or drive into me with a car, I would have been blissfully unaware.

Again, how does listening to your own music at full volume create a substantially different sensory or social experience than listening to music in a club at full volume? Most distinctions you can make are either insignificant (your ears have something in them, or they don't) or kneejerk assumptions that don't really hold up (one is "social," and the other isn't, despite the fact that verbal communication is severely limited in both cases, and visual communication isn't impacted). The only truly substantive difference is that you and others may be moving at different beats, and even that may be negligible when you consider how lousy some people are at finding the beat.

For a wannabe iconoclast, it's amazing how reluctant you are to rethink the "obvious" and status quo.

Dreary Louse is fast becoming my favourite tragi-comic character. His self image shines through confidently in every post: the angry young firebrand, valiantly raging against ignorance, stupidity and blind conformity. I don't know whether to laugh or cry watching his point of view getting destroyed every single time.

This misses the point entirely. The whole idea is to fuck with the mundane by creating a surreal, seemingly spontanious spectacle. If they were doing something halfway understandable, like dancing to music everyone can hear, it wouldn't have anywhere near the 'WTF?' effect it's supposed to have.

Okay. Gotcha.

My main criticism would be that they ripped the idea off from a fucking mobile phone ad.