Well, I know that’s a stupid thing to say, because of course these things are orchestrated – but it seems that the inaugural London flashmob was a bit more stage-managed than most.
“Anyway. We’re here, the shop’s shut. Which would seem to have f***ed the flash mob, which is supposed to be about the appearance of spontaneity, right? Well, then, the shop opens. In fact, it seems to open specifically to let the flash mob in.
Media hordes. Shop opening specially for a spontaneous mob. Right.”
It had crossed my mind that for some undefinable reason of psychogeographic importance that London would be a bit crap for flashmobbing. Critical Mass or Poll-tax riots she can do, but digitally-assisted Dadaism I’m not sure is her thing.
Anyway.
Warren Ellis has the story. Any other eyewitness reports?
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Update: Cockup, not conspiracy, seems to be the consensus of comments below. Also – a correction on my captioning a photo of rollerbladers as being part of Critical Mass. It’s a picture of a more frequent gathering of skaters known as “The Friday Skate” – thanks to Gerard for correcting me.
Petafloptimism 
The shop manager had closed up early because it had been a quiet afternoon, and had decamped to the pub fifty yards down the road. I spoke to him afterwards and he seemed genuinely bewildered yet amused by the whole thing.
Surely if you were going to stage something like this, you’d make sure the shop was open? Cockup <> evidence of elaborate pre-planning.
Too right, Matt. The redeeming feature was the sight of dozens of journalists, clearly each thinking he or she was on to some really niche bit of breaking news, approaching one another saying “could i interview you… oh, you’re a hack as well?” and walking disconsolately away. They ended up scrapping over the two or three people there who *weren’t* from the media, to find out what motivated them.
I was at the front when the shop manager opened the door, and it took a fair amount of persuasion by quick-witted mobbers before he let us in. He was told a variety of lies and half-truths (‘we’re from the sofa appreciation society’, ‘we want to negotiate a mass discount for your sofas’, ‘we just want to cuddle your wares’) and finally opened up the shop out of a kind of desperation to find out what on earth was really happening.
…are you the same St(o)rme I re-bumped into at the event? If so, I apologise for immediately getting lost in the throng. Drop me a line.
It occurred to me earlier today (THTW) that flash-mobs were a big thing in the UK a few years ago, except we called them “raves”. This is the same concept, just marching to the repetitive beat of a different drummer.
That’s me, and I will.
Thank you for putting the image of a hundred and fifty vaguely geeky looking people bouncing around and blowing whistles in my head. *goes off to scrub brain*
Unless I am mistaken, the photos of skaters you have are NOT Critical Mass. They are probably the Wednesday or Friday Night skate. Unless of course you didn’t take the photos on a Wednedsay or a Friday.
London flashmob photos: http://www.mtf0.com/mob1/ (thanks to Alex Blair of http://www.blair.co.uk, a man who gets more spam than you do.)
I was thinking more of Temporary Autonomous Zones: spontaneous gatherings where the normal rules of society are redefined by group consensus. In Flashmobs, group consensus is “do as we’re told”, which puts us at the mercy of the whim and sense of humour of the organiser — which is part of the enjoyment, unthinking trust being a rare experience for most of us these days.
I could go on, but it’s a lovely day.
The site was recce’d on both previous thursday evenings and was open. In fact, the sign in the shop should have given it away in that thursday was supposed to have been late night opening. Surprised no one took a photo of that. The manager closed up at 6:20pm and luckily was only up at the pub (bunking off!!).
Of course the paranoid will always see the “evil” in everything.
Zondagochtend
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Flash mobbing
Ben ik de enige of is dat hele Flash mobben iets te snel over zijn hoogtepunt gegaan? Wat een media-aandacht zeg… Weet je niet wat Flashmobben is? Lees dit artikel of dit weblog en je bent bij Ik vermoed dat…