Blog #7- Smart mobs response

Flash mobs have been around for a few years- in fact, since 2003 when it all started in Manhattan. So what is that gets thousands and thousands of people to gather in one agreed upon destination and do what seems to be unusual behaviors? How is print in any way connected to strange phenomena that is going on?

Flashmobs work when there is a large crowd of people who are all gathering in a central place. Additionally, think about the people who do street theater. That is a group of people who have a passion to act, and have no better place than to do it in the streets. There are different perspectives that one can look at flash mobs, but if you take an artistic approach, the arrangement of flash mobs began as a performance art (i.e. street theater). So how does the world of "print" help the foundation of flash mobs?

When thinking of the world of print, one has to think of the use of other methods besides pen to paper. For example, the rise of text messaging, has given flash mobbers a better chance at getting larger crowds. Think of what you can do with a cell phone and a contact list. Generally speaking, a person has a few dozen friends in their list of contacts, so, say I were to get a text message inviting me to be part of a flash mob, I send it out and it reaches all my friends and then they pass it along, as so on and so forth. Before you know it, there are thousands of people gathering.

Digital communications have helped change the communications that occur in the process of gathering a mob of people. As mentioned in my example above, with the click of a few buttons, there could be a gathering of a lot of people at a particular place and a particular time in a matter of minutes. The use of these digital communications have brought forth a lot of change to the world as we knew it, especially to flash mobbers.

With the use of digital technologies, more people can gather due to a more rapid exchange of information. Photos are also able to be sent now, so that people are clear as to where the mob is to meet. It is also more intimate, in the sense that each person goes through their list of contacts in their cell phones, and sends it off to their contact list and then they pass it on. The list of contacts is endless as long as each person passes it on. There is also the capabilities of a GPS device in cell phones that help you navigate your way to where the mobbers are. Having said that, digital technologies have significantly changed the world for flash mobbers as they once knew it back in 2003 when it first started.

What can happen in the future with the organization of flash mobs. This is still in the unknown. Technology keeps advancing at an outstanding rate, so there is no way of knowing what new things may come as soon as tomorrow. Personally, however, I think that if the advancements get too much further, there is a major risk of invading privacy.