It was only in the last few months that I've heard about flash mobs. Yet when I read about it in Wikipedia, it says it has been around since 2003. When did you first hear about them? What great ones have you heard about?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Three or four years ago ...

I had never heard of them. The term sounds to me like a bunch of people running naked.

Out-of-control paparrazi?

The best and latest flash mob I heard about was the one in a mall food court where the mob started singing Handel's Messiah (link).

Yes, that's the best one I've heard of, too, z.

Wow...three or four years ago! Amazing. I only heard of them in 2010.

There are good flash mobs and bad flash mobs. I only heard about them last year, when there were a series of them in Center City Philadelphia. In each case, throngs of teenagers who had just gotten out of school would converge on a designated intersection and just run wild, causing mayhem and injuries, roughing up passers-by. They were "organized" by text messaging and would just flare up suddenly and frighten everyone who happened to be in the way.

The good flash mobs are the cultural ones like the one you mentioned. We've had a few of those too: opera in the Reading Terminal Market and the Hallelujah Chorus breaking out at Macy's.

Wordmatic

I probably heard about flash mobs about three years ago. The favorite spots in London seem to be Trafalgar Square and some of the railway termini, particularly Liverpool Street station. Many are just publicity stunts organised by commercial interests.

Sally, great to have you posting! My miscreant posts on my Facebook must have brought you back. Yaaahhh...it was worth it, though it embarrassed my poor daughter so much that I deleted it all. [Heh, heh! The rest of you have no idea, do you?]

Anyway, I am pretty bummed that I am the only one here who hadn't heard much about them, except for Geoff, who was probably being polite. It must be this dull midwest.

Truly I had not heard of them - not even in Portland, OR, where such trendy crap - err - phenomena is common.

Actually, Geoff, I think the bad ones are examples of hooliganism, not trendiness!

WM

P.S. And Kalleh, you are right--your "miscreant" posts on FB brought me over here looking for comments on the same incident. I think you should try them out on this group. Your daughter won't police you here, will she?

I think the bad ones are examples of hooliganism, not trendiness!

Hooligans can be trendy, too. I don't think you can blame hooliganism on flash mobs the phenomenon, anymore than you can blame burglary on police scanners.

I think the Situationists would enjoy flash mobs.

They give the good ones a bad name.

Check this out.

quote:

I think you should try them out on this group. Your daughter won't police you here, will she?

No. She wouldn't deign to look at our Wordcraft...and yet every so often, because she really does love words and language, she will ask, "Will you please ask this question on Wordcraft?"

So, Wordcrafters, here was the discussion. I posted this story about the Winnetka police: Link WM and I were debating the issue on my facebook page, when my daughter emailed me and told me to stop and remove all my posts because it was "just too much." So, I dutifully did, and then poor WM deleted hers too because otherwise they wouldn't have made any sense. So...what do people here think of that butt dialing incident?

I understand that you have to be careful about Facebook, but a healthy debate [on whether this ridiculous escapade of the police proved that they were Keystone Kops...or whether this was a best practice of the police] surely shouldn't be cause for concern.

[Can you guess which side I was on? ]