QUESTION: What do you think of “flash mobs” in general?
Dear HillBuzz,
I saw this commercial on TV this weekend and was horrified. I cannot believe that AT&T would condone and encourage flash mob behavior in such an off-handed manner. What I have seen of flash mobs are not the innocent dance/verbal rhetoric depicted in the commercial but a lawlessness that is disturbing and detrimental to the fabric of our society.
I have tried to contact AT&T to voice my complaint but cannot get through to anything other than a computerized menu. Perhaps this needs to blasted in cyberspace instead.
Sincerely,
Laura in New Jersey
********************************************************
What do you think of these “flash mob” things?
When this all first started, in Europe of course, five or six years ago, I thought the people involved were mainly sad women who never were asked to the prom and closeted gay men who dreamed of living inside Broadway musicals (or, at least, the “Once More With Feeling” episode of Buffy).
Back then, groups of dancers or musicians would assemble in train stations and start singing carols or playing classical music of some kind, as if none of the people involved knew each other.
In time, these “flash mobs” became more obnoxious as more people possessed the technology to take part in it.
The same thing happened to the short-lived adventure “sport” of geocaching — which I used to love because it felt like being part of a Scooby gang, hunting treasure. This is before cell phones with all the do-dads, when we used portable GPS devices to hide treasure boxes in odd places and an honor system was in place where you’d take one item of treasure from a box you located and replace it with something of yours for another person.
Just like with the flash mobs, geocaching was ruined when the GPS technology got so cheap that young punks and thugs had access, and of course they just took all the treasure out of the boxes, or they’d leave fake clues to dangerous places where people could get robbed or otherwise harmed.
Has anything you’ve personally ever enjoyed been ruined like this?
What do you think of the flash mob phenomenon?
What’s your opinion on the commercial above?
What do you think is the next weird fad related to technology?
© 2011, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
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I don't have a problem with them as long as they don't get in my way or infringe on others' property or personal space. Water gun fight flash mobs are illegal in Iran. Lot's of young people have been arrested in Iran for water gun fights. Pathetic. http://themorningspew.com/2011/09/05/new-iranian-…
I enjoy watching the singing/choreographed ones on you tube. The esprit-de-corp and the bursting forth of joy in the form of song is heart warming. The hours of practice that goes into some is so evident. It is too bad that what was a good thing has been made sour by some.
[youtube HDNOB6TnHSI&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDNOB6TnHSI&feature=related youtube]
[youtube 7EYAUazLI9k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k youtube]
I think it's fun…though I have never witnessed one in person… the way things are in our country right now.. it's nice to see a group of people come together to try to make people happy..
Well, I don't know how that happened that I posted the same video twice. I meant for the second one to be the Antwerp Central Station "Sound of Music" flash mob. Oh well. Enjoy the same one twice. LOL. It's nearly hump day and yesterday was a holiday. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
At first I thought they were just stupid, like a bunch of high school theatre geeks who wanted to pretend to live in a Broadway musical (and I WAS a high school theatre geek). Although, I have to admit, I was in a mall food court one day and there appeared to be a "spontaneous" singing of the Hallelujah Chorus, in which many of the other "civilians" in the food court joined. That was kind of cool.
Now that the whole flash mob thing has been usurped by thugs using technology to rob and pillage innocent people, I just want them to GO AWAY.
Originally, when I heard about people singing arias, etc., it seemed nice. Now with flash mobs beating and robbing, it is no longer a charming event. AT&T has been running this ad for some time, and each time I see it, I say to my husband "They really need to stop showing it". Their marketing people must not read about "real flash mobs" and the violence they create.
I live in San Francisco and last month our entire BART transport shut down because of flash mobs protesting a shooting by transit workers. The creeps just coordinated to jump in between doors of the BART trains and lay down, blocking anyone getting in or off. Of course, they choose the end of day of when tens of thousands of workers were leaving to go home. (The protestors don't work so what did they care?) Anyway, it shut down the entire system for nearly four hours. Some people didn't get home until midnight. And the protesters loved every minute of it. Man, you should have seen the self-righteous smirks on their faces when the commuters yelled at them. They enjoyed the attention so much they coordinated to do it again. But this time, word got out to BART which shut down the entire Wifi system in the tunnels (BART is underground in San Francisco) so the creeps couldn't coordinate with their cell phones, etc. Not surprisingly, those hypocritical jerks immediately began screaming about THEIR rights – when the whole point of their stunt was to rob everyone else of theirs. They hated it even worse when they got no sympathy from the public either. Amongst workers in San Francisco (yes, we do have a few), 'flash mob' is exactly what the last word says – and we hate it.
The outrage at AT&T is a bit ridiculous… the original flash mobs started years and years ago to do exactly like what the AT&T commercial is portraying- some random silly thing, all at once, with a bunch of people. That's the original purpose of the flash mob (look up the Hallelujah Chorus flash mob or the Bolero flash mob to see awesome ones). It is too bad that they have been co-opted in recent times by people doing bad or violent things… but that happens to pretty much every awesome/fun thing ever, and it's why we have so many stupid rules to protect us from ourselves, because a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch. So, to the person who wrote in… try to find out about the world from places other than the news (even Fox News or Drudge Report) because the news is a place full of negative, terrible stories, and you'll never learn about the positive things.
I would much rather get caught in a musical flash mob than be in a store that was being robbed by a flash mob of teenagers breaking the curfew.
I address some of this issue in my post today: The ERA of WHITE GUILT is Officially OVER!!!
Um, I have a hard time believing people don't have better things to do with their limited time.
Every time I see this TV commercial, I think to my self, dang, this guy looks like a fool, and if he had had of bunch of other fools with him they would have totally disrupted that train station and potentially caused people to miss their rides. For what?
Then there are the flash and rob mobs, those people are criminals and are just begging to get shot.
In short, I don't like flash mobs.
F250