Thursday, September 17, 2009

Flash Mob-bage

Everyone's talking about (and watching) the Oprah/Black Eyed Peas flash mob event last week in Chicago. Which is pretty cool, if you haven't seen it. (It's not officially a flash mob, though, since the mob is really supposed to show up, do something, and then disperse.) But anyway, lots of fun if you haven't seen it.



And my friend Ken Grant engineered a promotional flash mob a couple of weeks ago in Delaware. It was a freeze-out. At the honk of a horn, the folks in on the gag froze in place for several minutes along a busy street.



But my favorite kind of flash mob is the type perpetrated on a single person. These are hilarious. Here's a clip of a several Japanese mobs doing an excellent job of completely freaking a person out.



Have any of you ever participated in a flash mob? If so, spill the beans.

7 comments:

Holly Brennan said...

The last one made me laugh the loudest. That was fantastic. I want to go a group of people to do that to someone. I'm actually terrible enough to do that, too.

I've never actually been part of a flash mob, but that's going on my bucket list.

Chris Miller said...

I love all the shots of the girl in blue up fronts going nuts while everyone is standing still. I would absolutely love it if someone took those moments put them together and edited in worship music. that would be a genius video.

radosh said...

I urge you to check out the excellent new book And Then There's This by Bill Wasik, who invented flash mobs and uses that as a jumping off point for a discussion of the meaning of internet narratives.

Jason Boyett said...

Thanks, Daniel. I've heard of Wasik's book (and articles) but haven't ready And Then... It's on my list now.

Ken said...

Jason, I can't tell you how cool it is to have my little freeze featured along with the Oprah/black-eyed peas video - I'm actually at a party with several of the participants right now - everyone is blown away.

For anyone who wants to try something like this, I say - go for it - get the word out to as many people as possible and have fun with it!

Ken

Dan Lewis said...

That's funny, just this past Sunday at a group I attend called Valley Mosaic we watched the video of the Grand Central Station freeze and some of us started talking about doing something like that in our area.

Food Court Musical is also a good one, look it up, or better yet, here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYZ6rbPU2M

and here's the one for Grand Central Station:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo

Angela Hoffman said...

WOW - the BEP flash mob thing was awesome! I wasn't familiar with flash mobs until your post, Jason, until now so thanks for bringing out from under my rock.
Anyway - at first i was like "why is this fruit loop the only one dancing and why is everyone else just standing there....you're supposed to dance at concerts!" then it all came together...again, thanks for bringing me out from under my rock....