The Social and Political Power of Flash Mobs

The Social and Political Power of Flash Mobs:

Discerning the Difference between Flash Mobs and Protests

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Masters of Humanities

Annabelle Lee Haston

At Tiffin University

Tiffin, OH

February 20, 2013

Thesis Director: Vincent Moore, Ph.D.

Reader: Jan Samoriski, Ph.D.

Abstract

The use of technology drives the evolution of society and society drives the evolution of technology in a symbiotic system. Underlying fundamental motives, including expressing, confirming, and augmenting a sense of self, strikingly adapt to these rapid evolutionary changes in culture. Seemingly continuous communication between large masses of individuals has become of increasingly high importance, and the enormous amount of mobile social networking technology certainly keeps the plethora of communication fluid and dynamic.

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Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Dr. Vincent Moore and Dr. Jan Samoriski for their special assistance in the preparation of this manuscript, two brilliant minds that helped progress the concept for this thesis into reality.

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Dedication

This thesis is dedicated to my mother Kay and my best friend Dan. My mother’s constant encouragement fueled me on this journey. I love you. My best friend comforted me in times of need, talked with me through rough spots, and reminded me I was not alone during the low points. I love you, too.

Also, special thanks goes to caffeine in its many forms, mostly coffee and chocolate. Without it, this thesis might not have been possible.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ……………………………………………………………………….…………...….….

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………...…………………..…….ii

Dedication……………………………………………………………………………...…………iii

Table of Contents ………………………………………………………….……………….….....iv

Chapter 1 Introduction …………………..……………………………………..…………………1

Chapter 2 Mob Mentality, Protests, and Flash Mobs…………...... 6

Chapter 3 History ...... 21

Chapter 4 Co-Opting of Flash Mobs…………………………………………….……………….25

Chapter 5 Conclusion/Analysis……………………………………………………….…….…....35

References ……….………………………..………………………………….…………….…....39 Haston 1

Chapter 1

Introduction

Social networking in various forms, such as text messaging and tweeting, has become heavily ingrained in today’s technological society. Many people from disparate socio-economic backgrounds have come to include in their daily routines checking friend’s statuses on Facebook and tweets on Twitter. It is not uncommon for these individuals to post their thoughts on social networks while the event they are participating in is still in progress. One might view people texting, talking on their phone, or surfing the web on their smart phone or other mobile device while casually strolling down the street, going to or coming from work, using mass transit, and certainly while waiting in line with nothing else to do. Social networking has become so commonplace that laws hoping to counteract possible automobile accidents caused by the distraction of talking on the phone and text messaging while driving have been enacted by various communities. Along with providing an increase in convenience in several areas of everyday life, mobile social networking has also given today’s society potentially great and dangerous social and political power.

Massive instantaneous social networking satisfies a human need for constantly and continually confirming a sense of self through others. However, articles published in peer review

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journals have stated a belief that online communication in itself (including mobile networking) does not appear to be able to completely satisfy an individual’s need for confirmation of their personhood due to the lowering of self-esteem through lack of personal contact (Kim & Davis,

2009, pp. 490-500). The much needed fundamental sense of purpose and meaning that an individual is seeking seems to be unable to be fulfilled until more visceral personable interaction takes place. Flash mobs have an inherent mob mentality component that appeals to this need for personable interaction. Flash mob events serve as a form of deindividuation via group interaction, allowing the individual to greatly augment their sense of meaning and identity through the powerful angst-free ego of a group’s identity.

A closer look at the potential social and political power of flash mobs in today’s fast paced technological society is warranted because the mob mentality component of flash mobs has the feasibility to become highly dangerous very quickly. This research will explore the idea of whether or not flash mobs have any true constructive or destructive social or political power, in particular in terms of altering the outcome of social and or political protest, or if a flash mob is merely an entertaining form of performance art. In either case, flash mobs have become a widespread sociological factor that seems to permeate every facet of society and therefore should perhaps be examined as an essential part of popular culture. An explanation of mob mentality, protests, and flash mobs in detail, using social theories, historical information, and current media sources should help define the various discerning characteristics and intentions of all too often confused nomenclature. In today’s world of instant communication and instant gratification, flash mobs serve the role in society of compelling people to congregate largely to obtain an instant though limited sense of fulfillment. Flash mobs grant power to the individual by breaking the individual’s common fear of human rejection by absorbing the individual’s identity into the

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group whose identity is already confirmed and has no need of confirmation outside of itself or by others. Beyond this fundamental power of automatic self-confirmed sense of identity, flash mobs are insufficient in that they lack a long-term goal to cause semi-permanent or permanent social or political change themselves. The transitory goal of flash mobs is not sufficient to change the world, but merely serves to gain fleeting attention and or serve as a type of ice-breaker that might then in turn eventually lead to social or political change through a distinctly separate social or political movement only indirectly related to the original flash mob. A flash mob's purpose and intent exist in the sense of providing a momentary feeling of unity and community, but is limited by its intentionally short-term goal of mass entertainment. As flash mobs have become more mainstream in recent years, most potential social or political power that existed within the phenomena diminished under the weight of thrill seekers and sensationalists, including mass media commentators who hijack the people’s movements and turn them into narratives their corporation wishes to put forward.

Flash Mob Or Protest?

There are several aspects to consider when determining whether a group of people is a flash mob or a protest. The determination helps define the potential social and political power associated with the group. Consider the following groups: gathering to support or criticize a political candidate, gathering in a train station with orchestra instruments to play a one-song concert, and gathering in a crowd of people to do a dance routine. Which are flash mobs and which are protests? One important aspect of consideration is whether the group is an open or closed group. A second important aspect of consideration includes the group’s goal. There are differences in both areas concerning flash mobs and protests.

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Open and Closed Groups

Canetti described two types of groups, open and closed. Closed groups have a specified location that continues to stand in place regardless of people being present in the location

(Canetti, 1984, pp. 16-17). The location itself holds meaning, with or without group members being present at the location (i. e. places of worship or where work for the group is performed).

The specified space has defined boundaries with entrances and exits (Canetti, 1984, pp. 16-17).

Acceptance into the closed group must be granted before the group grows through addition of new members (Canetti, 1984, pp. 16-17). Group consensus is generally used through an either loose or strict voting system of some kind to accomplish this task. Specified group members help to establish longevity of the group (Canetti, 1984, pp. 16-17). Role definitions manifest as tasks are assigned to members (president, secretary, recruiter, media relations, etc.). Preservation of the group holds importance; therefore, leadership is a key element in roles and responsibilities.

Examples of closed groups include community service groups (Alcoholics Anonymous, religious organizations, etc.), political party groups (Democrat, Republican, etc.), and neighborhood- affiliated groups (condominium boards, theater boards, etc.).

An open group has an unfixed location that changes with each meeting, i.e. raves (mobile clubbing) or book clubs (Canetti, 1984, pp. 16-17). There are generally no defined boundaries to the location (Canetti, 1984, pp. 16-17). Once the meeting is over, the location holds no true meaning to the gathering. Raves have been held in museum elevators and other various unexpected places. Entrances and exits are not defined through location (Canetti, 1984, pp. 16-

17). Acceptance into the open group does not require any formality or approval from other members (Canetti, 1984, pp. 16-17). Acceptance is usually quick without any group consensus needed. Open groups are not generally concerned with growth of member population and require

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less structure (Canetti, 1984, pp. 16-17). Very little planning happens ahead of the group meeting and is typically done as the group gathers. Examples of open groups include drum circles, festivals and fairs, college student groups, and hobby groups.

Group Goals

Initially, all groups are established to satisfy some common need or to pursue a common cause. Group goals help to determine longevity and motivation. When a group becomes static, it dies off.

A sense of accomplishment is necessary for the group to stay together. One way this sense of accomplishment manifests is through a measurement of effectiveness of the group

(Sharpe, 2002, p. 1). Once a goal has been accomplished, then there is a decline in effectiveness unless new goals are set. The typical response when effectiveness declines is for the group to turn inward and cling to what is still in existence, continuing in a state of stagnation.

Setting group goals helps groups determine action through activity. Goals are what the group hopes to accomplish whereas activities are the means to those goals. A good measurement of worth concerning an activity is to measure the extent to which the activity helps the group accomplish its goals (Sharpe, 2002, p. 1).

There is a difference between activities toward a long-term goal and short-term goals themselves. Typically, short-term goals that are easily accomplished will lead to group stagnation or end with disbandment of the group once those goals are reached. Long-term goal activities provide small senses of accomplishment while still keeping group motivation intact for the long- term goal.

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Chapter 2

Mob Mentality, Protests, and Flash Mobs

Sartre defined the concept of a situation in his book Being and Nothingness, where freedom only exists in opposition to something else. This opposition between forces creates a situation. He used an analogy of theater to help explain the concept in his essay For a Theater of

Situations:

…if it's true that man is free in a given situation and that in and through that situation he

chooses what he will be, then what we have to show in the theatre are simple and human

situations and free individuals in these situations choosing what they will be.... The most

moving thing the theatre can show is a character creating himself, the moment of choice,

of the free decision which commits him to a moral code and a whole way of life (Sartre,

1976, pp. 3-5).

By this explanation, Sartre philosophically identified the underlying reasons why people adopt mob mentality. In order to escape the situation, people will group together to avoid having to make the choice themselves, negating any commitment to a personal moral code.

When a person feels uncomfortable concerning the outcome in a situation, he or she will look for a way to escape responsibility or commitment of or to that outcome. The typical way of escapism involves the use of justifications for actions. Mob mentality provides such justification, allowing a person to feel as though he or she belongs to a higher moral code, outside of himself or herself. He or she adopts the moral code of a group, or the mob mentality becomes his or her moral code.

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Mob Mentality

Stanley Milgram performed social experiments at Yale University in 1961 in order to possibly answer questions related to Nazism acts of violence. Milgram was interested in knowing why people would perform acts of violence on others, even though the actions conflicted with their personal consciences. His experiments concluded it was possible for people to simply be following orders of an authority figure, which allowed them to perform acts of violence even though it interfered with their conscience (or Sartre’s moral code).

Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiment included three persons; the person running the experiment, a volunteer, and another person pretending to be a volunteer. These people populated three distinct roles; experimenter (authority figure), teacher (the volunteer), and learner (the person pretending to be a volunteer but was actually in league with the experimenter)

(Milgram, 1974, pp. 13-26). The volunteer and the actor (learner) drew slips of paper to determine their roles, but the drawing was rigged. All of the slips of paper had the word teacher written on them. The learner would always claim to have drawn the slip that read learner, thus ensuring the volunteer would always be the teacher.

The teacher and the learner were next separated into different rooms. The two could communicate with each other but not visually see each other. The teacher was given an electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock the learner would supposedly be given during the experiment if the learner answered a question incorrectly. The teacher was given a list of word pairs to teach the learner. The teacher would read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would then press a button to indicate his/her answer to the question. If the answer given was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to the

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learner, with increasing voltage in 15-volt increments for each wrong answer. If the answer given was correct, the teacher would read the next word pair.

The volunteers (teachers) believed the learner was receiving actual shocks with each incorrect answer, although the learner was not receiving shocks at all. There were no shocks given. After the teacher and learner were separated, the learner set-up a tape recorder that was integrated with the electro-shock generator and played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level.

After a few supposed increasing levels of shocks from the teacher, the learner would bang on the wall separating the teacher and the learner indicating received pain, eventually ceasing response to the teacher at all.

Many teachers wanted to stop the experiment and check on the learner at this point. Some teachers paused at 135-volts and began questioning the purpose of the experiment. Most teachers continued with the experiment after being assured they would not be held responsible for the learner. Whenever the teacher indicated a desire to halt the experiment, the teacher was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in the following order:

1. Please continue.

2. The experiment requires that you continue.

3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.

4. You have no other choice; you must go on (Milgram, 1974, p. 21).

If the teacher still desired to stop the experiment after all four verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, the experiment was stopped after the learner had been given the maximum

450-volt shock three times in succession. The experimenter also gave special verbal prods if the teacher made specific comments. If the teacher asked whether the learner would suffer permanent physical harm, the experimenter stated “although the shocks may be painful, there is

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no permanent tissue damage, so please go on” (Milgram, 1974, p. 21). If the teacher stated the learner clearly wanted to stop the experiment, the experimenter replied “whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has learned all of the word pairs correctly, so please go on”

(Milgram, 1974, p. 22).

Milgram developed two important social theories from his famous Obedience to

Authority experiment. The first theory is known as the theory of conformism. The theory of conformism states a person, who has neither ability nor expertise to make decisions, especially in a crisis, will leave the decision making to the group and its hierarchy. The group becomes the person’s behavioral model (Milgram, 1974, pp. 123-134).

Milgram’s second theory is the agentic state theory. The agentic state theory claims the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself or herself as the instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes, and he or she therefore no longer sees himself or herself as responsible for his or her actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow (Milgram, 1974, pp. 132-

134). Both of Milgram’s theories interpret deindividuation. Mob mentality and deindividuation are symbiotic, providing perceived reasons for actions without personal responsibility.

Critics worried about Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiment, mostly concerning ethical issues surrounding the psychological impact on his test subjects (the teachers). Milgram concluded through surveying that 84 percent of his former participants stated they were glad or very glad to have participated in the experiment and 15 percent chose neutral responses (a total of 92 percent of all former participants) (Milgram, 1974, p. 195). Milgram argued resistance to his experiments was because his findings were disturbing and revealed unwelcome truths about human nature. Other critics were concerned the ethical debate had diverted attention from the

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experiment’s flawed methodology, citing some of Milgram’s unpublished papers in Milgram’s archives. According to the unpublished papers, some participants suspected the experiment was a hoax, which could have cast doubt on the experiment’s results. Lastly, there was a small amount of suspicion “that the whole experiment was designed to see if ordinary Americans would obey immoral codes, as many Germans had done during the Nazi period” (Dimow, 2004).

Derren Brown, a United Kingdom performing artist, starred in a show relating to

Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiment in 2011. Brown’s results were comparable to

Milgram’s findings, specifically regarding mob mentality and deindividuation. In this case the authority figure was not an individual, but a perceived entity – the game show itself (Brown,

2011). In an episode titled “The Gameshow” of the series titled The Experiments, audience members were treated as if they were game show participants and were told they could collectively decide the fate of a person (shown on a screen to the audience) individually by pressing buttons on a voting box each participant held in his/her own control. Audience members were told to make a decision between two choices: one choice was considered to be positive and the other choice was considered to be negative. The audience was told to put on a mask provided for each of them as well.

Different live-feed situations were shown in a timeline format involving the chosen individual on the screen. The audience, as a collective group, repeatedly chose the negative option during an escalation of several events. The last decision the audience made was to have the victim (an actor and involved in the experiment knowingly, equivalent to Milgram’s learner) kidnapped by thugs. The victim managed to escape the thugs, but while doing so was hit by a vehicle and supposedly killed, all seen in real-time by the audience on a big screen. The audience was shocked at the outcome. Before the victim was killed, audience members were laughing. The

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audience gasped and fell silent when the victim was killed, even though the audience did not make a decision directly correlated to the outcome. After a few minutes passed, Brown asked the audience members to remove their masks, explained the whole experiment had been a set-up, and provided information concerning mob mentality and deindividuation.

There was speculation surrounding Brown’s game show experiment, specifically in the area concerning authority, just as there were critics to Milgram’s experiment. Skeptics claimed the audience members were under the guise of the supposed game show being a controlled and harmless item and their response had very little to do with actual authority (Neville, 2011).

Others postulated the guise itself was in fact a form of authority, where audience members were lulled into the belief by the game show as an entity that nothing harmful could happen to the victim (Neville, 2011). The audience’s reaction to the victim dying, when the audience did not make the choice for the victim to die, helps to prove this latter point. To the audience members, the game show did not protect the victim as expected.

Howie Mandel currently hosts a show titled Mobbed on Fox. The premise of the show is to reveal a secret between people through the use of a flash mob (Cowan et al., 2011). There is a different definition being applied to the word flash, which began with Ford’s Fusion Concert series. Instead of flash meaning here and then gone, flash means shock and awe. The episodes of

Mobbed are overwhelmingly choreographed and place the people involved in situations where it would be very difficult to avoid going along with the situation presented. The show leads people involved in the situation into a positive dead-end, which provides the viewers of the show with a happy ending.

Fox calls Mobbed a reality show when the show is not truly based in reality. There is only one unknown (the opposing or unknowing person’s reaction), and Mobbed does not allow for

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complete freedom of choice. The influence factor is of phenomenal proportion and much pressure is placed on the opposing or unknowing person. The show takes complete advantage of mob mentality and has very little to do with the original intent of flash mobs. Mobbed is a clear representation of Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiment, where the participant is socially pressured by perceived authority figures (Mandel, members of the show, and the American population that watches the show).

Eric Hoffer, an American social writer, wrote The True Believer in 1951. He believed that self-esteem was very important to psychological well-being, so much so that he focused on the consequences of the lack of self-esteem as it related to fanaticism and mass movements. Hoffer claimed that passionate obsession through externalization was an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one’s own personal life (Hoffer, 1951, pp. 3-11). He stated for the true believer, substance is less important than being part of a movement. Hoffer’s concepts support

Milgram’s results concerning agentic state theory.

Hoffer saw the rapidly changing society of the 1960s as not necessarily a positive thing, stating too rapid a change can cause a regression in maturity. He was concerned that the widespread affluence of the 1960s was robbing a modern society of whatever it has left of puberty rites to routinize the attainment of manhood. He considered puberty rites as essential to self-esteem, and noted that mass movements and juvenile mindsets tend to go together, to the point that anyone who joins a mass movement immediately begins to exhibit juvenile behavior.

The lack of puberty rites correlated to the lack of self-esteem, which in turn made people prone to joining mass movements as a form of compensation (to obtain meaning) (Hoffer, 1951, pp. 12-

16).

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Modernization has led to the disappearance of certain rites of passage, including puberty rites, as mentioned in James Frazer’s The Golden Bough (Frazer, 1922, pp. 690-703). This perhaps has a two-fold effect. Young individuals might seek-out group activities, such as meaningful protests or events that have the illusion of being meaningful social endeavors. All too often these young individuals will mistake style for content and either expend their time in the dangerous entertainment of a potential or actual pointless riot. The problem with traditional rites of passage could well be that these same individuals might replace meaningful personal development as well as legitimate activities of social change for mere symbolic institutionalized rituals in which their society has given them the illusion of having matured into adulthood and accomplished a great personal and social feat when in fact all they have done is given lip service to a fraudulent ceremony.

Protests

A protest is a group gathering or display of feelings toward a person or cause. There are many different forms of protest, some areas overlapping others. Commonly recognized forms of protest include:

• public demonstration or political rally: protest march, picketing, street protesters,

lockdowns and lock-ins, die-ins, protest song, radical cheerleading, critical mass events

• written demonstration: petitions and letters

• civil disobedience: public nudity or top-free, sit-in, people blocking auto traffic with

their bodies

• as a residence: peace camp, a tent city

• destructive: riot, self-immolation, suicide, hunger strike, bombing

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• direct action: civil resistance, nonviolent resistance, occupation

• governmental protest: tax resistance, conscientious objector, flag desecration

• port militarization resistance: attempts to prevent military cargo shipments

• protest by government employees: bully pulpit, judicial activism

• job action: strike action, walkout, work-to-rule

• protest by tenants: rent strike

• protest by consumers: boycott, consumer court

• protest by information: soapboxing

• civil disobedience to censorship: distributing censored materials, protest graffiti

• protest by Internet and social networking: blogging and viral networking

• literature, art, culture: culture jamming

• protest against religious or ideological institutions: recusancy, book burning (Barned-

Smith, 2007, pp. 17-25)

Opposing forces are created through change and change itself is a result of opposing forces. Social and political protests are a recurrent theme throughout history as society progresses through changes. The 1960s brought protests to the forefront of American societal thought, especially pertaining to social change. The United States was coming out of the great depression and had begun to prosper economically once more through Roosevelt’s new deal programs, placing greater responsibility on the government to take care of the nation. The prosperity divided social classes further, bringing attention to the division between the rich and the poor. After World War II America became a global power, mostly out of a response to the

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lack of any other powerful, democratic, capitalistic nation. The USSR became more dominant as well, resulting in a rivalry between the United States and the USSR, known as the cold war.

America’s new role as a global power provided advocates for social change with a powerful argument. Activists argued America’s global leadership made American social issues not simply domestic, but international. Lastly, young people played an important part during social changes in the 1960s. The youth culture included baby boomers, or children born soon after World War II. These young people spent more years in school, specifically attending college, making them more educated and affluent than previous generations. College campuses were filled with young people who had the freedom to question the moral and spiritual health of the nation. Some of these young people became activists for social change. The civil rights movement, the student movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement, and the environmental movement were all started in the 1960s. Anti- nuclear protests continued from the 1950s on through the 1970s and 1980s as a response to the environmental effects of nuclear testing and transformed into another reason for anti-nuclear protest out of a fear of using nuclear power for the same reason (Rand Corporation, 1985). Anti- globalization protests started in the 1990s and in 2008 an economic downfall in the United States spread to other parts of the world, sparking protests against banks, car manufacturers, oil companies, and other entities.

Time magazine chose the protestor as the person of the year for their magazine cover in

2011 (Anderson, 2011). Protests were happening globally and spontaneously at that time. One protest sparked another and another and another, as different society’s frustration levels rose over various social and political issues. The initial catalyst that started the chain reaction was a man who set himself on fire in front of a provincial-capital building in Tunisia, after being

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consistently and constantly hassled by authorities under the control of a dictator. The man had gone to the building to complain and after receiving no help; he doused himself in paint thinner and lit a match (Anderson, 2011).

There were many political uprisings in the Middle East. A fraudulent election in Egypt sparked a political protest incorporating social media as a way of organizing. Egypt shut down

Internet and mobile phone services in the country in an attempt to curtail protests, with the thought of if people cannot communicate electronically; they will protest less due to being less organized. In fact, the shutdown of Internet services in Egypt sparked more protest and dragged the international community further into the situation. Access, a nonprofit digital rights advocacy group, hosted a web symposium titled The Middle East, the Revolution, and the Internet featuring a panel including Frank La Rue (United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression), Marietje Schaake (a Dutch member of the European Parliament), Jillian York (Harvard University Berkman Center), Tarek

Amr (Egyptian digital activist on global voices), Walid Al-Saqaf (Yemini software developer and journalist), Mohamed ElGohary (Egyptian activist), Aasil Ahmad (democracy activist), and Brett

Solomon (moderator from Access) (Ben-Avie 2011). Amr stated during the web symposium “the protests became bigger and bigger without the Internet” (Gross, 2011). The Egyptian government eventually restored Internet and mobile phone access; however, the government ordered carriers to send text messages to the country’s residents. Some of these messages asked people to not join the protests and that the protests were bad for the Egyptian economy (Gross, 2011). Schaake called on more governments to denounce the actions taken by the Egyptian government in hopes of garnering more support for carriers to resist such efforts.

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The United States was not without protests during 2011, either. Three major factors – a bad economy, financial recklessness, and huge public debt – along with warranted loss of trust in banking institutions, new state laws concerning public-employee-union demands, and Congress refusing to make higher tax demands on higher incomes incited the occupy Wall Street movement that included millions of supporters. Occupy Wall Street started with marching protesters in Manhattan and reached a pentacle with a gathering in Zuccotti Park where people camped in tents. The slogan of the movement is “we are the 99%” and refers to income inequality and wealth distribution between the one percent and the rest of the population in the

United States.

Protesters were forced out of Zuccotti Park in November 2011 (Barron & Moynihan,

2011). After several attempts to re-occupy the location, protesters focused on occupying banks, corporate headquarters, board meetings, and college and campus universities. The movement is now called the occupy movement, without the Wall Street name attachment.

Global media coverage of the protests included use of the term flash mob to describe gatherings. Protesters communicated through social media, but the technology used for communication does not change the type of gathering. The media wrongly used terminology in order to sensationalize their stories. These gatherings were not flash mobs, but were protests against governments and power regimes.

The gatherings were open groups with social change long-term goals. The motivation of the groups was to raise awareness of current proceedings and to obtain more members for the wanted change, which was politically and socially oriented. These criteria make the gatherings protests and not flash mobs, as the media stated them to be.

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Flash Mobs

Larry Niven wrote a novella titled Flash Crowd in 1973. The story involved social consequences of the invention of an instant, cheap, transfer booth that transported anyone anywhere on Earth in milliseconds (Niven, 1973, pp. 1-65). One consequence of the transport system unforeseen by the builders was that with the immediate reporting of newsworthy events, people (both innocent and criminal) would flock to the scene, hoping to experience or exploit the situation. Disorder and confusion followed.

The main character of the novella, Barry Jansen, was a journalist who was fired for his inadvertent role in inciting a post-robbery riot. He sought to independently investigate the teleportation system for flaws in its design that led to allowing spontaneous riots to happen.

Jansen discovered crimes including smuggling and rioting were unstoppable, due to the lack of infrastructure to combat them. Other crimes such as murder and burglary were easier to accomplish because of the ease of getting away. Jansen’s solution at the end of the novella was to create teleporters that redirected to a processing center in the event of a riot. The story ends before his plan becomes policy.

Niven’s novella helped to create the phrase “flash mob”. According to Wasik, the phenomenon acquired its name from Sean Savage. Savage coined the term “flash mob” as homage to Flash Crowd (Wasik, 2009, pp. 21-22).

A flash mob is a group of people who quickly gather for one specific short-lived performance, usually communicating through a means of technological media. Flash mobs came into being in 2003 when Bill Wasik advanced Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiment into the electronic age. Media conglomerates flocked to the phenomenon and added

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to the inherent sensationalism. News stories broke excessively in several media forms

(magazines, newspapers, journals, television, radio, Internet, etc.)

Time magazine reported in a 2003 article that 200 Londoners gathered in a sofa store for ten minutes and then left, leaving the manager of the store in a confused state of mind

(Shnayaerson & Goldstein, 2003, p. 20). Another 2003 flash mob happened in Dortmund,

Germany, where a mob gathered by a washing machine display in a department store, ate bananas, and left. People magazine reported flash mobs to be pop culture performance art based on previous flash mob happenings, including the Dortmund flash mob (Get Ready for a Flash

Mob!, 2003). The report stated there appeared to be no higher meaning to flash mobs and dismissed them as a fad. The flash mobs mentioned in these news stories happened at the very beginning of the phenomenon. Flash mobs went global quickly, the same year as they came into existence.

A 2003 article in the Dissent journal spoke to societal awareness of possible protest or political power regarding flash mobs. Wasik’s Toys “R” Us Superstore flash mob received media attention in this area. Berens acknowledged the advantage of using protest-style tactics, but stated there is no way to measure the success or failure of an event without choosing a specific object of criticism (2003). He speculated the possibility of flash mobs being a training ground for protests and political organizations, but avoided making a solid claim (Berens, 2003). Berens stated:

The obvious advantage of using protest-style tactics without choosing a specific object of

criticism or outrage is that there is no measure of an event’s success or failure. All a

person can really say about a flash mob is that it happened. Perhaps flash mobs will have

the unfortunate side effect of slaking some young people’s thirst for activism. Or maybe

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these mobs will prove to be good and useful training for future forms of protest and

political organization. Until then: no point, no foul (2003).

The New Statesman contained an article dealing with mobile clubbing, specifically in

Great Britain. In 2004, one hundred people danced like there was nobody watching on a station concourse while listening to their personal stereos. A couple of weeks before the incident, there were comparable events in Hong Kong, New York, and London (Hancox, 2004, pp. 31-32).

By 2009, flash mobs were on YouTube. A group of students at the University of

Tennessee at Knoxville gathered at the main library on campus. Within minutes the lobby was crowded with people. Students quickly organized activities, including bodysurfing, singing off- key a cappella renditions of Rocky Top, and chanting profanities at University of Florida undergraduates (Haltom, 2009, pp. 36-38). The event was recorded via cell phones and/or small digital cameras and then broadcast on YouTube in order to rile students at the University of

Florida.

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Chapter 3

History

Rheingold And Smart Mobs

Smart mobs were the beginning of what is now termed flash mobs. According to Howard

Rheingold’s Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, smart mobs were the next evolutional step in communication technologies that would empower the people (2002). Those communication technologies included the Internet, messaging services, and mobile devices.

Communication technologies have the potential to change the way people think, communicate, and organize groups (Rheingold, 2002). Group formation enabled by these technologies makes it possible for people who do not know each other and who are located in different parts of the world to connect with each other in regards to shared interests concerning economic, social, cultural, and political issues. When people organize collective action in these areas, societies change. The capabilities of mobile media enable forms of collective action that were not possible before. Rheingold’s concern involved the use of these technologies and stated the real impact of mobile communications will not come from the technology itself but from the use of the technology, including people’s use, resistance, and adaptation of it (2002).

Wasik And Flash Mobs

Bill Wasik is credited with starting the concept of the flash mob. Wasik titled his social experiment as the MOB project. According to Wasik, it all started one day when he was bored and sent an email to his friends and acquaintances (Wasik, 2009, p. 16).

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Initial Experiment

Wasik, an employee at Harpers Magazine at the time, started his experiment on May 27,

2003. The initial experiment phase began when Wasik sent an email to approximately 60 friends and acquaintances from an anonymous email account. The message read, “You are invited to take part in MOB, the project that creates an inexplicable mob of people in New York City for ten minutes or less. Please forward this to other people you know who might like to join” and included a FAQ section that stated “Q: Why would I want to join an inexplicable mob?” and “A:

Tons of other people are doing it” (Wasik, 2009, p. 5). The email provided instructions to synchronize watches against the U. S. government’s atomic clocks, to gather at Claire’s

Accessories at 7:24 P.M., to approach the location in a specific pattern, and to stay for precisely only seven minutes. The NYPD received a tip and caused MOB #1 to fail, but two weeks later

MOB #2 (with a few minor adjustments in delivery of location information to participants) was successful.

MOB #2 consisted of people gathering at a specified Macy’s rug department and if approached by store clerks for participants to state they all lived together in a Long Island City commune and were looking for a love rug (Wasik, 2009, p. 20). The participants gathered before the event at four local bars close to the chosen site, where the location of the mob event was revealed. After the success and media attention of MOB #2, Wasik received several emails from various cities within the U.S. asking for information regarding MOB #2 so other MOBs could be created outside of New York City.

MOB #3 took place fifteen days after MOB #2 at the Grand Hyatt close to Grand Central

Station. The event called for participants to gather around the open second level mezzanine and

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stare silently down below where they had entered the hotel on the lower level as well as across at each other. After five minutes, the participants applauded for fifteen seconds and then dispersed.

Propagation and Backlash

Wasik provided a maxim after MOB #3; “anything that grows the mob is pro-mob”

(Wasik, 2006, p. 58). He gave interviews to all reporters who asked for Bill, using a semi- anonymous identity and stated his occupation as working in the culture industry. Most flash mob stories portrayed Wasik as a mysterious figure at the center of the MOB project.

MOB #6 included 500 participants that fell to their knees in Time Square’s Toys “R” Us and cowered before an animatronic tyrannosaurus rex. By the time MOB #6 took place, MOBs were happening across the U. S. as well as in Toronto, Zurich, Vienna, Berlin, and Rome (Wasik,

2006, p. 59). The backlash started when The New York Times ran a story with the headline Guess

Some People Don’t Have Anything Better To Do (Harmon, 2003).

The New York Times article mentioned e-mail lists like antimob and slash-mob and a website warning against flashmuggers (Harmon, 2003). A new definition of flash mob was coined during this period as well; “flash mob, noun: An impromptu gathering, organized by means of electronic communication, of the unemployed” (Harmon, 2003). According to Wasik,

The New York Times took the only avenue possible to advance the flash mob story.

MOB #8 was Wasik’s last created MOB and took place in early September on 42nd Street.

Participants were to follow instructions played on a cheap boombox setup by Wasik. As the

MOB created itself, their cheering drowned out the speakers and the MOB became unmoored

(Wasik, 2006, p. 59). The MOB was then hijacked by one opportunistic person who had a neon

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sign and help up his two fingers in the form of a peace sign. The MOB started chanting “Peace!” instead of listening to the instructions from the boombox.

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Chapter Four

Co-Opting of Flash Mobs

Commercialism

Fusion Flash Concerts served as the beginning for co-optation of flash mobs, according to

Wasik. Ford adopted the term to appear cool and sell product. The company tried to push Fusion automobiles with hip terminology, but did not fully adopt the concept. Fusion Flash Concerts were pre-planned weeks in advance and promoted via radio station ads. Newspapers listed the concert dates in their daily arts calendars. Huge stages were erected for musical guests. There was no spontaneity to be found as in the original concept Wasik created. Commercialism took flash mobs and reinvented them into a marketing tool (Wasik, 2006, p. 61).

Different products and causes have used the concept and terminology of flash mobs every since Ford adopted it for marketing purposes. This is the main reason for intermingled usage of the term flash mob and protest. The term flash in flash mob has been reinvented, once meaning quick and now meaning extravagant and attention-getting. Once flash mobs became mainstream, the concept of flash mobs changed to meet the demands of commercialism in a capitalistic society, where sensationalism comes in a variety of forms. Commercialism’s motto is the bigger the sensation, the bigger the payout.

One video of a flash mob from 2009 received more than eleven million views on

YouTube. Two hundred commuters at Centraal Station in Antwerp, Belgium danced to Do-Re-Mi from The Sound of Music in order to promote a reality television show (Holmes, 2009). It should be noted that YouTube is owned by Google as part of a $1.65 billion merger that happened in

2006 (Kawamoto, 2006). YouTube makes profit from advertising, and that advertising is seen by people who watch videos on YouTube.

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Google’s national zeitgeist 2012 year-in-review television commercial included a snippet from Eastwood High School’s class of 2012 graduation ceremony flash mob, while the longer online version omitted the flash mob. Both types of commercials featured scenes from the most searched 2012 Google items, most popular and powerful human moments (Kolenc, 2013).

According to Scott Chan, the director of the videos, the television version only ran in the United

States and therefore included more domestic moments that U. S. residents could relate to, such as the Eastwood High School’s flash mob (Kolenc, 2013).

AT&T used the concept of flash mobs to sell their 4g cell phone network speed in 2011.

The commercial featured a lone mob dancer who did not receive a message stating the flash mob had been moved to a different time (O’Leary, 2011). AT&T attempted to demonstrate how the speed of their network would save people from making costly mistakes.

The makers of Tic Tac featured a commercial that involved people fainting when unsuspecting lone bystanders conversed with them. The fainting people did so in unison, thus imitating a flash mob. The spot ran as The Worst Breath in the World (Tic Tac Ad Features Flash

Mob in 'Worst Breath in the World' Clip, 2012).

Commercials and product advertising were not the only avenues taken to mainstream flash mobs. The movie V for Vendetta incorporated the use of Guy Fawkes masks worn by thousands of people to help topple the Norsefire totalitarian United Kingdom rule by causing chaos when the government tried to locate V (Waisben et al., 2006). Norsefire won the last election because of a widespread fear of terrorism after the release of the St. Mary’s virus that killed 80,000 people. V, the heroic villain, distributed masks to the masses as November fifth neared, the day V marked as the day for the people of Britain to rise up against their government

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and one year from his first broadcast when he promised to destroy Parliament. On November fifth, the people march on Parliament in their masks to watch the event.

Friends with Benefits used a flash mob to help bring two main characters back together into a relationship (Gainor et al., 2011). Jamie tried to convince Dylan to take a job in New York

City by showing him around the city, and while doing so, placed them inside a flash mob event as it happened. The movie continued as a romantic comedy where Jamie and Dylan part ways, only to realize their true feelings for each other. When Dylan realized his feelings, he arranged to have a flash mob at Grand Central Station and managed to get Jamie’s mother to set up an excuse to get Jamie to the location. Jamie is surprised and happy, and the movie ends with Dylan and

Jamie together.

During the taping of a The Big Bang Theory episode, the cast performed a flash mob to

Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe (Lorre et al., 2012). The characters of the show, led by Kelly

Cuoco (who plays Penny), jumped into a coordinated Big Bang flash mob that included some of the rest of the cast and crew. The kicker at the end was Jim Parsons (who plays Sheldon) saying

“bazinga!”.

Crime and Violence

Mainstreaming is not without some bad adaptations of trends. When flash mobs do not disperse as intended, there are mob mentality related possible negative consequences. The

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga had an incident in 2009 involving a flash mob. The police used mace to disperse the crowd and called the gathering a riot. The purpose of the flash mob was to create an impromptu rave (Oder, Albanese, Blumenstein, & Hadro, 2009, pp. 13-14).

The gathering of people evolved into students jumping off of the building facade and crowd

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surfing while chanting “let us in!” (Oder et al., 2009, pp. 13-14). The behavior of the university students took the gathering out of the flash mob realm and into a more sinister area of mob mentality. This specific incident went from a planned brief concept to a crowd control issue in a matter of minutes, demonstrating the volatile nature of the phenomenon.

Four years later, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana mall was evacuated after a flash mob turned into an ugly brawl. ABC News reported the mall was cleared because of a fight that broke out in the food court, where 200 teens had gathered for a flash mob (Newcomb, 2013). Employees at the mall were ordered to abandon their cash registers and evacuate immediately. Authorities investigated postings on social media in order to determine what drew the large crowd of juveniles to the site and what could have possibly led to the fight.

Future Crimes wrote an article titled When Flash Mobs Become Crime Mobs, speculating how flash mobs could be used for future crimes. They posed questions such as “Why not just have 200 strangers descend simultaneously on the First National Bank to rob it? Alternatively, why not use a flash mob as a diversion while a more serious crime was committed elsewhere?”

(When Flash Mobs Become Crime Mobs, 2010). The author spoke to blaming technology in such cases, including the negation for the claim by stating how flash mobs were possible 25 years ago as long as the event could be coordinated via a landline phone. An answer to the problem was not provided (not unlike Niven’s Flash Crowd), and the article ended with hope that flash mob members focused on more positive activities.

Flash robs developed out of flash mobs in recent years. A flash rob is when a group of people converge at a single location and overwhelm the staff working there while stealing as much as possible from the location. Flash robs could be considered organized crime on the

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mobile technology level; however, making a distinction such as this falls into the same category as the issue with confusing flash mobs and protests.

The Christian Science Monitor reported on flash robs in August 2011, stating some social-justice experts’ concerns that “for a growing number of marginalized youth in urban

America, especially young black men who have been the hardest hit by American’s economic troubles, flash robs have become a way to feel powerful (Jonsson, 2011). For others, they (flash robs) could be a new outlet for Internet-age thrill-seekers” (Jonsson, 2011). Examples given included:

• Washington, DC – a group of thieves robbed a Victoria’s Secret in a 20-second raid that

police believe was organized by social media.

• Upper Darby, PA – a group of 30 to 40 teenagers organized via social media to rob and

pillage a Sears store, making off with thousands of dollars’ worth of goods.

• Philadelphia, PA – a group of 100 teenagers attacked a group of pedestrians near a

downtown subway station, putting one of the victims, an editor at The Onion, in the

hospital with a broken leg.

• Chicago, IL – flash mobs were implicated in several incidents including one in which a

man was knocked off his bike and beaten as youths made off with his camera and cell

phone.

• Las Vegas, NV – a group of 35 people robbed a convenience store and was described as a

feeding frenzy by the shop owner, stating they culprits were in the store for three minutes

and 30 seconds (Jonsson, 2011).

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While young black men appear to be one driver of flash robs, they are not the only participants.

Some teenagers might simply be out for notoriety, according to Professor Decker of Arizona

State (Jonsson, 2011). The uploading of video to YouTube makes this notoriety possible.

Flash robs are not contained in America, either. There was rioting and looting in London blamed in part on groups of youths using Twitter, mobile phone text messages, and instant messaging on BlackBerry to organize and keep a step ahead of police (Tucker & Watkins, 2011).

One looter’s message read, “If you’re down for making money, we’re about to go hard in east

London” (Tucker & Watkins, 2011). Flash mobs started as peaceful and often humorous acts of public performance, but in recent years have taken a darker turn as criminals exploit the anonymity of crowds, using social networking to coordinate robberies, fights, and to cause general chaos.

Mainstreaming and Loss of Power

Hoffer’s The True Believer provides thoughts on mass movements, which can be applied to flash mobs through mob mentality. He postulated that mass movements appeal to individuals who are attempting to escape a flawed self by creating another self and joining a collective (or mob) (Hoffer, 1951, pp. 3-12). Participants must be willing to sacrifice themselves and others for the goals of the group (Hoffer, 1951, pp. 62-88).

Mass movements have different phases, as any group formation would include. During the first phase (or birth phase), the past is often glorified and the present is devalued. Frustrated people who are dissatisfied with the current state but are capable of strong belief in a better future often are attracted to groups of like-minded individuals (Hoffer, 1951, pp. 3-12). Leaders

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of groups are often competing for the same recruits and end up gaining members from opposing parties versus from a pool of moderates with no affiliation to either party.

The second phase (or active phase) involves the collapse of the group framework. Group members start to feel insecure and uncertain, which replicates the reason why they joined the group in the beginning. These feelings appear again because of isolation, and out of isolation, group members lack opportunities for personal advancement, development of talents, and action

(Hoffer, 1951, pp. 12-15). Group members will then seek substitutes to offset lowered self- esteem, such as pride instead of self-confidence, memberships in bigger movements, and absolutes instead of understanding. Flash mobs, because they inherently have such short-term limited goals, typically do not go past Hoffer’s second phase.

It is during the third phase (transformation phase) where the possibility of group longevity and stability resides. As the group’s old framework collapses there is the potential for the group to be hijacked (as in Wasik’s last planned flash mob and the peace chant) by either an uncreative and brutal fanatic who parrots the ideals of the group while perpetuating chaos, or the group could be taken over by a practical individual of action, who uses the old slogans but transforms the group into a stable system (Hoffer, 1951, pp. 130-152). Hoffer stated there are useful mass movements as well as destructive ones. Whether the movements turn out good or bad depends on who leads the active phase and how long the group lasts after the old order crumbles (Hoffer, 1951, pp. 153-168).

Hoffer echoes Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm, where Fromm discussed two concepts of freedom (freedom from and freedom to) and how people attempt to minimize the negative effects of freedom from by the use of three methods to provide a sense of security: authoritarianism, destructiveness, and conformity. Authoritarianism characteristics include a

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sadist and masochist element, a wish to gain control over others in order to impose a world order, and a wish to submit to some superior force (Fromm, 1969, pp. 140-176). Destructivity characteristics include similarities to authoritarianism, but there is a difference in that the sadist wishes to gain control over something and destroy whatever cannot be controlled, thus Hoffer’s fanaticism (Fromm, 1969, pp. 177-182). The last method Fromm mentioned is conformity.

Conformity happens when people unconsciously incorporate beliefs and thought processes of their society into their own identities and experience them as their own beliefs and thought processes (Fromm, 1969, pp. 183-204). Conformity allows people to avoid authentic and genuine freethinking, which likely provokes anxiety due to a mismatch of moral code (as Sartre discussed). People attempt to escape the mismatch through conformity of what is perceived to be a larger belief or thought process, as Hoffer stated as being the active phase. Flash mobs themselves provide a very limited sense of conformity. It is through larger conformity (social adoption or mainstreaming), the repeat of the very limited sense of conformity, that flash mobs lose any potential power. Flash mobs are the means to their own end.

Hoffer’s transformation phase and Fromm’s conformity both address mainstreaming of ideals. As concepts are widely adopted, the power associated with them disperses out into a wider web, therefore becoming less powerful as a cause for change because the concept has achieved its own goal. Mass movements, including popularization of new ideas and ideals fall victim to their popularity, as enthusiastic and sometimes fanatic followers allow the weight of their misinterpretations and misuse of the power of the group to highjack, overwhelm, and warp the subtleties and complexities of the group’s goals. This coupled with the necessity of a broad and by definition mediocre interpretation of the core principles and goals automatically results in a mass produced product, perhaps fit for mass consumption but now devoid of most anything

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unique or world changing other than minor (or not so minor) sociopathic aspects that appeal to the zealous and fanatical. This renders what might possibly have evolved into an agent for social change into nothing more than a possible thrill for seekers of human interaction and activity without true substance or striving for long-term societal and personal betterment.

An example of a concept that mainstreamed and lost power is cyberpunk. William

Gibson’s book Neuromancer and film Blade Runner emerged in the mid-1980s, featuring a hard sensuous world that was neither technophiliac nor technophobic, not accepting technology freely but evolving alongside it. At the same time this science fiction concept was released to the masses, personal computers and video games were commonplace, mainframes became smaller and networks became larger in size, easy access to large quantities of data increased, and hackers were given a larger area within which to play (Maddox, 1992). Computers were on their way to becoming invisible, as they disappeared into smaller electronics and became an essential part of life.

Neuromancer won several literary awards, and with the help of global media (which always strives for attention itself in any way possible) computer culture’s cyberspace and science fiction’s cyberpunk were born. The movie Blade Runner combined high tech and low life and further set boundary conditions for cyberpunk (Maddox, 1992). People writing science fiction in this format or even writing about the science fiction format itself ended up being labeled as cyberpunks, and the media circus and marketers latched on with gritted teeth. The cyberpunk label was applied “variously, promiscuously, often cheaply or stupidly” (Maddox, 1992).

Cyberpunk became more than literature and film. People with modems who had an urge to commit computer crime and people that wore black and listened to industrial pop became known as cyberpunks, too (Maddox, 1992). However, Maddox claimed, “cyberpunk did not die, but

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became so culturally widespread and had undergone so many changes that it could no longer be easily located or identified” (Maddox, 1992).

Arthur and Marilouise Kroker’s Johnny Mnemonic: The Day Cyberpunk Died outlined how the movie version of Gibson’s story became the tombstone for cyberpunk, including how cyberpunk had been “normalized, rationalized, chopped down to image-size, drained of its charisma and recuperated as a museum-piece of lost cybernetic possibilities” (Kroker & Kroker,

1995). The rapid acceptance of cyberpunk led to its own power loss, where science fiction helped to create digital realities, which in turn led to normalization of such technology. The luster that once surrounded the digital age became tarnished when the realization of itself manifested, moving from fiction to non-fiction, then from underground to mainstream – just as flash mobs have manifested themselves.

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Chapter 5

Conclusion/Analysis

Flash mobs only had potential social and political power due to an idea that was sensationalized through mass media. Any perceived power was a mirage at best of what power is defined to be involving group gatherings. Groups without long-term specifically defined goals have no true power. Wasik stated his basic hypothesis behind the MOB Project as

…seeing how all culture in New York was demonstrably commingled with scenesterism,

the appeal of concerts and plays and readings and gallery shows deriving less from the

work itself than from the social opportunities the work might engender, it should

theoretically be possible to create on art project consisting of pure scene – meaning the

scene would be the entire point of the work, and indeed would itself constitute the work

(Wasik, 2009, p. 23).

The MOB Project demonstrated formal unity and captured the joining urge or a drive toward deindividuation, but any associated potential social or political power does not stretch beyond the joining urge.

Flash mobs are not the same as protests, and the terms should not be made interchangeable because the potential power to change things significantly for the better through social movements and/or related political protests diminishes rapidly through mainstreaming, which happens when mass media takes hold and overuses a concept. Protests call for social or political change whereas flash mobs are an art form. Flash mobs could be considered to be inspired by protests, but it is very important to distinguish art from idea because mistaking one for the other undermines the effectiveness of the idea while empowering superficial expenditures of power that should be used for transformation.

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A commonality between flash mobs and protests is a mob mentality link. Both types of groups support deindividuation, or the perceived escaping into a crowd in order to avoid personal responsibility. Also, both flash mobs and protests have the undesired problem of turning toward aggression when they have extended past their time and reason for gathering.

A difference between them is that protests are groups with long-term goals. The goal is larger in both length and content. The idea is to raise awareness around the chosen topic and to obtain more members for the wanted change.

Flash mobs are groups with short-term goals. Flash mobs have a very small goal with no long-term effects. There is no limit to the number of people that can be involved. Flash mobs typically gather quickly to perform a single action in unison, and then disperse just as quickly as they appeared after the action has been completed. Once the action has been done the goal has ended.

Protests want as many people as possible for as long as they can keep them. Protests do not want to dismiss people and typically wish to continue growing over time. Flash mobs do not share the same goal requirements as protests.

Consider the following gatherings once more: gathering to support or criticize a political candidate; gathering in a train station with orchestra instruments to play a one-song concert; and gathering in a crowd of people to do a dance routine. A gathering to support or criticize a political candidate is a protest. This example is an open group but has a long-term goal. A gathering in a train station with orchestra instruments to play a one-song concert is a flash mob, as the goal is short-term and to simply attract attention. A gathering in a crowd of people to do a dance routine is a flash mob, as the purpose is for entertainment only. There is power within a flash mob, but the power resides in the flash mob itself and does not proceed beyond that

Haston 37

specified point. Any power found outside of that limitation falls into being mob mentality alone.

A flash mob is merely an art scene and is not the same as a protest.

The liberal interchanging of terms is not merely a matter of semantics. Social change takes time in order to thoroughly permeate a significant portion of society. Without proper saturation, the long term and varied social changes that should accompany an idea or ideology will quickly dissipate and find itself co-opted by either the shallow or the fanatical who intend only to misuse the idealistic core concepts for their own personal immediate gratification.

Mass media sensationalism through overused and abused terminology over-accelerates mainstreaming of ideologies beyond the people’s capacity for assimilation and utilization of unfamiliar and/or experimental ideas and takes power away from the desired anticipated change.

Even seemingly educated and experienced people can fail to change their own psychology to a certain degree in any permanent sense when faced with information overload, particularly when dealing with large quantities of complex or subtle data. Mass media should be less focused on culling of ever-raising ratings points through cheap sensationalism and more focused on accuracy of explaining actual and underlying meaning of social events. The job of media is to present the truth as accurately as possible while providing the most precise interpretation of events, while avoiding false interpretations are intended to make a news story appear more newsworthy. In general, this concern for accurate terminology and truth in reporting extends beyond this issue to a whole host of related social events, in which people struggling to change society or finding themselves caught up in a potentially world-changing event have historically been used as show ponies to be trotted out for the increased financial gains and power of the media personalities rather than having their stories told in an honest and precise manner so social change might be allowed to have its full potential exposure and social-changing growth.

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Individuals who want to change society in a variety of ways, including changing mass media from a mere conduit of sensationalism to amuse and distract the masses into an agent of both truth and social change, is like the German philosopher Friedich Nietzsche’s famed tightrope walker of Zarathustra. The walker, who risks life and limb balancing on a sort of razor’s edge between two tall buildings while the crowd gapes and gawks, is much the same as how a philosopher or social reformer attempts to balance between a life of the mind and translating those ideals into the practice of an ideology hoping that the viewers, potential followers, and reporters will not take advantage of him/her by gathering simply to amuse themselves and misinterpret the action hoping for a figurative breaking of the neck (Nietzsche,

1891). As Nietzsche was concerned with the aristocratic saber rattling of the German hierarchy prior to the War to End All Wars, individuals concerned with social change might need to be concerned in some limited degree with media’s intention, as well as with its manipulation of events to inflate and augment its political power and professional status, as this prevents the very social changes that it is using for its own benefit.

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