When is a flash mob just a mob?

[gturner]

Philadelphia - CBS 3. At least two people were seriously assaulted as hundreds of people gathered on South Street Saturday night during another flash mob.

link

A fad, and a dangerous one.

It's all fun and games, performance art, spontaneity, cutting edge social networking - till young girls get their teeth knocked out.

Should the police be allowed to use helicopter gunships and miniguns to break up such assemblies? That's what they did in Running Man. It's what they'd do in a score of dystopian science fiction plots.

Or would it make more sense for the police to circulate their own counter-mob text messages, saying stuff like "OMG we killed somebody. Run!"

Of course another option is to start making some arrests, confiscate the phones, go through the text messages to track down other phones, make more arrests, and start interviewing everyone who was there, combining the statements with video footage to figure out who knocked the girl's teeth out and who beat the snot out of the pizza guy.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

OMG! It's a mob!! Someone could get hurt!!! Quick, get the helicopters and open fire on the mob before any of them are killed!!!!

 

[M'Sharak]

Philadelphia - CBS 3. At least two people were seriously assaulted as hundreds of people gathered on South Street Saturday night during another flash mob.

link

Other than the times of the two incidents coinciding, was there any connection whatsoever between the crowd outside the store and the flash mob, which was gathered two blocks away? The article is a bit vague on that point.

 

[Mr. B]

For reference...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

A flash mob, by definition, is a peaceful assembly.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Since every flash mob is unique, how can that be? Most of them have been peaceful so far, but there's not one set definition to which all of them must hold. (Indeed, such conformity would seem to run counter to the very idea behind a flash mob.) Theoretically, any flash mob could become violent, because each one is different, and presumably organized by different people.

 

[gturner]

A flash mob that knocks little girls' teeth out, by definition, is not a peaceful assembly. It's a mob.

One of the general rules (probably a law) about hosting large public gatherings is that you have to provide some number of police or security officers in case the crowd gets out of hand. The reason we do that is that crowds, by their nature, tend to get out of hand due to our primate heritage. There are certain crowd induced behavior signals that we are wired to respond to, and rioting is one of them. Another is how a crowd instinctively responds to a predatory animal attack by trying to be a distraction, shouting and banging things to try and make the animal release the victim.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

A flash mob that knocks little girls' teeth out, by definition, is not a peaceful assembly. It's a mob.

But it *began* as a flash mob, didn't it?

 

[Mr. B]

Theoretically, any flash mob could become violent, because each one is different, and presumably organized by different people.

Theoretically, I could kill somebody with a ink pen. So what?

A large gathering could become violent? ...and what is your proposed "remedy" to that "problem?"

 

[gturner]

Theoretically, I could kill someone with my belt fed Browning 1919A2. I'm betting if I toted it around long enough someone would feel uncomfortable enough to call the police, and I'll bet the police would perceive me as a potential threat.

A mob is similar. Large groups of people who gather for the express purpose of shocking the public can attract or include people whose idea of shocking the public is rather shocking. It's a bit like hosting a wild, drunken, teenage party and then acting all shocked when some of the hormonally enhanced and alchohol imparied high-school football players beat some geek's face in, just because it seemed like a cool thing to do at the time.

 

[Mr. B]

A mob is similar. Large groups of people who gather for the express purpose of shocking the public can attract or include people whose idea of shocking the public is rather shocking.

That is not the purpose of a flash mob.

See: Improv Everywhere

 

[M'Sharak]

Theoretically, any flash mob could become violent, because each one is different, and presumably organized by different people.

No, because that runs counter to the whole idea of a flash mob, which is for people to quietly arrive independently at a designated location at a predetermined time, perform a coordinated but non-threatening and usually pointless activity for a fixed amount of time, and then to disperse quietly and peacefully. It is, by definition, non-violent.

A flash mob that knocks little girls' teeth out, by definition, is not a peaceful assembly. It's a mob.

You didn't answer my question: what did the two (2) groups--separated by a distance of two city blocks--have to do with each other?

 

[gturner]

A flash mob that knocks little girls' teeth out, by definition, is not a peaceful assembly. It's a mob.

But it *began* as a flash mob, didn't it?

Yes, it probably did. The War of Jenkin's Ear, probably the first war worthy of being called a world war, began because Mr. Jenkin's got his ear cut off. The US Civil War began as a scoreless shutzenfest on Fort Sumter. The Spanish American War began as an accidental boiler explosion. WW-I began as an almost botched assassination by a ne'er-do-well radical.

Coming at this from the other direction, lots of people have been injured and killed, along with staggering amounts of property damage inflicted, when sports celebrations spiral out of control.

In big cities, a power outage leads almost directly to widespread looting.

There is a confluence of reasons for this, built into our genetic behavioral makeup, as we key off each others behavior to conclude that normal societal rules have been temporarily suspended due to ______. It possibly stems from an extremely long history of having our villages sacked by the neighboring village, immediately during and after which the best policy is to ignore all the property rights we've had beaten into our heads during our entire upbringing, so we can automatically grab up everything of value, especially of survival value, and run to the hills.

Another reaction is to see a mob forming, develop an instinctive fear of what that mob will do, and determine to kill every freakin' one of them to protect your clay pots full of berries.

Needless to say, these varied gut reactions to the atmosphere created by the presence of a mob creates problems for police, lawyers, hospitals, and courts.

Summoning a mob is to play at conjuring the demons of our violent past. As European histories recount, the universal mob reaction to the outbreak of WW-I was wild elation.

You'd think that since part of being sentient is self-awareness, and that self-awareness was such a big part of Star Trek plot lines, that TrekBBS people would exhibit some of this trait. Sadly, they don't seem to know who humans are and how humans act in circumstances not condoned by the Federation. Perhaps the blue-skins were right about us. We are primitive.

 

[gturner]

A mob is similar. Large groups of people who gather for the express purpose of shocking the public can attract or include people whose idea of shocking the public is rather shocking.

That is not the purpose of a flash mob.

See: Improv Everywhere

Well, that's not the purpose of me putting on my WW-I helmet (which was worn by Alice Foose's great-grandfather during the Great War) and toting my Browning 1919A2 to a political rally, but law enforcement is stubbornly blind to the actual reasons I tote it, which have to do with a reverence for history, a reverence for those who served in the Great War, and all those who served after. They seem convinced that a guy who shows up with a 35 pound machine gun draped in belts of linked .30-06 is there to cause trouble.

I could start my own improv group, enlist actors, performance artists, young males in the Kentucky Militia (all males from 16 to 60 are in the Kentucky Milita unless they hold state office or work at tobacco weighing, gunsmithing, or a lead works), and we could prance around and talk about how cool we are, but the public would not be inclined to indulge our antics. Yet if we got rid of the actors and performance artists, we could indeed win the public's trust and be allowed to march right through downtown, fully armed, by NOT acting like an unarmed mob.

It's not the weapons, it's the behavior. There's a good reason that the word "mob" is commonly proceeded by "lynch". A mob, almost by definition, is driven by powerful and usually negative emotions. Even when not originally negative, the mob's emotional nature feeds on itself, so the atmosphere changes with the wind.

For thousands of years scholars and historians have written about the perplexing behavior of mobs. World leaders have risen and fallen on their abilities to capture and control the sentiments of mobs. This behavior has never changed, which is why historical texts from Greece, Rome, and every other country regarding mobs are still relevant today.

 

[gturner]

A flash mob that knocks little girls' teeth out, by definition, is not a peaceful assembly. It's a mob.

You didn't answer my question: what did the two (2) groups--separated by a distance of two city blocks--have to do with each other?

Hmm... So you posit that on the same night, at the same hour, two totally unrelated mobs, each several blocks long, formed within two blocks of each other. One intent on whatever it was that popped into their heads to do, the other intent on getting some tasty pizza.

I'm always leery of going to a pizza place because they're so often beset by mobs of people who beat the shit out of the guy at the door who is just trying to hold back the giant mob of people demanding in to get pizza. I think they're like pepperoni zombies or something.

Meanwhile, by pure coincidence, at the other end of the flash mob, a completely unrelated mob happend to form at the same hour of the same day, and it beat some girl down and knocked her teeth out.

The odds against three independent mobs of people forming on the same hour of the same day in the same city on the same two or three blocks are pretty astronomical, but the odds of someone in the TNZ denying any connection between them is pretty much 100%.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Theoretically, any flash mob could become violent, because each one is different, and presumably organized by different people.

No, because that runs counter to the whole idea of a flash mob, which is for people to quietly arrive independently at a designated location at a predetermined time, perform a coordinated but non-threatening and usually pointless activity for a fixed amount of time, and then to disperse quietly and peacefully. It is, by definition, non-violent.

Ah, I see, and no flash mob has ever mutated into something else? Gone out of control? No accident has ever happened? Somehow I find that hard to believe.

It's like that Improv Everywhere thing. I checked it out. It sounds harmless, but what happens if something goes wrong? They say they like to do stuff like spontaneously form crowds around strangers and act like they're paparazzi or the Verizon crowd. What happens if they happen to pick someone who's claustrophobic or afraid of crowds? The 'victim' panics and goes for the cops, or starts lashing out at the 'mob' around him, etc. I'm sure this is rare, but it's not *impossible*. Even the most peaceful intentions don't guarantee that something won't go wrong. I mean, what would any of us do if, for example, total strangers surrounded you and started whacking you with pillows? You wouldn't like that much, would you?

You ask what I would propose doing about this? Not much one can do, really. Can't exactly stop these things before they start. About all that can be done is make sure there's a fair amount of cops in public places. That way they can contain any rioting that might break out.

 

[gturner]

You ask what I would propose doing about this? Not much one can do, really. Can't exactly stop these things before they start. About all that can be done is make sure there's a fair amount of cops in public places. That way they can contain any rioting that might break out.

You underestimate the power of the individual and the will to live.

You see, members of a flash mob are much like zombies, except for the brain eating thing (with exceptions, of course).

Your best option for survival is to stay armed and stay alert. When you see the mob forming try to take out the leaders, though with a flash mob identifying leaders can be problematic. In any event, only head shots seem to work. Don't shoot to wound because it's just a waste of precious ammunition, and as with all zombie attacks they will have numbers on their side. If you can't identify any leaders then shoot the fast, fresh ones.

Again, like zombies, flash mob participants tend to avoid carbohydrates, and are thus slow and lethargic. They also tend to smoke lots of weed, which makes them even slower and more lethargic. You don't need to worry about the slow ones, or the ones constantly distracted by even more text messages. The real threat is the mobile ones, hyped up on fresh, sugary brains from some cornered sweet tooth kid.

Nail the fast ones with head shots. If necessary for survival beat a hasty retreat, but if not wait for law enforcement and military units to arrive, join forces, and eliminate the pestilence.

Never discount the power of the individual to change human behavior, and thus the world.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Are you, as my brother-in-law might say, 'taking the mickey'?

 

[gturner]

^ Are you, as my brother-in-law might say, 'taking the mickey'?

No. I'm just pointing out the obvious similarities between flash mobs and zombie attacks, which are rooted in our deep fears - which are based on who we are as a species.

Greek soldiers didn't fear being outnumbered by loud, undisciplined hordes screaming war cries because they knew that organization, training, a cool head, and good tactics trump emotional fervor and primitive blood lust.

The Romans shared this disdain for undisciplined hordes, and like the Greeks found it to be the mark of uncivilized, disorganized rabbles. But they also knew that the very citizens of Rome that produced their legions also produced Roman mobs, which were very much like flash mobs but based on scrolls instead of cell phones.

Both societies found the answer in having its army start at one end of the mob and hack off limbs till it got to the other side.

The history of democracy is largely an struggle to empower the people without empowering mobs, a struggle that left its mark on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The history of communism is largely an accumulation of brutal tricks to incite mobs to riot and bring the new regime into power, followed by brutal suppression of any freedoms that might lead to expression in mob violence that would topple the communist state.

The current flash mobs are no different, except their organizers lacked political purpose. Yet zombies, likewise, lack political purpose.

Flash mobs, as envisioned, are supposed to do performance art. So are mimes. The end result is a mob of mimes, and any sane person with even a modicum of composure and a little firepower would not hesitate to put a quick end to a mime mob. One or two mimes are just incredibly irritating. A hundred or so is a plague begging for violent eradication.

Human history, heritage, and common sense tell us this. It's up to us to heed these lessons, learn from our past, and keep the world safe from mime mobs, flash mobs, communist agitators, and zombies.

 

[Snaploud]

I seem to recall an episode of some tv show (Numbers?) in which a flash mob was used as cover for a murder. In retrospect, though, it seems pretty stupid to leave such a big trail (as you must have been in on the planning of the flash mob in order to have had enough time to plan a murder around it).

 

[M'Sharak]

Theoretically, any flash mob could become violent, because each one is different, and presumably organized by different people.

No, because that runs counter to the whole idea of a flash mob, which is for people to quietly arrive independently at a designated location at a predetermined time, perform a coordinated but non-threatening and usually pointless activity for a fixed amount of time, and then to disperse quietly and peacefully. It is, by definition, non-violent.

Ah, I see, and no flash mob has ever mutated into something else? Gone out of control? No accident has ever happened? Somehow I find that hard to believe.

Have you any instances to cite in which a flash mob has, as you put it, "gone out of control"? There is a difference between informed skepticism and merely throwing shit against a wall to see whether it sticks.

A flash mob that knocks little girls' teeth out, by definition, is not a peaceful assembly. It's a mob.

But it *began* as a flash mob, didn't it?

Yes, it probably did. The War of Jenkin's Ear, probably the first war worthy of being called a world war, began because Mr. Jenkin's got his ear cut off.

Oho, invoking the War of Jenkins' Ear, are we? (Mr. Jenkins had no apostrophe in his name, by the way.) And what did the Ear, itself--perhaps found upon the Isle of St. Helena, and perhaps not--have to say on the subject of flash mobs?