Today in my Facebook feed I found that a favorite cousin-in-law had posted a delightful musical flash mob performance of Bolero performed by the Philharmonic orchestra of Toluca.
It set me to thinking about this phenomena of the social media era. Turns out the term was coined in 2003, I believe by Bill Wasik at the time with Harper’s Magazine. He later described it as a “social experiment,” poking fun at conformity, and the quest for the next big thing. From this distance it looks like it was meant as a form of performance art. In the first case, the so-called Love Rug Project, folk gathered together in a Macy’s department store, all looking at the same rug.
The flashmob quickly took on a life of its own, including being used for political purposes.
And on occasion criminal activities, the so-called flash rob.
Of course one can find antecedents of planned gatherings in a single spot for some purpose. Some see the 1960s “happening” as a sort of ancestor. Others like to point to the “No Pants Subway Ride Day in New York, dating from a year before Wasik’s Love Rug.
But by the time it made it to the Concise OED a flash mob or flashmob was defined as “a group of people who organize on the Internet and then quickly assemble in a public place, do something bizarre, and disperse.”
Of course social media and the wide availability of seeing clips on Youtube and linking to Facebook has turned the flashmob into an almost regular activity.
Me, I like the “spontaneous” musical events best.
Among my favorites a food court Hallelujah.
That Michael Jackson tribute in Stockholm.
There are a ton of these.
But, my all time favorite remains the Ode to Joy sponsored by a Spanish bank and performed at a market square in Sabadell performed by more than a hundred musicians and singers from the Orchestra Simfonica del Valles, Amicsde L’Opera de Savadell, Coral Belles Arts, and the Cor Lieder Camera.
So, I’m curious. What’s your favorite?
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