mob #2
No MPR this time to judge my threads. The Flash Mob will not be the last time I wear this shirt:
At the Uptown Bar, I whispered "You will need these to accessorize your mob" while shoving bubblegum into people's hands.
Despite hundreds of people congregating, Flash mobs are fairly anti-social. In some ways, they are anti-Meet-Ups -- you anonymously encounter strangers for 10 minutes and then disperse. But this event was different because the mob converged and the escelator broke. This slowed down the event, and the outcome was spontaneaous scenes of conversation with strangers.
Much less media and police attention than before. KSTP and KARE showed up after realizing WCCO scooped them last time, but I saw no one else. KSTP interviewed me, and I'm very happy they didn't air any of it because I couldn't answer their questions about the history of the mob. (I should've gone into performance art theory. That would've freaked them out.)
Actually, I think the most confused group were the people at the MCAD art gallery, which was holding an opening. I like the idea of confusing art students.
The turnout was both younger and older this time -- even more demographically diverse than Mob #1. I would estimate about 170 people.
Lately I've been thinking about the spectacle aspect of flash mobs. In an age where spectacle is owned by beer companies and shoe manufacturers, flash mobs are like anti-spectacle spectacles. The devils wearing anti-Prada.
