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Flash mobs get trapped in Internet silly season: The Asian Age
Berlin, Aug 07: All at once at 6.01 on Friday evening, about 40 people in the middle of a crowded street pulled out their phones and started shouting `yes, yes!` Then they began clapping.
Berlin, Aug 07: All at once at 6.01 on Friday evening, about 40 people in the middle of a crowded street pulled out their phones and started shouting "yes, yes!" Then they began clapping.
Margarethe Mueller, emerging from a nearby department store, sensed that something was happening. She just wasn’t sure what.
"Someone told me Jan Ullrich is here," the 66-year-old retiree said, straining to see if the Tour de France runner-up was on the scene. She spotted a man on a bicycle, decked out in the spandex peacock garb of serious cyclists, his cellphone in hand, and holding forth into a television camera.
"That’s not Jan Ullrich," she said, disappointed. "Can you please tell me what is going on?"
Many people were asking the same question. The telephone-wielding crowd was the latest incarnation of something called flash mobs. Called into being on short notice by websites and email distribution lists, flash mobs meet at an appointed time, engage in some organised spontaneity for a few minutes, then rapidly disperse. The activities are innocent, if mysterious, and tend to bring together loose groupings of surprisingly conventional-looking young adults.
Brimming with such a lack of purpose, the fad has found a home in Berlin and across Germany. On Monday, at 5.05 p.m., mobbers have been called to gather at the washing machine display in a department store in Dortmund, eat a banana, and leave. But events have also been organised in Rome, Vienna and Zurich. Australia is planning one.
As might be suspected, New York is the acknowledged place where people first used the latest technology to gather and delight in pointlessness. In June, more than 100 people gathered in the rug department of Macy’s, claiming to a bewildered clerk that they were looking for a "love rug" for their suburban commune. The concept quickly took on a life of its own, propelled by email, cellphones and the Internet.
Typically, instructions include somewhat awkward reminders to avoid the press even while spreading the word, and to stay within the law.
At Friday’s nonprotest, a contingent of 11 policemen stood by, unsure what to do. "We are here to look for people breaking rules or criminal acts," explained Uwe Stellmacher, a policeman who clearly wasn’t sure if he had witnessed either.
The idea of using the Internet and mobile phones to quickly organise groups is not new. But until recently, it has been used for greater goals, or at least more practical ones.
In Seattle, protesters used the Internet and cellphone messaging to help organise anti-globalisation protests. In Britain, teenage girls alert each other to Prince William sightings. The lack of apparent purpose only broadens the appeal of flash mobs.
"Someone told me Jan Ullrich is here," the 66-year-old retiree said, straining to see if the Tour de France runner-up was on the scene. She spotted a man on a bicycle, decked out in the spandex peacock garb of serious cyclists, his cellphone in hand, and holding forth into a television camera.
"That’s not Jan Ullrich," she said, disappointed. "Can you please tell me what is going on?"
Many people were asking the same question. The telephone-wielding crowd was the latest incarnation of something called flash mobs. Called into being on short notice by websites and email distribution lists, flash mobs meet at an appointed time, engage in some organised spontaneity for a few minutes, then rapidly disperse. The activities are innocent, if mysterious, and tend to bring together loose groupings of surprisingly conventional-looking young adults.
Brimming with such a lack of purpose, the fad has found a home in Berlin and across Germany. On Monday, at 5.05 p.m., mobbers have been called to gather at the washing machine display in a department store in Dortmund, eat a banana, and leave. But events have also been organised in Rome, Vienna and Zurich. Australia is planning one.
As might be suspected, New York is the acknowledged place where people first used the latest technology to gather and delight in pointlessness. In June, more than 100 people gathered in the rug department of Macy’s, claiming to a bewildered clerk that they were looking for a "love rug" for their suburban commune. The concept quickly took on a life of its own, propelled by email, cellphones and the Internet.
Typically, instructions include somewhat awkward reminders to avoid the press even while spreading the word, and to stay within the law.
At Friday’s nonprotest, a contingent of 11 policemen stood by, unsure what to do. "We are here to look for people breaking rules or criminal acts," explained Uwe Stellmacher, a policeman who clearly wasn’t sure if he had witnessed either.
The idea of using the Internet and mobile phones to quickly organise groups is not new. But until recently, it has been used for greater goals, or at least more practical ones.
In Seattle, protesters used the Internet and cellphone messaging to help organise anti-globalisation protests. In Britain, teenage girls alert each other to Prince William sightings. The lack of apparent purpose only broadens the appeal of flash mobs.