www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/11/DD115584.DTL
Flash mobs -- big, spontaneous crowds that celebrate organized chaos -- are fast growing around the world. Dog owners walk their pets past groups of friends clustered around benches, chatting. Strolling couples steer around sun-lovers sprawled on the grass. Sun-bathers suddenly leap to their feet and friends break formation. Strangers begin grabbing one another's hands and running toward a central point in the park. Pedestrians on Dolores Street and patrons of a sidewalk cafe charge up the hill to join them. Together, they form a series of enormous circles that fill the grassy expanse beside the park's playground. Precisely two minutes later, a few agents arrive to simultaneously initiate a game of Duck, Duck, Goose in each circle. Then all is quiet in the park again, leaving many observers amused, bemused and scratching their heads. They probably don't realize it, but they've just witnessed San Francisco's second "flash mob," a phenomenon that was born in New York and is spreading across the United States and Europe with the speed of an Internet virus. Organized through e-mail, online forums and Web logs, flash mobs -- also known as "inexplicable mobs" -- are large crowds that materialize in public places to perform a scripted action for 10 minutes before dissipating. For Saturday's mob, participants were instructed to synchronize their watches and meet at one of four Mission District bars or cafes. At each watering hole, Mob Project representatives clandestinely handed out slips of paper guiding volunteers to a specific site in Dolores Park. These can range from a political action (Seattle's WTO demonstrations and the recent ousting of Philippine President Joseph Estrada, both of which relied on mobile technology) to organizing parties-with-a-purpose (the Guerrilla Queer Bar Web site periodically organizes takeovers of Bay Area straight bars for a night). The first flash mob occurred in Manhattan in May, when more than 100 people converged on Macy's department store and began discussing whether to purchase a "love rug" for an imaginary commune. At ensuing New York mobs, 200 people erupted into 15 seconds of applause in a Hyatt Hotel lobby; Most recently, 300 mobsters stood in Central Park chirping like birds. Mobs happen every week in cities as far flung as Vienna, Berlin, London, Rome, Boston and Minneapolis. There is even talk of a holding a synchronized global mob. San Francisco's inaugural mob took place in July, when more than 150 people spun clockwise across Market Street for the requisite 10 minutes before vanishing into the rush-hour crowd. The Bay Area has a history of impromptu performances in public spaces, from the Merry Pranksters and the San Francisco Mime Troupe to Survival Research Laboratories and the Cacophony Society. In that tradition, San Francisco's mob organizers simply want to create a cheerfully surreal blip on the daily radar, an absurdist moment in the midst of normalcy. We want the people who show up to have a good time and be happy. The list grew through word of mouth (or rather word of e-mail). The international online mob community now numbers in the tens of thousands. I think more and more people feel frustrated that everything in their lives is dominated by mega-corporations and big government, especially after Sept. They simply want to pull people out from behind their computers and give them an opportunity to extend their Internet communities into the physical world. Mobs in some cities might have political overtones, but Bill, for one, isn't about to draft a manifesto. People think these mobs must eventually evolve into something with a purpose. But the goal of the San Francisco mob is not to move into important, result-oriented missions. Some hipsters are already insisting that it's time to push the idea into fresh -- but still Internet-based -- territory. Sean the blogger figures he'll just take the future as it comes. Starting April 9th through May 23rd Berkeley Repertory Theatre Bay Area 41 Free Smoked Sockeye Salmon!
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