fun to ruin
Flash mobs are fun and all, but the phenomenon has apparently gotten to the point where jerks who don't think about how someone is going to have to clean up their mess are in the process of ruining it for everyone. Apparently the organizers of this spontaneous event text-messaged everyone to say "Practice responsible fun. Clean up after yourself!" It's fairly clear how well that works in a deliberately anarchic, semi-surreptitious explosion of fuck-the-rules goofy fun. Irresponsible? Who could have imagined!
This all makes me think about the politics of flash mobs. A lot of these events are predicated on an in-joke of some sort, and involve an audience that doesn't understand what's happening. If only the flash mob itself showed up, along with friends and other people who are in on the idea, some of these events would still make sense, just as a performance. I'm kind of reminded of Zombie Yoga, which resulted in a short film, albeit with some shots of confused passers-by. I am the zombie at 0:35. But most flash mobs rely on a bewildered audience who's not in on the joke, or whose expense the joke is at. I'm fine when the joke is on Best Buy, but I'm not as sure how I feel about it when it's the general public. It starts to smell a little bit like "oh you're not cool / young / net-connected / in the know enough to know what's going on," with all the other forms of privilege that adhere to that. The "bewildered public" are often middle-aged or older, people going to work, etc. The usual "squares," yuppies and families included. Then when someone has to come along later and clean up the mess or deal with problems, it just gets worse -- because "someone" is usually blue-collar, could give a shit about flash mobs, cleaning workers are so often undocumented immigrants, and so on and so forth. Sigh.
This all makes me think about the politics of flash mobs. A lot of these events are predicated on an in-joke of some sort, and involve an audience that doesn't understand what's happening. If only the flash mob itself showed up, along with friends and other people who are in on the idea, some of these events would still make sense, just as a performance. I'm kind of reminded of Zombie Yoga, which resulted in a short film, albeit with some shots of confused passers-by. I am the zombie at 0:35. But most flash mobs rely on a bewildered audience who's not in on the joke, or whose expense the joke is at. I'm fine when the joke is on Best Buy, but I'm not as sure how I feel about it when it's the general public. It starts to smell a little bit like "oh you're not cool / young / net-connected / in the know enough to know what's going on," with all the other forms of privilege that adhere to that. The "bewildered public" are often middle-aged or older, people going to work, etc. The usual "squares," yuppies and families included. Then when someone has to come along later and clean up the mess or deal with problems, it just gets worse -- because "someone" is usually blue-collar, could give a shit about flash mobs, cleaning workers are so often undocumented immigrants, and so on and so forth. Sigh.