doodledee

There's this thing that's been gaining some popularity in geek circles where a bunch of people pseudo-spontaneously form a mob in some public place. It's all planned in advance, obviously, but the idea is that it all looks like it just 'happened'. Chaos theory or something, maybe, who knows.

I first read about it a month or so ago. I liked the concept. Kind of a big public arty thing. It was innocent and anonymous and I figured both the participants and the witnesses would get a kick out of the whole thing. I especially liked how nobody was supposed to talk to anyone else in the mob. It felt so organic.

[That said, the instructions for participating were a little over the top geek for me. Synchronizing your watches with an official government clock? Ahh, no thanks, I'm just here for the fun.]

Not wanting to be left out of the latest chain-email fad, residents of the Twin Cities have gone ahead and formed their own nerd club mob group. They staged their first event the other day at - brace yourself - the Mall of America. It was a two-part deal that started with everyone acting like robots in one of the rotundas and then later heading to the Bose store to harass the staff and watch some movies. [read about it in the Strib]

Attendance at the local mob was lower than expected. The Minneapolis Mob newsgroup shows 337 members but only 60 showed up and participated. (Way to go, mobbers!) The cops were tipped off about it and had plain clothes officers hanging around, too. (Way to go, cops!) The Bose store had been notified about the impending mob and closed off parts of their store. (Your speakers suck, Bose!) And, as the link to an article suggests, the Star Tribune was even there to cover it. (Way to go, hipster Strib!)

Mobs have gone from underground to mainstream in 45 days. That's gotta be some kind of record. (Way to go, internet!)

What's not a record is how long it took me to re-evaluate my position and conclude that mobs are now officially dumb.

Next!