Flash mob

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flashmob ( English flash mob ; flash "lightning", mob [from Latin mobile vulgus "irritable crowd"]) describes a short, seemingly spontaneous crowd in public or semi-public places, in which the participants do not know each other personally and do unusual things. Flash mobs are a special form of cyber society (virtual community, online community) that uses new media such as mobile phones and the Internet to organize collective direct actions .

Although the original idea was non-political, there are now also actions known as flash mobs with a political or economic background. The term “ smart mob ” is often used for such targeted actions .

procedure

Pillow fight on the Mannheimer Paradeplatz

First, a call is from a copyright written and online communities , blogs , newsgroups , e-mail - chain letters or by mobile phone widespread. A public place is always given as the meeting point and an exact time. In most cases, information about the event itself and any items or clothing to be worn are also given. If the exact action is not known, the participants will first meet at the agreed location to make the necessary arrangements.

Then the flash mob starts in that one or only a few participants start the agreed action at the agreed time and as many other participants as possible join within a few seconds. This name-giving, lightning- fast mob formation, which is completely surprising for bystanders and passers-by, and the identical actions of the people in the mob (e.g. applauding, telephoning with the same text) appear mostly meaningless and meaningless, but can also be clearly declared ecological , have an economic or political motive.

The flash mob ends with an agreed signal, an reached time or the natural end of the action (e.g. when singing O du merry together in summer after the last stanza). As quickly as the people come together, their group dissolves again in front of the eyes of the often perplexed audience.

history

An early literary example that describes the idea of ​​the flash mob can be found in Erich Kästner's novel Emil and the Detectives from 1929. In it, the protagonist, supported by his friends, portrays a thief. A self-organized intelligence service set up a child mob that cornered the perpetrator and prevented him from escaping.

As early as the 1960s, die -ins were known as an equally spontaneous form of action. The “Zebra Pedestrian Theater” project by Dutchman Will Spoor at the beginning of the nineties can be seen as a real forerunner of flash mobs. Spoor recruited the actors (via leaflets, telephone chains, etc.) on site in the city in which the pedestrian theater was a guest. Together, unannounced performances were rehearsed and carried out in public space, the concept and appearance of which are strongly reminiscent of today's flash mobs. Also in the early 1990s, the first critical masses , apparently spontaneous bicycle demonstrations, were organized.

The first flash mob in Sydney, August 2003

An action by journalist Bill Wasik on June 3, 2003 in New York is considered to be a previously pointless (and thus distinguishable from the smart mob) flash mob . More than a hundred participants gathered around a carpet in a department store. They informed department store employees that they were looking for a “love carpet” and that they would generally make purchasing decisions together. Afterwards, an even larger group gathered in a hotel lobby and applauded for exactly 15 seconds, and finally the participants streamed into a shoe shop and pretended to be tourists. Bill Wasik stated in an article in March 2006 that his intention was to show off hip people who, in an atmosphere of conformity, were only seeking to become part of the "next big thing", no matter how pointless it was.

The joy of the senseless actions and the public attention quickly led to imitations without an ironic background. Soon afterwards, a wave of flash mobs spilled over from the USA to Europe, where the first actions took place in Zurich, Rome and Vienna at the end of July 2003. The phenomenon received a lot of media attention for a few months, until the fall of 2003 when interest declined.

In the summer of 2007 the idea was revived, initially by organizations that wanted to raise awareness of social goals with campaigns. New reports in the media also inspired pure fun activities again.

“Flashmob campaigns” were used by the trade union ver.di specifically to occupy and block shops in wage disputes in the retail sector. The Federal Labor Court has considered such flash mobs to be a permissible form of industrial action. The Federal Constitutional Court did not accept the constitutional complaint directed against this by the Handelsverband Berlin-Brandenburg eV (HBB) for a decision, because the constitutional complaint had no prospect of success. The court stated that the protection of freedom of association is not limited to the traditionally recognized forms of strike and lockout. There is no indication in the Basic Law that only the traditionally recognized forms of industrial action in their historical form would have been viewed by the constitution as an expression of a pre-stable equilibrium.

In Philadelphia, a trend was observed in the spring of 2010 that young people acted out their violence like a “real” mob, now called “bash mob”. Sometimes businesses are damaged and / or robbed in the process.

Prominent examples

  • On July 19, 2006, 600 million people reportedly jumped in the air. They wanted to push the earth into another orbit on World Jump Day .
  • On January 20, 2008, around 700 people gathered on Odeonsplatz in Munich, stormed a McDonald’s branch on Stachus and suddenly bought 4,385 hamburgers and cheeseburgers there . Flash mobs have already been organized in this way in many major German cities. In a similar campaign on March 29, 2008, 10,355 burgers were bought in one order from a McDonald's Berlin branch.
  • On April 4, 2009 at 4:00 p.m., several thousand young people (figures vary between 1000 and 5000 people) met on the occasion of Pillow Fight Day for a pillow fight on the Domplatte in Cologne.
  • On July 8, 2009, more than 300 people came together in Stockholm in honor of Michael Jackson. They gathered in different parts of the city and danced to his song Beat It .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Flash mobs  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Flashmob  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ mob - definition of mob in English. In: Oxford Dictionaries. Retrieved on November 8, 2016 (English): "Origin: Late 17th century: abbreviation of archaic mobile, short for Latin mobile vulgus excitable crowd."
  2. ↑ Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English: flash mob. Retrieved October 30, 2009 (English): "" a group of people who organize on the Internet and then quickly assemble in a public place, do something bizarre, and disperse "."
  3. ↑ Stefan Janke and Bülend Ürük: Nocturnal state of emergency at BFT petrol station Der Westen, Waz media group January 11, 2008
  4. ^ Federal Labor Court: "Flashmob-Action" accompanying the strike - judgment of September 22, 2009 - 1 AZR 972/08 - lower instance: Landesarbeitsgericht Berlin-Brandenburg, judgment of September 29, 2008 - 5 Sa 967/08 -. In: Press Release No. 95/09. September 22, 2009, accessed on September 24, 2009 : “The First Senate of the Federal Labor Court therefore, like the previous instances, dismissed the action brought by an employers' association with which the ver.di union prohibited the call for“ flash mob actions ”in retail should be. As part of a labor dispute, the union had organized a one-hour action in which around 40 people surprisingly went to a retail outlet and left shopping trolleys full of goods and caused queues at the checkouts by coordinating the purchase of "penny items". "
  5. ↑ oxforddictionaries.com
  6. ^ Emil's story , website at www.zeitreisen.de, accessed on December 18, 2013
  7. ↑ Festival program "Glass House Culture 1992"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.glashauskultur.de  
  8. ↑ Flashmob Revival: The Arrest of the Silent Troublemaker , Spiegel Online , April 16, 2008
  9. ↑ My Crowd, or, Phase 5: A report from the inventor of the flash mob , Harper's Magazine , March 2006 (paid)
  10. ↑ youtube video
  11. ↑ From: Future Forum Stuttgart Trade Unions, Strike Actions Retail Stuttgart: Human Chain and Flash Mob
  12. ^ Federal Labor Court, judgment of September 22, 2009 - 1 AZR 972/08
  13. ^ Federal Constitutional Court, decision of March 26, 2014, 1 BvR 3185/09
  14. ^ Ian Urbina: Mobs Are Born as Word Grows by Text Message. The New York Times , March 24, 2010.
  15. ↑ Ari Bloomekatz: 'Bash mobs' sweep through Southern California. In: Los Angeles Times. July 19, 2013, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  16. ↑ Ordering 10,355 cheeseburgers - photo of the receipt  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.imgimg.de  
  17. ↑ The new burger movement
  18. ↑ protocol to Frozen Grand Central on improveverywhere.com , January 31 of 2008.
  19. ↑ Frozen Grand Central on youtube.com , Improv Everywhere, January 31, 2008. (2:28)
  20. ↑ Article from the KÖLNER STADTANZEIGER ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 14, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ksta.de
  21. ↑ Official YouTube video, not available in Germany due to copyright restrictions.