THE FLASHMOB IS BACK

Yes, flashmobs are back…

"LONDON, England (CNN) -- Thousands of dancers jammed a major London train station in a Facebook-driven "flashmob" mimicking an advertisement for a phone company. And the event last Friday evening was so successful that another is planned for next Friday in Trafalgar Square in central London. Plus, a group has been set up to organize another one at Liverpool Street Station a week later. Videos posted on the social-networking site showed Liverpool Street Station completely filled with people, counting down the seconds until the clock showed 7 p.m., then dancing to music on their mp3 players as the hour struck. The sheer scale of the event came as a complete surprise to the organizer, a 22-year-old Facebook user who identified himself only as Crazzy Eve." (Click here to read the rest, but the whole deal seems to be fairly dance-party inane.)

I remember when, some four or five years ago, the flashmobs first appeared, I expressed a certian fascination and noted how “if we’d had that kind of technology back in the radical 1960/70s, we might have conquered the world.” Or maybe not, but it does surprise me that the technique has not – to my current knowledge – been used as a means of mass political protest. And it isn’t just a matter of creating an instant angry mob. It could just as easily be a coordinated flashshout, an updated version of the venerable Howard Beale concept of going to the window and yelling your disproval. We should try a test sometime.

The secret words are Mad As Hell