Do or DIY

Taken From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

flash mob describes a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual for a brief period of time, and then quickly disperse. They are usually organized with the help of the Internet or other digital communications networks. The term has also been applied to distributed mobs, who use similar means to co-ordinate sudden large scale simultaneous actions in multiple locations. An example of such an action is the widespread use of mobile phones in the 2005 civil unrest in France to co-ordinate widespread social disruption.

The first flash mob was organized in Manhattan in May 2003, by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper's Magazine. The origin of the flash mobs were unknown until Wasik published an article about his creation in the March 2006 edition of Harper's. The first attempt was unsuccessful after the targeted retail store was tipped off about the plan for people to gather. The first successful flash mob assembled in June 3, 2003 at Macy's department store. Wasik avoided such problems during the second flash mob by sending participants to preliminary staging areas—in four prearranged Manhattan bars—where they received further instructions about the ultimate event and location just before the event began.

More than one hundred people converged upon the ninth floor rug department of Macy's department store, gathering around one particular very expensive rug. Anyone approached by a sales assistant was advised to say that the gatherers lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York, that they were shopping for a Love Rug, and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group. Following this flash mob, about 200 people flooded the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel in synchronized applause for about fifteen seconds, and next a shoe boutique in SoHo was invaded by participants pretending to be tourists on a bus trip.