The Flash Mobs are at the Gates

Years ago, I remember watching on YouTube with piqued interest as large groups of young folks participated in impromptu performances in and around New York City. My three favorites were: "Best Gig Ever," "Frozen Grand Central," and "The Moebius." But like most things on the internet, there is always a group of malcontents determined to f’ it up for everyone else.

That was years ago, and today’s version of the text message troupe is a mass of delinquent minute men bent on dominating and intimidating. Hundreds of kids, via text messaging, are organizing and diving down like biblical locust on city blocks and halting all business and threatening innocent pedestrians unlucky enough to be caught in their path. In my day we may have had the “drag” - young folks slowly driving up and down a prescribed route - but it was relatively benign and localized. Each school had their own preferred path (my drag's waypoints, circa ’85, was the Armory and the Sonic). This phenomenon, on the other hand, is performed at a scary scale with hundreds of bored kids forming en masse at a moment's notice.

Now of course businesses won’t kowtow to these kinds of shenanigans. City leaders are quick to doll out counteractive measures like harsher curfews, parental penalties, and the FBI (yep, the FBI). These are all easy attempts to appease the business sect, but will these near-sighted actions deter the hordes? Never mind that this may be a nuanced racial and class issue that can not be properly addressed with these impetuously implement ham-fisted policies.

But no matter, I would like to thank the flash mobs. Not only have you taken away a unique performance art, now you have given the federal government license to monitor my Tweets.

If there ever was a web site divinely created by the big IT guy in the sky that successfully sowed the seeds of world peace and managed to deliver fresh tulips to every home on odd Tuesdays, inevitably, someone would come along to f’ it up.

Click here to read the NY Times article.