Billed as a flash mob but executed as a publicity stunt, the World Environment Day Flash Mob took place in front of the Sydney Opera House on Friday, June 5th. Organizer Mat Van Rhoon from sydneyflashmob.com, previous organizer of Sydney Freeze (which can be viewed on youtube), handed out inflatable globes to flash mobbers who converged outside the Opera House at 1:10 pm.

Landcare, an environmentalist group sponsored by the Australian government, contacted Mat to stage this flash mob. The event seemed to have political implications through its connection to Landcare and the nearby environmental conservation convention, and gathering was stretched out as media photographers tipped off by Landcare jostled to get pictures of Erin McNaught and Alain Robert amid the mobbers. A couple of us from Vibewire attended, but when it was over we wondered if the event we had just participated in was actually a flash mob, if it had been politically motivated, and if the two were mutually exclusive.

The hard-line stance on the definition of a flash mob is a public gathering organized on the internet where a group of people perform usual acts to perplex the public, then disperse. However, there seems to be a consensus that flash mobs have nothing to do with politics. Mat Van Rhoon noted that the intersection between politics and flash mobs is “a touchy area… the minute flash mobs become about politics we essentially become protesters and not flash mobbers.”

The man behind the very first flash mob, Bill Wasik, seems to agree. In 2007 during an interview with MotherJones, Bill said, “Whenever I hear talk about using flash mobs for political purposes, my first thought is that that person doesn’t really know what they’re talking about … The way that I conceived of [flash mobs], they were just 10 minutes or less and they were completely absurd.

Clearly, the World Environment Day Flash Mob blurred the boundary between flash mobs and politics while demonstrating that the new breed of organization popularized by flash mobs has serious potential to make an impact in the political sphere, particularly among young people. Dr. James Arvanitakis, who Vibewire will have the good fortune to host in the near future, observes that young people tend to participate in politics when they are able to obtain immediate, visible results. Flash mobs are an excellent example of the type of attention-getting action young people prefer to voice their opinions through. When compared with the Grand Central Station Freeze in New York (shown here), which Mat cited as his inspiration to begin organizing flash mobs, the World Environment Day Flash Mob was a clear step away from the previous tradition of the flash mob – both in purpose and form. Although the media will continue to label these events flash mobs, the instant and covert organization (enabled by text and social networking sites like Facebook) introduced to the public through flash mobs will be the backbone of future political movements.

Sources:

Source of Bill Wasik quotes – Mother Jones interview http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/06/interview-bill-wasik-senior-editor-harpers-and-creator-flash-mobs