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Flashing in Montreal
 

Photo: Montreal Mob

MIND MAGAZINE | At 17h22 PM, on September 14 2003, Montreal was the host to the second Canadian flash mob. A flash mob is a very short event in which participants gather in a location to perform a silly and meaningless demonstration just to have a little fun. On this bright Sunday afternoon, over a 100 participants gathered in downtown Montreal – on the corner of Prince-Arthur and Coloniale – to draw arrows, drawings and figures using chalks of different colours, just like kids would do during the recess. Indeed, this pedestrian plaza, where a lot of popular restaurants are found, rather looked like a playground after the participants left. The group dissolved only 3 minutes after the event began. People were invited through an Internet forum to meet in various cafés & bar at exactly 17h00 to get instructions and a chalk from a person wearing two hats. Arrows were drawn on the sidewalks of nearby streets, all converging to meeting point. This bizarre crowd of people mesmerized many bystanders, tourists and restaurant patrons. The mob went well according to plan: “mobbers” performed with great enthusiasm and there were no police intervention.

The first Canadian flash mob also happened in Montreal during the month of August. Using a similar way of operating, around 40 participants met outside the Place des Arts – a large downtown concert hall, – and starting shouting “quack! quack! quack!” and tossed rubber ducks in a large fountain. The event attracted the attention of many medias, including Mind Magazine.
 

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Dave, one of the event organizers accepted to answer a couple of questions. When asked about the typical “mobber” profile, he said: “It's the fact that the participants are diverse. Observers cannot pigeon-hole the group they're seeing because its members are from all ethnic and societal groups, all ages, both genders, etc. The only common link between the mobbers is that they all want to mob”. Both Montreal events were the fruit of the same group of people. “We met each other in different ways, in real life or online. We are of different ages, walks of life, backgrounds, genders, is more or less irrelevant. We're just facilitators.” Dave also adds on: “The real power of a Flash Mob is in its participants. They're the ones who show up, who form a huge body of people inexplicably all doing the same thing. It's the scores of people who are interested enough in doing something unique that they show up and make it happen”.

The first mob occurred in May 2003, in New York city. The concept caught on, and during the summer, mobs occurred all around the world. In San Francisco, participants gathered around a life-size replica of Tyrannosaurus Rex and stood in intense fear, as if they were just about to be eaten alive by the giant beast. In Rome, a crowd swarmed inside a book & music store and asked information about fictitious books. In Central Park, a group of people stood around a large rock in New York’s famous playground and started screaming and waving their arms to imitated birds. All of the events were organized using Internet sites that can be found easily on the web.

The source that inspired the originators of flash mobs is still uncertain. But, it could come the work of Larry Niven, the science fiction author of the Known Space collection. Stories of large crowds of people meeting spontaneously in public places were often depicted in his books, this might have illuminated the unknown creator of flash mobs. Another explanation claims that mobs are a peaceful protestation against the sense of entrapment New Yorkers feel since the tightening of security after the 9/11 events. Yet, no matter from what flash mobs originated from, it seems that the phenomenon is interpreted according to everyone’s perception of its meaning. Flash Mobs are not meant to be illegal, as laws do not interdict such innocent and harmless actions.

Many websites, such as flashmob.com, use directory and other services for people looking to join an organization. No matter where in the world mobs occur, they are meant to be a game. They are peaceful demonstration, with the only raison d’être to create curiosity and interest so that more people join the fun.


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